Why do your recordings sound like ass?

[matey]

cant get any "perfect" result from midi programming drums...

my biggest prob is that I much prefer acoustic drum samples than "analog"like virtual boxes, so I have to deal with a decent "humanization" of the drum track.
after some attempts, I ended to play live my midi drum on the keyboard (dont like mousing)
generally, kick and snare are quite dead quantized (use the selected item only quantize option on reaper), keeping hihats and cymbals pretty free without make 'em sounding "too much free" or sloppy.

a nice trick I've found out to keep a drum midi track "live" is to play a percussion upbeat inst, like tambourine or claps, rendering it to audio track and move it just few ms forward (a simple readelay set up to 16-20ms wet only signal can do an excellent job).

this way I can separate , e.g., the handclap and the snare making them clear in the whole mix, giving all the mix a more realistic overall sound, rather than make the two insts like a confused "sbonk".

cheers

[Gizzmo0815]

Originally Posted by matey

cant get any "perfect" result from midi programming drums...

my biggest prob is that I much prefer acoustic drum samples than "analog"like virtual boxes, so I have to deal with a decent "humanization" of the drum track.
after some attempts, I ended to play live my midi drum on the keyboard (dont like mousing)
generally, kick and snare are quite dead quantized (use the selected item only quantize option on reaper), keeping hihats and cymbals pretty free without make 'em sounding "too much free" or sloppy.

a nice trick I've found out to keep a drum midi track "live" is to play a percussion upbeat inst, like tambourine or claps, rendering it to audio track and move it just few ms forward (a simple readelay set up to 16-20ms wet only signal can do an excellent job).

this way I can separate , e.g., the handclap and the snare making them clear in the whole mix, giving all the mix a more realistic overall sound, rather than make the two insts like a confused "sbonk".

cheers

Yup. I will typically knock out the kick/snare with my keyboard, quantize those since they keep the beat, and then layer on the hat/tambourine type thing over the top. I try and get just one measure of a beat that I really like, then copy, paste and change one minor thing like a hat hit or something. Then copy the two bars and paste at the end again and then alter one more thing, delete a kick maybe, add a snare flam, something like that. Then again...copy, paste, and at the end of the phrase (say it's a 16 bar melody) I'll do something drastic like a tom fill or a hat/snare flam to separate the phrases. Then for a chorus I'll typically make something louder and usually simpler. So if I have a kick pattern that's not standared upbeats (like 1, triplet, 1, triplet, etc...) I'll just revert that kick to the upbeat and add in a crash or ride to bring the chorus forward. Then again...copy, paste, change something, copy, paste, change something. Then pre-mix...render and let it set that way (keeping the original MIDI score in case there's something in the arrangement that just doesn't work).

Every now andthen I might use some automation to slow down the end of the song, or change tempo after an intro. Works pretty well most times and the little changes humanize the beats and make it sound less "processed".

[carbon]

Originally Posted by Deltones

The "pretty much" part is where some editing needed to be made. I'm not yet completely at ease with Reaper, so I'm not sure how to do editing jobs efficiently yet. Like in your examples, where you select snare hits and move them around. I haven't yet found how to move a midi note freely without having it snap somewhere I don't want. So what I do is try to enter the value numerically instead.

Right-Click on a piano key to select all relevant notes.
Shift+drag to move without snapping.

Sorry for the side-track, back to you yep.

[Kenneth R.]

The best tips for 'humanization' are to remember the following:

A human being has four limbs. Fancy skills aside, you can only really have four simultaneous hits on the kit at any time.

A human being is not a perfect time server. I personally tweak the timing of every note if I am programming midi rhythm.

A human being won't hit with perfect precision either. The force of each hit will slightly vary. I draw the velocities by hand, play back, and adjust as necessary as many times as necessary.

Variation. I find it most effective to strike a balance between the two extremes of "This pattern will simply loop 16x and then change" and "Every beat will be completely different." Even though I'm not a percussionist, I try to air-drum along with my played back arrangement, and when my flailing arms or legs make a strike that isn't accompanied by a sound, I will pause the track, and insert what I imagined should be present.



Deltones: To use your numerical example, 1.2.00 is signifying First measure, Second beat, 00. Your question pertains to the "00". You ask what would make the difference of an Eighth? Numerically, an Eighth is .125. You need to figure out what scale the program you are using will resolve, and input the value equivalent to this fraction of a beat. However, I would continue to use the manual method as it tends to sound more realistic.

[Deltones]

Originally Posted by carbon

Right-Click on a piano key to select all relevant notes.
Shift+drag to move without snapping.

Sorry for the side-track, back to you yep.

Thanks for the tip. Now, back to the regular program with Professor Yep.

[drybij]

Gizzmo0815, Kenneth R.

Both your posts gave me some great tips on how to compose midi drum parts! Thanks!

[Gizzmo0815]

Originally Posted by Kenneth R.

The best tips for 'humanization' are to remember the following:
A human being has four limbs. Fancy skills aside, you can only really have four simultaneous hits on the kit at any time.

Absolutely, good thing to remember when putting down realistic sounding percussion.

And then on the flip side, you can do things that humans can't with computers also, so don't get into the mindset that you HAVE to do things that are realistic. It's music, if it's good it will stand on its own no matter how it was created.

Sometimes it might be better to just ignore the fact that the beat isn't realistic. It may not be, but if it sounds good....who cares??

[ohh!]

Perhaps there is some confusion between offbeat and upbeat: zappa is offbeat but mary poppins is upbeat (Ha).
i understand offbeat to be the "ands" and upbeat to be 2 and 4.

[ohh!]

I like that air-drumming excercise.

A swung, passing kick or snare beat adds warmth to a beat i always think. As has been said up(snare) and down(kick) beats are oft pretty much on the tempo marks (actually yep points out the effect of varying this), but a sixteenth beat falling before or after an up or down beat can be moved around an amazing amount to give a fantastic variation in feel (jazz, country, hip-hop to my ear).

It's very important though to keep the passing note at a significantly lower velocity. I guess i'm thinking like a single kick pedal drummer. Double kick pedals can deliver close equal power hits.

I like what was just said about not having to sound like a groovy human driven kit. Was it Jackson Pollack who said: "i don't paint nature, i AM nature"? You are a human, stop trying to imitate one, just be.
e.g. Many dance tracks have used an impossibly fast and equal-velocity, machine-gun "snare roll" to good effect.