How do you humanise your drum patterns?

[hotmitts]

Being mainly an acoustic guitar songwriter, I'm forever looking for ways to create an organic sounding drum track to accompany the guitars. Therefore I'm always looking for ways to make the drums really fit alongside that, with variable success.
I have used Jamstix , which is fantastic, but never updated.

generally I play on my keyboard (my pads are knackered)
Using MIDI I add in velocity random differences and micro-timing.
I have read a lot of tips and tricks stuff which is out there,, But I'm interested to hear how others approach this

[Dirk Diggler]

Jamstix is great, and using it with other drum libraries is very useful.

That said you might try a modern drum machine, or I also use an Arturia Beatstep pro.

Using the Randomness and Probability really change things up nicely.

Depending on how much change you want, they can be very musical. Also you can
play and change those parameters live to really control things.

I believe Roland and Elektron boxes both offer those features, I'm sure there are others.

[legendCNCD]

As a drummer I play them by hand on the midi keyboard. Thats enough human I think then I fix the most glaring problems of me hitting next key instead the previous...

[thecontrolcentre]

I use the Groove Pool in Live to add some groove to my drums. I sometimes use the same groove on the bassline.

[martiu]

i press random on drumcomputer and hope for the best

[Examigan]

I like to use the CAL scripts in Cakewalk for slight variations in timing and velocity. I put all the notes in by hand and don’t play them in by playing on the keys or pads.

[noiseboyuk]

If it's supposed to sound like a real drummer I nearly always use Tap2Find in Superior Drummer and find a genuine human-played groove close to what I'm after. I then use other grooves in that family or use Song Creator for different song sections, and then some manual editing. I always try and keep all the main timing imperfections from the original grooves though.

[BBFG#]

Set feel/swing to around 18%-28%.

[twal]

I press H in REAPER.

[JerGoertz]

I press H in REAPER.

I press R in HEAPER.

[donkey tugger]

I wrote this ages back as advice for an absolute beginner in drum programming, so some of it will obviously be well known to the fine folks of KVR, but mebbe bits will be useful;

All good advice there, and there's also simple little things which musicians do, which are often forgotten when recording/programming. Probably more applicable to pop/rock stuff than to this contest, but having a think about the mechanics of an instrument and how it's actually played in a real world context can go a long way when you're trying to program something. A few general observations on drums (not rules - they're for fools...);

Drummers are simple, excitable creatures and will play way ahead of the beat in rolls (when I used to play in bands sometimes I could see the rest of them looking at me as they struggled to catch up). Don't be afraid of nudging the notes back quite a bit in fills.

Keep in mind the buggers only have two arms and legs, so always keep an eye on what's feasible and what isn't - e.g. you wouldn't be able to go straight from some big fill finishing on the floor tom back to the hi-hats on the next beat - if in doubt leave a gap.

Swing is your friend. As outlined above, in terms of real instruments, very little is actually played absolutely straight on the beat. Even a little bit of swing adds loads to the feel of a song. Mr Bonham played absolutely everything with swing...

Velocity and volume variation and automation are key. Even if you're going to reduce the dynamics with compression etc later, any good sampled kit will have a number of velocity layers so use this to your advantage to emphasise both sections in your song, and also use automation to build things within sections. In the real world, as well as playing louder and harder, drummers also tend to do things like gradually open the hi-hat pedal a bit coming up to chorus etc to build things up.

Use the articulations in the kit. Good sampled kits/drum vsts will have a number of articulations for most drums (e.g. hi-hats with varying degrees of openness, snare and toms played in the centre and as rimshots etc). If you mix these up a bit (being careful that it doesn't sound unrealistic - things like rimshots are more generally used for emphasis rather than as the default snare sound) then it makes a lot of difference.

[paramita123]

Use the tempo track.
Make verses slightly slower and choruses faster, by 3 to 5 bpm is already noticeable.
Most pop and modern music is very click-synced. I try to use the tempo track to bring life as in old school live performances before the click track was brought in.

[Examigan]

I wrote this ages back as advice for an absolute beginner in drum programming, so some of it will obviously be well known to the fine folks of KVR, but mebbe bits will be useful;

All good advice there, and there's also simple little things which musicians do, which are often forgotten when recording/programming. Probably more applicable to pop/rock stuff than to this contest, but having a think about the mechanics of an instrument and how it's actually played in a real world context can go a long way when you're trying to program something. A few general observations on drums (not rules - they're for fools...);

Drummers are simple, excitable creatures and will play way ahead of the beat in rolls (when I used to play in bands sometimes I could see the rest of them looking at me as they struggled to catch up). Don't be afraid of nudging the notes back quite a bit in fills.

Keep in mind the buggers only have two arms and legs, so always keep an eye on what's feasible and what isn't - e.g. you wouldn't be able to go straight from some big fill finishing on the floor tom back to the hi-hats on the next beat - if in doubt leave a gap.

Swing is your friend. As outlined above, in terms of real instruments, very little is actually played absolutely straight on the beat. Even a little bit of swing adds loads to the feel of a song. Mr Bonham played absolutely everything with swing...

Velocity and volume variation and automation are key. Even if you're going to reduce the dynamics with compression etc later, any good sampled kit will have a number of velocity layers so use this to your advantage to emphasise both sections in your song, and also use automation to build things within sections. In the real world, as well as playing louder and harder, drummers also tend to do things like gradually open the hi-hat pedal a bit coming up to chorus etc to build things up.

Use the articulations in the kit. Good sampled kits/drum vsts will have a number of articulations for most drums (e.g. hi-hats with varying degrees of openness, snare and toms played in the centre and as rimshots etc). If you mix these up a bit (being careful that it doesn't sound unrealistic - things like rimshots are more generally used for emphasis rather than as the default snare sound) then it makes a lot of difference.

Good advice, except Bonham didn’t always play with swing. He did use it a good deal, but not for everything. Peart was kind of the opposite: sometimes with a bit of swing, but usually he was nearly right on top of the beat.

Also the rimshot sound - in the early Yes stuff, Bruford played it that way a lot. He even mentioned that himself in some video where he was talking about Yes music. But you’re right about it generally being used just for emphasis.

[donkey tugger]

Good advice, except Bonham didn’t always play with swing. He did use it a good deal, but not for everything. Peart was kind of the opposite: sometimes with a bit of swing, but usually he was nearly right on top of the beat.

True, true. Generalising too much.

[BBFG#]

Rimshots are also used for tonal variations. Maybe more so in Latin and Jazz styles, but I played timbales live for a few years and know their importance is not as limited as some might think. Shell strikes are good in their place also. Although I can't think of any sample pack that contains them. Airto, Fuentes, Purdy come immediately to mind, but there are many that think beyond the two dimensional simplicity of a drum machine mentality. I've been watching some of these drummers on YouTube playing poly rhythms between appendages lately and they're quite impressive. Any percussionist worth their weight is hardly a "simple creature". In every success story band, it is the drummer that makes that band shine, albeit from a less narcissistic way.
There's a term for drummers that have previous mentioned timing issues...
"Unemployed."