Getting that live drum sound.

ive read artemio's repsonse to this several times.....he says to quantize to 40-60%

No not the swing , I can get the swing perfect. I meant the drum sounds in general. I guess more reverb might do it. Just looking for other tips.

Music is an expression of self, the expression of the soul. Be creative it's source is unlimited, however evey now and then your brain rains in and poops all over everything thus limiting this great expression of self.

Vintage Chyld,

I have mostly programmed my own drums for over 15 years, and for the most part can get a realistic groove. Perhaps some of these pointers will help;

1.) True. Don't quantize at 100%. It sounds very stiff. I use anywhere from 60-80%, depending on the groove.

2.) Think like a drummer. Set up your Mute Groups so that don't have impossible things going on, such as a cymbal ride happening along with a hi-hat ride and snare.

3.) Learn to think like a drummer (part 2). I have a bit of an advantage in that my brother is a drummer and I was around it quite a bit. Listen to different grooves that you like and tap them with your hands as you listen, playing snare with one hand, kick with another, etc. Learn how things interplay.

4.) Set your Velocity curves to be more realistic. For example, I will set my cymbals so that the harder they are hit, the sound will change from a mid-ride to a cup/bell sound. Velocity is especially important for snare hits and hi-hats. No drummer plays the hats evenly. The groove on a hat has a lot to do with dynamics. Same with a snare.

5.) Listen to how drummers set up and come out of their rolls. Different cats have different ways of doing it. A lot of drummers can be identified just by their 'rolls' style.

6.) Match your kits well. Choose snares, kicks, etc. that would go together in a true live setting by a 'real' drummer. Once again, listen to various recordings to get ideas.


Anyway, those are some of the things I do. Perhaps it can help you.

Bassman

VC,

Just saw your last reply and know what you meant. . .disregard the other stuff if you wish.

For what I do (and it is different depending on the style you use), I will apply a touch of reverb on the snare, run the kick dry and hats dry, and at most times use a touch of reverb on the Toms and ride cymbals. I'll also put my rides in both left and right channels of the stereo field, offset just a bit to give a semblance of overhead miking.

Bassman

bassman, bless you. Those are some great tips. I am going to try these in a minute or so. Thanks alot man!

Peace

Music is an expression of self, the expression of the soul. Be creative it's source is unlimited, however evey now and then your brain rains in and poops all over everything thus limiting this great expression of self.

If anyone is using a DAW that can host VST instrument plugins, I can heartily recommend the Jamstix virtual drummer plug-in: http://www.rayzoon.com/ for very realistic drum tracks that react to what you are playing... I bought a copy at a pre-release price before it came out and find nothing short of amazing.

)

Dave

http://www.drstudio.demon.co.uk/
"Musicians fall into three categories: those with a physical block, those with a mental block and those with a wooden block". Unfortunately, I'm in the 1st category!

bassman --
Regarding stereo placement of your rides, do you duplicate (split) the sound and pan each left and right evenly to *add* to the "main" ride signal, and leave the main ride signal panned slightly to give it an anchor in the sound field? Or is the whole thing "split-panned"?

Tangentially, I'm a "drum dabbler" (keyboardist primarily)and I'm trying to decide how to best incorporate my V-Drums (TD-10 expanded) with the X8. I expect to try simply using the TD-10 as an external sound module and use the V-Drum pads to play into the X8 sequencer. Makes them rolls a lot easier to sequence For brush work, though, I think I'll need to record straight into an X8 audio track (or do some sampling) because I've heard MIDI does not capture the brush triggering too well from the V Drum pads (and that makes sense to me). I wondered if anybody has tales to tell regarding the Fantom-VDrums combination for sequencing (not live play -- that's a whole other can of worms) -- how many folks out there 1) use the VDrums as an external sound module, triggering either a) from the VDrum pads or b) from the Fantom, OR 2) bring the VDrum sounds "into" the Fantom either by a) sampling each sound from one or more kits and making a "sampled VDrum" rhythm group/patch, or b) recording into audio tracks (that last option is only for better drummers than I ...)

Cheers


EDIT: The second paragraph above might be better suited to the "external gear and hardware" section, but if it catches the eye of drum-people here, maybe I should let it ride (sorry)


** ncsteff **
Fantom X8 and XR, and too many SRXs
Now if I only had the time ...

ncsteff,

Usually I will do one of two different things.

I'll split (duplicate) the sound and pan right and left, using a value somewhere in the mid to high 40's for pan values on each side. This gives a bit more sense of space in the stereo field. Depending on the mix and sound chosen, I'll offset the values for each side a bit.

I have also recently began editing the rides in some of my User kits. I'll go to 'TVA' in the Patch Edit menu and set the pan value to center. Then I'll go to Wave, select two Tones, then choose Left and Right waves for both Tones. I usually use waves that make sense for a 'real' drummer, such as an 'edge' ride and a 'cup' sound. The last thing to do is to go to the 'WMT' tab, where the Pan of each wave can be adjusted, along with Velocity. This page is very useful to sit and tweak with to get things in the right space.

I've gotten some very decent results using both methods. I love the sound of a nice, spacious ride. Works well in a lot of the Latin grooves, not to mention the Jazz bop and swing grooves. And it really opens things up when using it in a tight Funk room, also.

Just some stuff that I do. . . . . .

Bassman

Ahhh, thank you, bassman ... very useful tips. If I understand you correctly, in your User kits you are creating a ride with compatible, suitably tuned and panned sounds (for example, edge and bell) such that low velocity keystrokes produce the edge sound but high velocity keystrokes can bring out the bell sound. Very natural for playing! I haven't gotten into editing my Fantom drum kits yet, but it would seem you could generate the "split-pan" effect (using the same waves, not different sounds) in a similar manner ... which is what I will do seeing as I don't use an outboard mixer.

Thanks a million!

** ncsteff **
Fantom X8 and XR, and too many SRXs
Now if I only had the time ...

ncsteff,

You're welcome. I'm glad some of this stuff was useful for you.

You are correct in how I edit the User kits. It does provide a more natural way to play the sound either from Pads or Keys.

Bassman

Is it just me, or are the drum samples on the Fantom just terrible. I also have a Yamaha S90 -which is basically a Motif with less features, and the sound of drum samples (and Piano / most other samples) simply blows the Fantom away. There is no comparison Perhaps there is something fundamentally wrong with the sound generation of my Fantom unit?

Aside from the realistic sound adjustable by drum drum note velocity a good idea is to look at the sheet music of a drum course exercise as a basis learn to read the drum notation on the staff for a step by step note input and basically construct your own beats which in the main revolve around snare,bass kick, and hi hat,with 1/4, 1/8, notes or rests and maybe some triplet notes too.I,ve been quite satisfied with results gained using this method with the numerous drum kits available on the X8.

All good points already listed here. I wanted to add a couple of my own.

1.) Always vary velocity. Randomize it within a couple percent if you can.

2.) Get the Dynamic Drum Kits SRX. its good for "live" drum kind of sounds.

3.) A lot of what we hear and call a "live" drum sound is the sound of the overheads mixed in with the whole kit. what i do to accomplish this is to run the drum mix out through studio monitors and record them with mics about 5 to 10 feet away... also if you put the mic(s) in the living room it helps. i use this to varying degree as an overhead sound.

4.) run everything--- yes kick too!-- through a reverb. for more realism, run it through 2 reverbs in serial. you will definitely have to play with the wet mix for this, but i use it all the time.

5.) go download SIR--- a convolution reverb--- and get some real room samples. you cant beat this at all.

6.) a criticism of my own programming is that that hats are always too loud. engineers mixing drums typically hate hats and bring them WAY down in mix. note to self.

7.) study how real engineers get a sound. for example, a few years ago when i was studying this online i came across the "flood mic technique" which is how the producer Flood has got the U2 drum sound on lots of records with very few mics (u47 on fok, SM58 on OH, 57 on snare). that really blew my mind.

8.) discretely run each sound out through your studio monitors and mic the monitor (careful for feedback!) i found when i did this drums had a more real and less "drum machine" kind of sound. this is kinda what happens in a studio... the more molecules the better.


hope this helps!


------shane

Is the quantize function in the Fantom able to "un-quantize" notes from a perfectly timed pattern? I can't figure this out from the manual, but I think it can throw the notes around a bit so they're not so much like clockwork.