Hi guyz,
Have you got any tips to give to a newbie whose starting to program some beats in cubase?..

Or..is there any very good tutorial on which technique to deliver...

Im using the standard LM-4 drums for now, till I get more used to the prog (Should I change to something else..?)

Any suggestion on both dance/house beats or more r+b stuff..

thx
nixis

hi,
there are a few key things you should keep in focus when drum programming, first and foremost think about how a drummer actually plays.

obviously they are never going to hit the drums with the same power, or with perfect timing in between each hit.

if you have noticed in the cubase drum page (or midi page for that matter) you can control how hard the drum is hit by altering the 'velocity'. if my memory serves me correctly you can see a visual display of the velocities of the notes on screen by clicking a button near the bottom left of the screen (in midi or drum edit pages), once you do that you should see a drop down menu of various types of control, velocity being one of them. once it is selected you should then have a display of all the velocities. you change these by dragging them up and down.

basicly making a beat real can often be a drawn out exercise and is also very unrewarding. i say this because i have been known to spend up to an hour getting things just right, when all i have actually done is a few seconds of music that no one is really going to appreciate anyway. but trust me once you get it right for the first time it becomes easier. it seems to me that people underestimate the importance of good drums in a tune, granted its not always neccassery to have mad beats flying all over the place but it is a question of artistic jugement.

on the drum player itself i would have to say that from what i have heard of it the DR-008 from fxspansion audio is an amazing little piece of software. its at one time very simple to use but if you need it, it can be as deep as an ocean. there is one other option that springs to mind... Stylus from spectrasonics,

1. its sounds are created by the legendary eric persing (the guy responsible for rolands sounds)

2. it makes things simple

3. its very easy to use

4. the sounds are very very contemporary

5. i think the above is enough.

btw stylus is a not a drum module but rather a beat module, as it has lots of premade beats already programmed for your use. it can however be used as a drum module to. i could go on but i think you should really check out www.spectrasonics.net to find out everything about this amazing piece of kit.

anyway good luck with the drums.

[ 02 July 2002, 23:45: Message edited by: pyramid ]

hi nixis,

if you´re happy with your sampler, that´s fine but for shure there are some more sophisticated samplers out there..my personal choice is exs24(logic) and still some hardware

if you look around I would also give NI Battery a try...basic but very effective.

for shure Stylus from Spectrasonics is very interesting, too...it comes with loads of samples&grooves in high quality.

what you should care most when programming drums is the sounds you use and the way your grooves come alive..

I don´t know what´s your approach is but I try to tell you mine:

I really love to play drums with my fingers on a keyboard...all you need is a drumkit-like bank with Bd´s, Sn´s, HH´s.....loaded in your sampler and there you go....if someone´s used to that technique, it´s a nice approach to develop ideas in realtime, record them and- if needed edit them later on...or get just a certain part(loop) and use it.

Later you can devide each instruments on different channels that you can process the single sounds differently (e.g. filtering the BD, delaying the SN for a "laid back"-feeling or putting a nice ping-pong delay on the HH´s to make them fly...)

another good thing is to watch and listen to a drummer the way he/she is playing some notes hard and some not....dynamic is realized with "velocity" in the midi-world...this is simply the value how hard or soft you hit your key.

anyway, just make shure that your BD´s& your Sn´s bang the sh*t out of it

and the rest will follow...

I hope, there is something for you&good luck!

peace, moritz

well i dont know how new you are.. so ill start with the basics

for dancey/housey/trancey type percussion

the typical 4-on-the-floor beat is a simple kickdrum placed on the 1st, 5th, 9th, and 13th notes in a sixteen note pattern.

open hat is used the same way.. but starts on the 3rd note.. so its usually on the 3rd, 7th, 11th, and 15th notes.

closed hat is normally what really drives the rhythm along.. you can get jazzy tappy.. or linear straighton mode.. you can really get creative with the closed hat.. try experimenting with 32nd notes

hand claps are typically on the 5th and 13th notes.. though i would change it up a bit here and there.. put one on the 11th, 15th, and sometimes 16th notes too on the end of the beat..

again this is TYPICAL use.. you can really go bananas with dancey percussion.

hope this helps.

1. Think about space, volume, and interest.

2. Bop your head while programming.

3. Loop a bar or two and change things up. When you find something good, start a new bar, keeping the old one.

4. Decide whether or not you want to simulate a real drummer or just create. Don't be bound to the capabilites of a real drummer if you'll never be using a real drummer.

5. Don't limit yourself to tapping out beats with your keyboard, as drawing in notes can produce beats that you might not have otherwise been able to theorise.

6. Don't limit yourself to drawing in notes: you might never get it to sound like what you hear in your head.

7. Learn to preserve space: start with a kick/snare pattern, and then only fill in the space with hats where it is necessary to propel the groove. Put the hats on a different track so that they can be swapped out later.

8. Learn to rush the beat: using a 16th note bongo pattern over top can speed up a slow beat.
9. Experiment with Shuffle. Don't become addicted to straight fours. Don't overuse shuffle though.

10. Put the same snare on two notes, and the same kick on two notes. Half the volume of one sanre and one kick. Then use the lowered volume notes to add lead ins or lead outs.

11. Throw some reverb on a snare sound and use it for your second snare hit in each bar, or in every second bar, or inevery 4th bar, etc. If you put it in every 8th bar (every 16th snare), itt will sound like this:
http://www.mp3.com.au/track.asp?id=27381

12. Layer a high-passed drumloop over top (so that you only hear the hats) and program your own snare/kick pattern over top. Then remove the loop and program your own hats.

13. Cymbals don't just go on the 1st beats. The Clash taught me that you can put them on the snare hits too, as in AC DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long". I really like putting them on the first snare hit.

14. You want hard rock? Forgo the ride cymbal and closed high hat and use OPEN HATS on the kick and snare hits: 1, 5, 9, 13 a la Metallica.

15. Pan your toms left to right (high to low) like a real kit). Then your tom fills will go from left to right. Also, overlap some of the toms, so that it sounds like you are playing two toms at the same time (you have two hands right?)

16. If you are trying to simulate snare rolls, use the same snare on two notes with one pitched down just slightly. Then tap them on your keyboard (laternating between the two) so that you randomise the velocities. This doesn't make them perfect, but it will help. Also, you can make it sound like a drum up by fading a light snare out while fading in a hard snare.

Here are some beginner slow patterns (60-80bpm) with good use of space. Copy and paste these to NOTEPAD. Make sure that the font is Courier New to preserve the spacings....

OH-|--------------X-|
CH-|XX--------------|
S--|--X---------X---|
K--|X---------X-----|

OH-|--------------X-|
CH-|XX-X----XXXX----|
S--|----X-------X---|
K--|X-------X-------

[ 03 July 2002, 18:22: Message edited by: drk_sum ]

best way is to experiment by your self, if u dont have any rythm in your soul then what can u do

I like it very much putting up my mic, spitting into it while "articulating" the drums like "boomachuck-ts-aduckaboom-boom-chuck-ats", hammering the desk with my fists, scratching my laptop with my nails etc.

I do several tracks, cutting them to my liking and after that, I'll try to separate the groove, slicing it (pHATmatic Pro's doing a great job here) and rebuild the whole thing using "standard" drum sounds with samplers like LM4mkII or the like. Hard work, I know, but the result's just worth it.

Ah, BTW, forgot to mention that my Roland HPD-15 Handsonic (an electronic Percussion with several pressure and position(!) sensitive pads) servers very well as MIDI controller and as "natural percussion sound rompler". Quite expensive but definitely worth the money! check it out

Have fun
TabSel

TabSel,
i have been considering a HPD-15 for ages now, obviously you say its worth it. what i want to know is, Is the d-beam assignable to regular midi cc? and do you use the onboard sounds much? have you got any tracks on a site that really show it off percussion wise? if so put up a link.

[ 03 July 2002, 23:01: Message edited by: pyramid ]

you can't assign MIDI cc# to the pads, ribbons, dbeam, they all send MIDI note/velocity/poly-aftertouch. But you can easily "transform" any MIDI Note/Vel/polyAT to any MIDI cc# with most sequencer's builtin features: with Cubase SX, use the Input Transformer etc. (Or use a loopback driver and a separate application to achieve this, like MIDIOX/MidiYoke)

Don't get the wrong impression here: The HPD-15 is very very communicative MIDI-wise!!! It sends "positonal information" for the two pads at the front on MIDI cc, for example...Really everything you do with the Handsonic is send and reproducable by MIDI!!!

I mainly use it as MIDI Controller. However, sometimes I use some sounds of it with my songs, but these mostly are individual sounds, so no complete tracks at hand right now...

Feel free to join and ask the yahoo group of the Handsonic!

TabSel

[ 04 July 2002, 06:45: Message edited by: TabSel ]

oh and for hiphop type programming..

try positioning your handclaps first

then program the kicks next to 'play' with the handclaps..

followed by the hats and what ever else you want to add..

at least this is how i do it- makes it really easy to program specific rhythms (for me)..

mileage may vary..