AIR TRICK_KICK N SNARES?

[springwater]

hEY, WOULD SOMEBODY MIND EXPLAINING THIS "AIR" TECHNIQUE. iT IS HARD AS HELL TO FIND SHIT ON HERE WHEN YOUR LOOKIN FOR SOMETHING SPECIFIC. Im adding a little air in my snares and my shit aint swinging.
If you dont mind reposting cause i know its on here somwhere.

[Dr Van Nostrand]

again, swing is a very subjective thing, esp when you put it like that, "my shit ain't swingin", the original explanation was in the tips and tricks thread in the production techniques section, shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 pages back, it got revived recently, but i never understood adru's (old poster who gives a detailed explanation) method, because he would say that you have multiple copies of the same kick and snare and hi hat, and that you would quantize certain ones in to certain values, and then add like 2ms to one hit, 3ms to another, but i never understood what made him choose what hits were used where, because he always said you quantized first then just added air, it almost seemed to me like he didn't use it to really place sounds as much as to give it a kinda shuffled effect similar to some other sequencers (redrum comes to mind)......

i adopted it for my own ways, pretty much just resample a hit so that there is a good amount of space in front of it by playing it once, waiting, then playing it again before you turn off resample, then you mark it to the second hit, quantize it in, usually i would just do to 8th notes and place it to the nearest 8th note before where i wanted the hit, then add in as much space as i wanted so it fell right where i thought it felt right, maybe it might of been similar to a 8.3 quantized hit or 16th note or somethin, but thats a real rigid grid you know, and sometimes the cuts and loops your workin with might "swing" a little different and quantizing won't make your hit land where you want and it sounds awkward, this can be useful too cause you can use the same kick or snare or whatever in multiple situations, like if its for kick right before a snare, you can use it anywhere as that kinda leading kick, like ba-BOOM, sometimes though you find yourselves havin to have a seperate kick for every different kick though and that just gets obnoxious, at least to me, to many pads used up, and its hard to keep track of all of em

[Dr Van Nostrand]

here's the thread i was thinking about, thumb through it, i think adru's explanation is on the first page, see if it works for you more than my method

http://sp-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3077

[cartesia]

turn off quantize, play the snares when it feels right

[springwater]

thats alot of information, thank you sir, and i checked out that post and im gonna get into everything the next time i rock out. THANKS ALOT!

[formal]

Easiest way to get swing is to play it naturally then resample the live playing.

But here is what adru was trying to explain.

Basically you resample a few of the same snares and kicks. When you resample leave some space "air" before and after the sample. Now go back and mark all the samples so there is no air left, but do NOT truncate them. Now go ahead and create a drum pattern using the multiple snares n kicks WITH quantize ON. Once the pattern is recorded and sounds all nice and robotic, now you go back to the kick and snares and play with the "start/end" points to give air. The amount of space you give will determine the "swing". The reason you made multiple versions of the same sounds is that each pad will have a different amount of "air". This is up to you to tweak and make sound good. It's usually best to leave one element of the drum pattern perfectly quantized and then swing around that part.

[Dr Van Nostrand]

i never understood that though, what decides what kicks you use where, cause you lay em before you add air, it just seems wierd and backwards, but i will admit that it is much easier (i feel) to just lay shit in yourself, and resample things into larger chunks and lay them in unquantized, maybe start with some quantized frame work but in the end lay it in unquantized, unless somethin sounds good as is, use your ears and make it sound how you think it should sound, thats really whats important, i'm not sayin any one method is the only way to make tracks, and just cause a lot of people on here say that its the "best" way to do somethin doesn't mean its the best for you

EDIT: oh and i haven't used my method of this trick in a while either, it just got way to tedious, although i'll still utilize it if its the best way for me to make somethin sound the way i want it to sound, constant progression and styles on the sp, you use the machine as a means to make the music you want, you know?

[springwater]

i totally understand. ive always just resampled myself playing, i just thought id try and understand the swing method. and when i play kicks and snares raw i always bang them too much. im just a weirdo. but whatever, its all about the sound i want, like you said.
peece

[IIIII]

Batters up!

[V-F!]

I'm a fan of the air trick. Best part is tweaking the start point while the pattern is running. Hearing the timing change while it's looping.

[malone]

i found this video pretty useful, hope you get something out of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBhz7rR4LwE&feature=fvst

[a.D.]

I actually know Adru (the misphit) pretty well, , he's been on the low working on multiple projects surely but slowly.Anyway- there definitely is a strategic placing of the hits,it's just really hard to explain by typing, apparently,lol.But it also just depends on your own personal prefference.You should always be using muliple kicks/snares/hats at different pitches/velocities regardless though... The main things you wanna add air to are the kicks and hats- a little more for the hats. First try using 2 or 3 kicks, 3 snares, 4 hats.Try minus 1 on one kick,minus 2 on another,then minus 3,4, possibly one minus 5 on your hats. Maybe just a minus 1 on one of your snares and even a plus 1 on another. Quantize snares on 16/3, kicks on 16 or 8/3, and hats on 16--something like that.Lay down the pattern and listen to it BEFORE you make the air adjustments...then add them and you'll notice a big difference in swing. If it sounds fucked up initially,just mess with it for a few minutes and it'll get on point.Just try and make some kind of a consistent looping placement back and forth with the different hits. It's actually really simple and not that tedious at all once you get your own little formula going. This of course is depending on what kind of feel you're going for-this method's meant to emulate a good swing function-making loose/sloppy non quantized patterns is cool, but even simpler to do, and in my humble opinion becoming kinda cliche-espescially with sp users.Don't get me wrong though I do that shit too sometimes.These air techniques give more of a consistent & fluid classic hip hop type of swing. It all sounds complicated and like a lot of work,but it's not-espescially when trying to compensate for a machine with such rigid sequencing. Oh yea, after you got your drums hittling how you want, just lay your chops/loops/whatever non-quantized-it's always much easier to lay them without quantize no matter how you're doing shit. Peace!