realistic drum programming tips, part one

["loop.pool" <rickwalker@looppool.info>]

Hi folks,

This is a very long post and should be skipped unless you are particularly
interested in making your drum computer programming
hipper and more 'real' sounding for your looping shows (if you aren't
opposed to using a drum machine, philosophically)

I posted this tonight to the Fruity Loops tribe at tribe.net (and if you
aren't hip to tribe.net go cruise over there and discover a
really hip and creative community that connects people based on their
interests---hell, theirs even a live looping tribe called
Cycletronica).  Anyway,  a long time ago I promised some helpful hints for
realistic drum programming and since there has been a thread
about the use of drum machines in live looping shows I thought you might
want a reprint.

I'd like to go on record and say that when drum computer programming is
creative, very minimalistic and realistic (or creatively surrealistic
which , for me, is even more interesting) that drum machines can really add
to live looping performance.   It is just that usually people make one of a
number of mistakes in their programming that make the damn things sound
like they have no soul (like the machines they are).

The consistent mistakes that I hear that make most people cringe when drum
machines get turned on are:

1) lacking human energy, people try to overcompensate and over program
beats.   Great groove drummers repeat themselves constantly.
If the groove itself is funky and 'human' sounding, I find it is almost
better the more simple it is.   Let your playing breathe life into the 
song.
Don't expect your android drummer to give it energy.  I can spot a person
who doesn't know much about the 'less is more' aspect of deep groove 
playing
in an instant by their drum programming.

Towards this end,  I had the chance to program commercial drum machine
patterns for both  EMU systems and the ZOOM corporation.   What I realized
was that after 20 years of studio drumming in all styles that every drum
machine that you buy is filled with unrealistic and overly 
complex'standard'
drum beats.  This is what thedrum computer companies call, with shrugged
shoulders,  'the demo factor':    If you put the beats drummers REALLY play
into a drum machine, they don't sound very fancy when you demo them at your
local store.  Therefore, they have concluded,
you have to have a lot of bell's and whistles in your preset drum
patterns............rendering them useless for realistic live playing.
  Reasoning this way, I came up with the 100 most played studio drum 
grooves
with NO FRILLS at all added to them.    Very politely, they paid me for my
time and didn't use them.     Oh well,  I still made  thousands of dollars
in the 80's and 90's reproggraming singer/songwriter drum machines so that
they would be effective for their live shows or demos because the drum
machine companies wouldn't get a clue.  Mostly what I did was edit out 
notes
that were in existing prewritten patterns.

2) people tend not to realize that great subtelty in variation is the
essence of making a drum beat sound more 'real'  I'll start to address that
below.
The techology that I'm referring to is specific to Fruity Loops (the
greatest drum machine ever sold in hardware or software in my humble 
opinion
and regrettably not available to the Mac world) but you can use these 
tricks
in any sophisticated drum machine, even including something as old 
fashioned
as that old warhorse they still sell new for $140 USD,  the Alesis SR16.

Okay, then, here goes:


REALISTIC DRUM PROGRAMMING TIPS  part one:     Hi Hats

I've been a professional touring and recording drummer for  25 years and
just thought I might share a
couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create
more 'realistic' drum patterns.

for what it's worth, try this out with Fruity Loops:

Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter, including melodic
synth 'bubbles').

drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity
(volume), pitch, panning, cutoff, resonance and a thing called 'shift' 
which
allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note
that you've programmed.  (note:  this can be accomplished in other ways in
most of the good midi sequencing apps or software/hardware drum machines).

Drummers, no matter how good they are, just aren't perfect and we can use
the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make very,very small
changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like
16th notes on a hi hat.

Not all drummers, but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single
stroke (hand over hand) drum roll.
Consequently, if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than
their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic. Start by making
velocity differences that are really clearly audible. Then lower the
velocity until you can barely feel the difference. We are going to make 
very
subtle changes like this on each of the  parameters of velocity, pitch,
cutoff, resonance and, importantly, shift.

I can't stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that
you can hardly notice them.

Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with
the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as 
well)
means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left 
hand.

When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the
transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the 
instrument
(or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater. In general, on
drums, that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably
(sp?) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound.
Consequently, the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more
attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff
frequency).

Consequently, you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely
noticeably higher, the resonance should be just one or two of those little
teeny bars higher. The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing 
less
high frequencies through) on the 'left' handed or even numbered strokes.

Typically, if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand 
a
litte bit. I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you
make, you aren't being realistic. You need to make the changes subtle 
enough
that you just barely feel that they aren't perfect. You can consequently
make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late.

Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious
and then you can just randomly tweak each one
up to that limit. With a little bit of variance in each stroke from
parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture
in your programming:   This is a great technique to make synth 'bubbles'
(the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical
feeling.

Now, you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to
write 'realistic' programs: Turn the overall volume of the hihats until you
CAN'T hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to
hear them.

Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how
to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks.

the reason is two fold:
1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz
range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the
hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible. You can't do
that with a bass drum.
I tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so
quietly that a person sitting in a room with you can't hear it.
2) Hi Hats, the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human
vocal intellibility. How many people have gone to see live shows where they
can hear the singer is singing but can't for the life of them figure out
what they are actually singing. That is ususally because drummers (or 
mixers
, which is frequently the case) are not hip to this
important fact.

So, turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid range,
short envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical 
goodies
in your mix.    When in doubt, make your hi hats quieter than you think 
they
should be.  Trust me, they'll come through the mix even at a quiet volume.

If you don't know this stuff already, try it out and send me a very short
 mp3 of the results to me at rickwalker@looppool.info and I'll give you a
critique (time permitting).

later.

Rick Walker
www.looppool.info