Swinging Drums

[JZTR]

practice practice practice :p

some tips that helped me get better. btw, i always use resample method.

1. listen and study various beats you like.
2. ditch the metronome and setting bpm's.
3. start small and build up. so start by resampling and play out 1 measure with just a kick and snare. resample that loop and add high hats. resample again and add whatever other elements you'd like to build your beat.
4. its good to have multiple samples of snares, kicks, hh, etc to add variation. you can resample with diff volumes, filters, fx and stuff to add variation.
5. practice
6. i found that for me, if i play as many drum parts as my sp allows in one go, i get a swing that is hard for me to recreate if i do one element at a time. so just practice playing everything as if you were playing a real kit.

i hope that helps. just keep doing it and things will work itself out eventually.

Nice explaination, gonna mess with these ideas later.

Cheers for everyone's advice!

[roygbivs]

Tried out some of the methods in here using the sequencer and got some pretty good results. Quicky, everything but kick/sample is quantized. https://soundcloud.com/roygbivz/mmm

[yo-yo crunch]

that track bangs real hard but its kinda boring. i'd add some change-ups and more samples

[admbmb]

Do all your drums by hand instead of quantizing and you will develop your own sense of timing and swing that programming can't get you. If it sucks on the first try, erase and do it again until you get it right. The more you make this a habit and gain a sense of timing, the less erasing and more "first takes" will work for you.

[admbmb]

One other thing...if you have stiff, sterile drums (that you start with). You can chop samples and make the bass and samples swing around the drums. In the end, you will have the same effect. Ive programmed sequenced drums with sequenced samples and made the whole things live as hell by playing live bass all over it, weaving in and out of the pocket.

[roygbivs]

that track bangs real hard but its kinda boring. i'd add some change-ups and more samples

Agreed, 4 bar loop for a friend. Added more to it in the SP just haven't exported. Been playing around with different ways to use the 404 between mixing up resampling and the sequencing, trying to find a workflow. Iv always thought the 404 sequencer sucked coming from the 303 but learning how to use it.

Did this while watching the debate, resample method and using the same samples (different drums) http://soundcloud.com/roygbivz/c-05-pre ... ebate-beat

Do all your drums by hand instead of quantizing and you will develop your own sense of timing and swing that programming can't get you. If it sucks on the first try, erase and do it again until you get it right. The more you make this a habit and gain a sense of timing, the less erasing and more "first takes" will work for you.

Yeah i'm learning this the more I do things this way. One question I have is about the order of how to do things in the resample method. Dibiase beats for example you will often hear a low pass or filter on the sample while the drums remain untouched. Would I record these effects thought out after I have my sample loops to make my 1-2 minute song template and THEN add the drums and then add glitch effects or w/e that would be effecting both parts? Or do something like loop the sample in sequencer and add drums in, then record the pattern out to a multitrack while filtering just the looped sample pad, bringing that back in and then adding glitch effects? Been playing around with these ideas but haven't really found one that lets me stay 100% in the box. Any advice?

[Rabot]

I don,t know about 303's filter, but the 404sx filter sucks ass, so it's probably processed elsewhere and sampled in the 404.

as for the drum he prolly has a 16bar long drum loop (with variation etc)
that he retrigger or have looped, while his melody/sample run on other sample he can DJFX/inserteffecthere

it's kind of a good way to do it. have a bassline also in loop mode you can drop in and out...

[roygbivs]

I don,t know about 303's filter, but the 404sx filter sucks ass, so it's probably processed elsewhere and sampled in the 404.

as for the drum he prolly has a 16bar long drum loop (with variation etc)
that he retrigger or have looped, while his melody/sample run on other sample he can DJFX/inserteffecthere

it's kind of a good way to do it. have a bassline also in loop mode you can drop in and out...

I'm on the OG404 and find the FX pretty good, growing fond of them. Never used a SX, so dunno.

Gotcha so just a bunch of long loops and the filtering is done in between resampling them. Then going back over that to add global effects and EQ.

[preqwal]

I sometimes listen to a swinging beat that I like and then play over the top with the 404 whilst re-sampling or in the sequencer.

I've found that the main key to swinging drums is an early snare drum.

[admbmb]

I sometimes listen to a swinging beat that I like and then play over the top with the 404 whilst re-sampling or in the sequencer.

I've found that the main key to swinging drums is an early snare drum.

And late hi-hats.

[tape smoke]

i dig live drumming and everything, but this resample off time aint gonna get you to far, in a proffesional enviroment, where the click track is the backbone of your production. this allows for remixes and tune ups for later, anyway.

I have been thinking about swing and shit latley, and have been analyzing various drummers and drumming and have com to this conclusion.

unless your drum are chopped after or recycled , a dope swinging beat i always early before the metronome beep. from the time the stick hits the snare to the actual crack, the hit comes early because the crack comes later, thus, being impossible to get this swing with quanitize and tight samples,
like 1 kick , 2 snare type shit, so use adrus old technique of popping the snare a 16th note before the beat, then use the air trick to slam it in place,

yo if I ever get some slopped out shit to work with i throw that shit out and kick whoever made it out of my studio.

[cartesia]

there is still (should be) solid timing behind a swung drum track, 1 bar is still 1 bar long, theres just different sized gaps between sounds.

playing by hand + resampling is fine once you get the hang of playing, you just have a metronome going while you do it (ie just on your desk or something, not in the SP)

[Rabot]

yo if I ever get some slopped out shit to work with i throw that shit out and kick whoever made it out of my studio.

the slooopy as fuck drums never really get to be in studio anyway they don't need to.

[admbmb]

i dig live drumming and everything, but this resample off time aint gonna get you to far, in a proffesional enviroment, where the click track is the backbone of your production. this allows for remixes and tune ups for later, anyway.


yo if I ever get some slopped out shit to work with i throw that shit out and kick whoever made it out of my studio.

I use the right tool for the job because I am lazy. If I want production slickness, i will just use software. Because if you are going to get anal about click tracks and all that other shit...you might as well get into all the multiband compression, automation, chaining (blah, blah, blah) that you cannot do with the SP. That being said...I think the charm of the SP is the fact you can make raw, improvised, inspired stuff without going through any interfaces (sample your dog farting....knock on the table...kung fu movie). Its also fun to try and get huge sounds out of the SP, despite its limitations. Fortunately, I have a job and do music for fun, so I don't have to please anybody or sweat getting kicked out of anything (aka "sucking the fun out").

I would still argue that doing it by hand doesn't have to be sloppy, because you can resample a million times until you get it right (or just a couple if you have developed great timing). It is only sloppy if you are sloppy.

[p o n t u s]

the way i always kind of thought of the bounce to it was like instead of playing the kick and snare like...

1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

its more like 1-and2-and3-and4-and1-and2-and3-and4