Creating real sounding drum beats

[Ny Guy]

I have been using drum machines for years to create drum beats for songs. I am a guitarist and haven't any skills in the drumming department.

Now days I use an Akai MPC200XL triggering BFD2 in Sonar 8 and although I can tweak the sounds themselves to sound pretty good, I still lack in creating realistic sounding patterns.

What does everyone here do? Do you create your own beats like I do? Do you use loops, and if so... Where to get them?

Any advise / suggestions on how to achieve better drum patterns is appreciated.

Thanks!

[richiebee]

I would say the MPC may be your problem. How does it handle different velocities? The key to realistic drum programming is subtle (and not so subtle) dynamic changes. Personally I find this easier to do in a drum editor (if Sonar doesn't have this, then I would think the piano roll would be the next best thing).

Understanding what you're trying to achieve though would be easier if we knew what genre you're shooting for.

[Ny Guy]

Originally Posted by richiebee

I would say the MPC may be your problem. How does it handle different velocities? The key to realistic drum programming is subtle (and not so subtle) dynamic changes. Personally I find this easier to do in a drum editor (if Sonar doesn't have this, then I would think the piano roll would be the next best thing).

Understanding what you're trying to achieve though would be easier if we knew what genre you're shooting for.

The pads are velocity sensitive, perhaps not as a big span as software would give me. I write, Rock/metal so the drums need to be powerful and loud pretty much all the time anyways. The hardest part is good fills as I am not a drummer and cymbal work, this is why I was asking what others do.

[paul999]

Originally Posted by Ny Guy

The pads are velocity sensitive, perhaps not as a big span as software would give me. I write, Rock/metal so the drums need to be powerful and loud pretty much all the time anyways. The hardest part is good fills as I am not a drummer and cymbal work, this is why I was asking what others do.

There are a couple of things going for you. In most metal recordings they use sample replacement a lot anyway. There is usually not that much dynamic range in this genre.

The hardest part of this I find is the cymbal sound and fills as you stated. To get realistic cymbal sounds the best trick I have found is to play your drums through you studio monitors and mic them as if they where the overheads of a drum set. You can slide the track a bit further away in time until the cymbals get a bit sloshy when mixed with the original track like with real room mic's. Eq just as you would for drum O.H's. For fills simple is better. It sounds like you may also have a tough time creating fills because of not understanding how drums work but I am not sure about this from your post.

[edub357]

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[Ny Guy]

I guess everyone has answered my question, that being most of you create your own patterns, fills etc.

I guess I will go back to listening to records and emulating professional drummers, I was hoping with today's technology there would be an easier way.

[richiebee]

You could try Groove Monkey... they do MIDI files that work with BFD. I thought they were kind of mediocre in my chosen genres, but you might have better luck in a rock/metal genre.

[garww]

Ya, MIDI is not part of the realistic world. As close as you can get is your samples, but what drummer can hit the same spot with the same intensity all the time. Realistic is that variation on almost every hit. Just consider being "realistic" on key parts.

The reference above to making your own sample is good advice when it's needed. I bot a snare just so I could have something realistic.