Creating Good Drum Loops

[1DMF]

Hi Guys & Gals,

Yes, I'm a noob here, so I hope you won't hold that against me.

I'm not a noob to making music, been doing that for 12 years now, only not properly, normally I sequence pre-made samples, ok a bit of editing and effects, but never 'programed' or 'played' anything and have used Making Waves Audio for @ 10 years!

I decided I would look for a better DAW and get into writing music!

I checked out Reaper, couldn't make a note, think it has a horrible GUI, I've tried Cakewalk (way before Sonar X), Cubase, Logic, Rebirth, Reason, Fruity Loops (before it became FL Studio) - didn't like any of them, which is why I stuck with Making Waves for so long, it worked for me!

I've also messed around with e-Jay, Magix, Techno Macker, Music 2000.. etc..

Recently I came across Energy XT and a video on YouTube, and it just made sense, I understood where stuff was, how to play an instrument, how to set up drum samples and sequence them, the work-flow seemed to work for me, create tracks, busses, insert / send effects and a whole lot more.

Stuff I hadn't got a clue about what it meant and had never used suddenly made sense and I could touch it, use it , finnaly understand it! so I bought it.

I watched some YouTube tutorials by Joshua Pomeroy and download a shed load of free VST instruments, and even went and bought a midi controller (Novation Impulse 25), the video's made it seems as though anyone can press a single key move it about in the DAW, apply different synch rates and automated effects to create wobble bass so it seems!

Only now I'm stuck, I can't get a decent drum pattern going, I don't know where to place stuff or what drum sounds to use, nothing. It all sounds pants, childish, boring and repetitive.

I've considered going back to sequencing just loops with a bit of added sythn sounds from my midi / VST, after all Energy XT does have a great beat slicer, so manipulating pre-made samples and 'jazzing' them up a bit is so easy, but I want to do better, I want to know how you create those cool, interesting drum sequences and loops.

I've played way back in the 90's with Hammer Head, it was OK, and so wonder where should I go from here.

There isn't anything wrong per sae with Energy XT's drum sampler, but it doesn't have any presets to play with and I can't seem to be able to import any Midi files with pre-written patterns.

So I hunted the web and came a cros a few, I installed LeafDrum, don't like or get that one, I downloaded last night THUNDER bEAT D3 RXS, but that doesn't work just crashed upon opening it.

I've seen Battery 3, which looked interesting but it's expensive and I'm frightend to spend a lot of money on something I wont be able to use or understand.

I even came across (yes , I now don't laugh) DubTurbo, and forgetting the 'make you want to vomit' website and sales patter or the 'piss your pants laughing' YouTube videos.

As all I'm looking for is just a 'beat maker', 16 tracks and the simplicity it seems to offer could be a plausible option as an addition to my Energy XT DAW, unless the software doesn't really exist and it is a total scam , which reading many post on KVR, some are implying it is a total scam?

So I've decided to join this forum and ask you Guru's for some genuine advice on how I go about creating decent drum pattterns and beats, using what VST / software and if there are resources with presets to get me going, specific patters for particular genres I can then tweak and make my own, rather than having to start from scratch with an empty bank and an empty head!

Is there software out there that helps construct good beats and loops with pre-sets and patterns you can tweak, that actually works and will give me the leg-up I need?

Am I best to simply persevere with Energy XT's built in drum sampler and learn pattern sequencing, though I know I'm being impatient and want to get going now, like I can with just sequencing samples / loops!

Also I must point out, I have Dyspraxia, a learning disability, this means I cannot read music and never will be able to, my brain is wired funny and so I can't dechypher the blobs / patterns, it's all hiroglyphs to me and always will be.

I play by ear and know what I like when I hear it, but I have no idea what key it's in, what scale, note, nothing like that.

I've just found out I even don't know the difference between beats per bar and notes per bar, apparently putting 16 kicks in a bar is not 16 beats per bar!

So I hope you guys/gals can give some advice and help get me sequencing those drum patterns quickly, professionally and sounding good.

Regards,
1DMF.

P.S. Please check out my signature link and you can hear the music I've been producing, hopefully it will show you how much I love making music and have become proficient in sequencing sounds / samples.

I just want to move my music production forward and make even better tracks, hand crafted and lovingly cared for by my own hands, instead of some commercialy available loop pack from Magix!

[michael2]

making drum parts used to freak me out, so I decided to just dive in. still have a long way to go, but thats part of the fun. I play a few different styles of music, so I used different techniques to learn what I know. for acoustic drums, I just started paying a lot of attention to drummers and what they do. sometimes it's like I'm not even hearing the rest of the song. this has been really helpful.

for electronic styles, I did basically the same thing (but obviously it wasn't a drummer I was paying attention to). I also did things like put drum loops I liked in my DAW, and then tried to duplicate them. I would also put in rhythmic noises and try to write drum parts that worked with the noises. I think that was helpful because it was so random I couldn't fall back on my meager inner vocabulary (boom pop boom boom pop).

then I started doing drum fills and moving them over so they weren't on the beat anymore. sometimes it would do something really cool and I could analyze it to see why it was doing whatever it was doing. gave me ideas for different placements of notes.

i think basically you just have to start doing it, and record a bunch of stuff that you're not proud of. have fun with it. if you have an iphone or an ipad, download some drum apps and just play around a lot. I actually have a really fun time doing drums now. maybe one day I'll get good at it.

[1DMF]

Appreciate the input.

I have cousins who are real drummers, and I mean REAL!

I guess I should go see them play more often and ask some questions!

The sound engineer who is mastering my new album mentioned about not putting all beats exactly on and playing with velocities.

Apparently in some DAW's / VST's you have a 'quantise shuffle' option, I think that's what he called it, that doesn't 'snap to grid' quantise which can make your drums too artificial and ridgid.

By placing some off very slightly gives it more of a swing like a real drummer.

So this seems to be sound advice.

Regards,

1DMF.

[michael2]

Appreciate the input.

I have cousins who are real drummers, and I mean REAL!

I guess I should go see them play more often and ask some questions!

The sound engineer who is mastering my new album mentioned about not putting all beats exactly on and playing with velocities.

Apparently in some DAW's / VST's you have a 'quantise shuffle' option, I think that's what he called it, that doesn't 'snap to grid' quantise which can make your drums too artificial and ridgid.

By placing some off very slightly gives it more of a swing like a real drummer.

So this seems to be sound advice.

Regards,

1DMF.

yeah the off the grid thing gives it a bit more humanity. the thing I was talking about is actually on the grid, but I slide a part over 1 beat so that it still plays against the basic beat. it gives it a weird syncopation that I would never have thought of. sometimes. sometimes it just sounds like crap..

I use Logic and there are a lot of groove templates online. so if you pencil in everything on the grid, you apply a groove template and it gives it that swing you were talking about. sometimes very subtle, sometimes drastically different. i've accumulated a handful I like that are based on old drum machines.you have to experiment with them and find out what appeals to you. i can't imagine there aren't groove templates for your DAW.

[1DMF]

I take it letting the note go over the beat only works if the sound has a sustain / release / decay envelope that makes it last longer than a single beat hit?

Don't hits continue with their envelope past the beat unless they are in a choke group?

Do beats that have a reverb /echo / delay effect that are in a choke also stop the effect?

Or is that where I need to work out when to use an insert effect rather than a send effect?

I'm not sure about groove templates in Energy XT, i'll have to have a google now I know what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the info.

1DMF.

[chokehold]

Don't know why you don't "get" Reaper.
Drag an Instrument into the arranger/track view and start recording.

Of course, you'll have to go to Preferences and activate your MIDI controller, as well as specify a plugin path.

But srsly, if you're really coming from 10 years of Making Waves, then Reaper's GUI should be a blessing for you.

You might want to head over to Groove3 as they have Reaper 4 videos on sale at the moment.
I know, it's 20 bucks ... but that's for 7.5 hours of in-depth Reaper knowledge, teaching you what, where, how, why, and all that stuff.
Even I, who has been a Reaper user since the early v0.x beta days, could still learn a lot from that purchase.

Together with the $60 license for Reaper itself, you'd be off a lot cheaper than getting artificially puffed-up and overhyped hosts, and you could (if you wanted to) spend the remaining cash on the FX and Instruments YOU want to use, not the ones that all the big host developers make you pay for if you get their software.

[kennyda]

have a look at this



It's not programming, it's sampling a loop, but it's less than 2 minutes so it gives you an idea of how fast and easy it is. You could use it to analyse a beat.

What kind of beats do you want to make? A typical house beat would have a kick on every beat, a snare and/or clap on every other beat, hi-hats on the off beats, and one or two things on some of the other 16ths.

Like this:


4 beats in 1 bar. 16 16ths.
Stick a shaker loop or something on top and you are on your way.



You can put a swing/shuffle/groove on it very easily in all DAWs, if you want, you don't need to. Swing normally only affects even numbered 16ths. In other words, not the kicks, claps or off beat hihats. However people often pull hats and claps slightly off the beat to give a more natural groove. Swing is a tendency towards triplets and is very distinctive if you use a lot. Here is some audio with no swing, and then gradually adding swing, and then decreasing it. It's not my normal sound, just a basic preset in Live.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/1/2/2 ... 0swing.mp3

[1DMF]

Thanks.

I can chop up wavs no problem and XT has a beat slicer, so mixing up pre-made loops isn't an issue either.

As for styles, I like all sorts, Hardcore, House, Trance, Techno, D&B, Jungle Techno, Electro, Breaks... the list goes on, I don't have a favourite genre, I either like a track or I don't regardless of genre, though I prefer electronic to rock / pop / 'live' music so to speak.

Coudn't get the mp3 link to work?

[kennyda]

It's working now, for me anyway.

[1DMF]

Wouldn't play in the embeded player, but got it working when opening in new tab!

Need to find that swing option in XT!

Thanks.

[kennyda]

The other way to make funky beats is syncopation. Put beats with gaps of 2 16ths in between them. You can use swing as well. There are 4 beats to a bar, and a bar is 16 x 16ths. So each beat has 4 16ths. The kick goes on the first one for house and disco. The third 16th is the offbeat, usually a hihat. The ones in between give it the funkyness.

[codec_spurt]

Don't know why you don't "get" Reaper.

REAPER has some pretty slick and powerful auto slicing and quantizing of drum parts.

It auto fades/in/out so you don't get those nasty clicks and pops.

It isn't too difficult to find if you read the manual and as we all know the REAPER forum is one of the most helpful in the whole world.

It's basic quantization can be tricky to start off with, but when you crack that, audio quantizing drum loops you have auto-sliced up will leave you laughing quietly to yourself in the corner, like a drunk with an extra super brew left over for later.


It works. It works exceptionally well. REAPER can be a little bit of a tricky little bitch. But when it clicks, it is SUPER POWERFUL.

It's not that hard - ask 'em at the Cockos forum. They will help you out.
They are a very helpful bunch of people.

And when you do figure it out - then you can have some real fun by re-quantizing the parts you got into different syncopations.

chokehold gives good advice!

[1DMF]

Well you guys could be on to something!

I went and watched a few YouTube tutorials on Reaper, and it makes a little more sense now.

I guess with eXT I had just got my head round busses, to then find I couldn't bus anything in Reaper.

Now I understand how you create a track and then indent the tracks below it so then you create an insert effect on the master track and all the child tracks bus through it!

Also I now understand how you have to create a master for the VST intrument and then you indent (bus) the child midi tracks below it through the VST intrument.

I also like how you extend the audio clip and it auto loops (paints) a copy of the loop rather than having to copy/past with CTRL held.

One thing that has started to turned me off of eXT is I lost an evenings work last night, I added CamelSpace as an insert on a audio clip and the damn thing crashed, as I hadn't saved for a while (I know!), I lost all the beat slicing I had done on a drums loop - aghh, I hate that!

One huge thing I notice in Reaper is how fast the workflow is , not in terms of how quicly I get things done, I'm just starting out, so totally overwhelmed at the moment, but I mean the speed of the application, moving around and doing things seems really responsive!

What I haven't worked out yet is how to beatslice in Reaper and then move the single slices about to create different drum patterns.

Do you know of a good video tutorial to help?

Thanks,

1DMF

[codec_spurt]

Err, dude, once all the samples of the beat are cut up you can move them about like pieces on a chess board:

see:



Also:



I think both these vidz will educate you on what you can/can't do with REAPER and how you might/might not be able to do it.


Have a look at this one too:



I've got to say, the drum slicing works very well, the re-jig quantize to syncopate is also very funky with very few clicks/pops....


People see REAPER as more of a live band emulation recording desk set up, I think. But even though you have to go through some 'strange' steps to achieve what you want - it is surprising what you can achieve.

[1DMF]

Err, dude, once all the samples of the beat are cut up you can move them about like pieces on a chess board:

Yeah I know what beat slicing is, I just can't seem to do it properly in Reaper.

I have found 'Dynamic Split', but it has a complicated and confusing GUI and all my splits so far make more noise than a bowl of rice crispies!

I know I need to persevere with it till I work it out, but it's been so hard going getting my head round Reaper, i'm taking the week off from music, it's doing my head in.

My new sample DVD turned up yesterday, so I got 6GB of new sounds to play with, so no doubt will have some fun with those at the weekend.

Regards,

1DMF.