writing cymbals(crash splash ride)

[markroom]

hi - ive recently started using acoustic drums in my songs - one thing i'm finding a bit difficult is using the crash ,splash and ride cymbals

At the moment im just using them at the start of 8 bars etc but they seem to be
out of step with rest of kit- not in groove


My question is how do real drummers use their cymbals-

style is rock at about 158 as a back up plan i may adopt a very simple approach and just stick to using the crash in chorus etc.

I would just like to hear how other people threat them -

Thanks

[herodotus]

Drummers tend to use ride cymbals and high hats to keep the main 'pulse', while the kick and snare provide the up beat and down beat.

So if you are doing a really simple 4/4 beat you would have, say, the ride going on 1, 2, 3, and 4, the kick on 1 and 3, and the snare on 2 and 4.

A more common variant of this would be to have the ride playing eighth notes: (1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and) while the kick and snare do the same thing as before.

This is a really, really simplified example, mind.

Closed high hats would be used in the same way as the ride for a quieter part of a song, with half open high hats often being used for transitions to louder sections. Getting more complicated with high hats gets more involved than I have time for right now.

Crash cymbals are usually used as accents, but they are often used as in our first example when things get really loud.

Again, this is all very, very simplified.

If you are playing your drums on a keyboard, you might want to try playing the ride and the snare at the same time. If you want to make the kick perfectly in sync with the ride, you can often just copy the midi information from the ride part, transpose it down to the kick drums pitch, and delete the notes you don't want.

[herodotus]

Oh, and by the way, you would probably do better to post this in the production techniques forum.

Good luck.

[markroom]

hmm dats cool thanks.