Keeping The Rhythm – Part 2

July 28, 2020 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Recording Magazine

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DIY Drums – Part 2 – Programming

This article first appeared Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

Last month, I talked about recording acoustic drums yourself within whatever limitations you have. This month, we’re expanding the conversation into programmed drums. Just like last month, the main thing I want you to get is inspiration to experiment and maintain your relentless pursuit of cool.

If you’re an EDM producer, dubstep guru or drum n bass oldie, programming drums is your bag. You may also be a singer/songwriter looking to do something fresh, an electropop person making licensable, “current” records, or you may just be completely without mics or recording space, relegated to headphones and a laptop, trying to make something sound “real”.

That last scenario is the root of all electronica, including hip-hop, and the thousands of genres that have been created over the last 30 years should be a testament to the idea that limitations really can be the mother of creativity.

Whatever your Reason (pun intended), here you are, wanting to make a sick drum track, or at least tastefully augment your tune. First, let’s talk about “reality”.

Keepin’ It Real

The first question when you start any drum track is whether you want it to sound like a real drummer. When you’re doing rock n roll, singer/songwriter, world or other “natural” music, the answer may be yes. In that case, start with my article on acoustic DIY drums from last month’s Recording. People aren’t easily fooled, and my experience is the more I try to make programmed drums sound “real”, the less “real” and legitimate they actually sound. Rather, I recommend letting an electronically created track sound electronic. That’s not to say you won’t have acoustic elements, but let each part do what it what it does best.

That doesn’t, however, mean you shouldn’t employ some techniques that people might refer to as making a track sound more “human”.

To begin with, picture a drummer. She has two feet and two arms at most. More than 4 different drum hits at the exact same time might not make sense to the ear. Then again, it depends on what they are. You can certainly get away with conga laid over drum kit, for example, because that could be a whole other person.

Another thing about human drummers is they’re never computer-perfect. Try using your software’s swing or groove-quantize (Figure 1) to create a more human feel. If swing doesn’t work, try sliding hits around a hair to make them a little less uniform in time. This is a technique not well suited for techno and dance genres but if you’re aiming for something more “real”, it could help.

Subtly randomizing velocity, phase or pan is great too, especially for hi-hats, to make the track more “lifelike”. Even if you’re not going for a natural sound, programmed hi-hats can get pretty boring and lifeless, so messing with them is often a good idea. I’m a fan of a little distortion and subtle (or not) auto-panning on programmed hi-hats.

All that said, if you need real sounding drums, another way to achieve that which wasn’t available even a few years ago is to use live loops. Loop libraries like Loop Loft use real live drummers to play loops and fills you can use. Some freelance drummers even keep loops lying around that they’ll sell or even give you, if you’ve got a good relationship!

I wasn’t a huge fan of loop libraries before multitrack versions started showing up; a pre-mixed stereo loop is too hard to mix and too generic-sounding. With separated tracks, though, you can treat them like you would anything delivered by a session drummer. EQ to taste, pan how you want, use distortions, compressors and pitch shifters, and make it your own. You can even stretch or compress to change tempo (within reason).

BYOB – Bring Your Own Beats

Most drum tracks created electronically make no attempt to sound like real drums. This is great, because what used to be a limitation is now an unlimited palette of options. This may be overwhelming, but like I said last month, you can start by thinking of the functionality of a drum kit.

My usual process is pretty typical. First I build a virtual “kit”, by picking a kick sound I like, then snare, then hat, etc. I make a basic pattern while I do this, usually starting with kick/snare. If you do this work for long, you’ll realize there are only a few workable kick/snare patterns in 4/4. You can always experiment, say by changing time signatures, but it’s not necessarily bad to start with a tried and true four-on-the-floor “pop” pattern. The pattern itself is only the first of many places you can be unique!

You can build drum patterns any number of ways. You can use a pattern editor (Figure 2), which is how old drum machines work, you can step enter into your MIDI sequencer (Figure 3), you can play live using your MIDI interface (Figure 4) and then quantize (or not), or you can copy/paste actual samples or MIDI data right into a timeline, such as with Ableton (Figure 5).

If you enter MIDI data rather than audio samples, you can easily experiment with different patches, or create remixes later by using different sounds with the same pattern. In any case, avoid placing different drum sounds all on the same track. Just like with acoustic drums or loops, you want separate kick, snare, hat, etc. tracks so you can control and manipulate properly in the mix. You can get away with having some stereo loops here and there, but you’re usually much better off giving yourself some mix control.

If you’ve played your MIDI performance simultaneously into one track, say by doing kick/snare or kick/snare/hat all at once, simply create a new track, select only one instrument (eg kick) using the filtered selection option (Figure 6), and cut/paste to a new track. If you don’t have this option, you may be able to route different patches to different outputs on your device or any number of other things to get your tracks separated. If there’s no way for you to do that, then play one part at a time.

Be Cool

Creating basic patterns is pretty easy, but you want them to be cool. Think of your basic pattern as a roughed in Michelangelo’s David. You can see that it’s him, but now it’s time to start chiseling in that six pack.

One of the best ways to improve a groove is with what I like to call tiered turnarounds. Consider this basic pattern:

If you loop this, you’ll notice an odd sensation of wrongness when it repeats. The second measure needs variance. So instead, I might do this:

That feels better, but on measure 4, we get a similar sense of wrongness, so I’d add another variant, a bit more like a fill.

I usually take this out to 8 measures, where I might even use both the last 2 measures as “fill”. Once I have an 8 measure groove, I feel more comfortable repeating it. Each of these little variances or fills, which usually happen over proportionately longer periods of time (ie: a quarter of the length of the loop) is basically a turnaround, which creates the feeling of balance in a passage. The number of tiers and variances you use may vary, but the concept is to create a push-pull while repeating. You don’t really want to NOT repeat – that would be chaos, but turnarounds work with repetition to keep the listener engaged. The same concept can be applied to any kind of riff – guitars, pianos, bass, etc.

Oh Yeah, The Song!

Hopefully you’ve already been considering the song as a whole, but if you haven’t, this is a good time to refer again to the song itself. Once you’ve got one pattern you like, consider a larger variance or different pattern altogether for your chorus, and maybe a third for your bridge. The song should have informed your basic pattern, and it will probably inform your chorus, and it should certainly inform you what to do with the bridge and other odd sections.

Thinking of the song as an arrangement when you’re building drums is one of the best ways to make your rhythm track stand out from the crowd, even if you’re starting with drums, and even if you’re not going for a standard song structure. If you’re going for a build over time track or a trance track with subtle progression, do these things in the drum track as well as any other instrumentation, rather than letting the drum track plod along with no change.

Once you’ve got an arrangement, start augmenting with effects, variable velocities, new parts, and even recording acoustic parts to go along, if you can. If you’re using hardware synths, you should probably record that audio to the DAW now, so you’re not fumbling around when you try to mix. This is a good opportunity to use cool things like tubes or even more drastic effects to give the tracks even more life, grit or uniqueness. Make sure to mute and record one by one (or use your synth’s L/R or aux outputs strategically) so you still have separated tracks. Don’t just record the whole stereo mix from the synth, especially if you’re sending tracks to a mix engineer.

Timbre And Flavor

Once you’ve got some cool sounds, killer patterns and an arrangement that doesn’t just drone on, try going back to timbre. Is anything off? Does your snare fit, is the kick awesome? You’ve probably already found some cool sounds to start with, but no matter what they are, they probably came from a sample pack or a synth, which means other people have access to them. That means you should start making the track your own. You might try layering certain tracks to strengthen them or make them cooler, or try adding elements in certain sections. You may even change something like the snare in a chorus or bridge, or bring in a vastly different sound for a one measure breakdown. Look at your arrangement again and see if there’s anywhere you can cut the drums entirely, or break down to just hats, or kick.

At this point, your track probably sounds pretty cool. You’ve probably already laid in any other tracks, if you’ve got them, and you’re well on your way toward a mix. You may have spent 4 hours, and you may have spent 4 weeks. Either way, it’s probably time to go outside!

Hopefully you’re inspired now to experiment and search. Drum tracks, like anything in the record making process, are a matter of purpose, an open mind and that relentless pursuit of cool. Groove on, baby!

I’ve been programming drum tracks for long on 25 years (well…more now I guess), and I’m still pursuing cool. Talk to me about it on Facebook or Twitter @AaronJTrumm

Keeping The Rhythm

July 16, 2020 by Aaron

Audio Instruction, Instructional Stuff, Published Work, Recording Magazine

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DIY Drums – Part 1 – Acoustic

This article first appeared Recording Magazine. I reprint it here with permission, and I encourage you to subscribe to that publication, as they are a stand up bunch of folk!

It’s a common problem. You’ve got some mics, great chops, a decent voice, cool songs, and decent recording gear. You’re even happy with your space, now that you’ve referred to my DIY Acoustics article from October 2016’s Recording. You’re ready to rock some tracks, and whether you’re recording songwriting demos or an honest-to-goodness record, you run smack dab into a major stumbling block: drums.

It’s a rare rock or pop song that gets away without percussion, and often that’s what separates the women from the boys on a record. It’s easy to tell a low or no budget production immediately by the sound of a stock MIDI snare, and nothing screams “lazy” like throwing down a default loop from a synth or Session Drummer and calling it good.

On the other hand, booking a drummer and studio time is expensive, especially if you’ve got a lot tracks (Figure 1). You can hire drummers with their own studios for decent rates, but even that may be out of your budget. You can still achieve a cool percussion track, though. It just takes creativity and work, and even if you hire a drummer and book studio time, you still want to think creatively, or you may yet get something generic.

Figure 1 – A great but expensive drum studio

There are myriad options when creating a rhythm track, but in the most general sense, they break down to two: acoustic percussion and programming. Which direction you need to head is mostly a matter of genre and style, but there’s nothing wrong with a little genre bending if it’s done well, and you may be surprised how much crossover happens in any genre.

In part one of this two part series, we’ll focus on acoustic tracks. You probably want to go this direction if you’re doing any kind of “natural” music like singer/songwriter stuff, world music or even rock and roll. On the whole, the subject of drums and percussion, and the role they play in a production, could cover volumes, so the main thing I’d like you to take away is inspiration. Be creative and resourceful (Figure 2). After all, relentless pursuit is the key to great tracks even when resources are unlimited.

Figure 2 – Resourcefulness – Step ladder, vacuum, and cymbal stand as mic stands

Trap Kit

“Acoustic tracks” partly means actual “drums”, or more precisely: trap kit. Recording a kit is a whole art unto itself, but it needn’t be so daunting that you can’t do some things yourself. If you’re a drummer (Figure 3), hey, you’re a step ahead, but you needn’t be. If you can play an instrument, you (hopefully) have plenty of rhythm. So, if you happen to have an old drum kit laying around, or even a good one, or can borrow one, or just have a drum or two, this part is for you!

Figure 3 – A drummer in his natural environment

Obviously you’re dealing with some limitations here, or you wouldn’t be reading this. But just because you don’t have Dave Grohl or Animal’s direct line doesn’t mean you’re lost. And just because you can’t keep time with your feet doesn’t mean you can’t have a kick drum! Think outside of the box and you can do any number of things with the drums and skills that you have. You can hit one drum at once and overdub others, ala Fleetwood Mac. Purists would scoff, but we’re not trying to be pure, we’re trying to be cool. Try arranging a kick/snare combo so that you can slam the kick with a mallet and whack the snare with a stick in a pattern of your design, then overdub a hi-hat. Create a simple pattern with two sticks and a tom. When it comes to musicality and drums, your limitations can be your greatest asset. Producers sometimes fight with virtuoso drummers to get them to keep it SIMPLE. If you’re not a drummer but you’ve got a little rhythm, you HAVE to keep it simple, so that’s an advantage! You can make things more complicated with overdubs.

Figure 4 – Drums moved into a living room

A limited drum selection is ok too, as that can also force creativity. Try moving drums to different rooms (Figure 4), retuning, or augmenting to achieve different timbres (Figure 5). Try the living room, try the bathroom, try a closet, or try outside. Music is often about searching, so search for inspiring timbres and sounds, and think about how your environment and drums interact.

Figure 5 – Snare augmented with foam to ring less

You can also do plenty in the mix. Try using extreme EQs, crazy compression, and one of my favorite things to do, pitch shifting! You can use delay to create new patterns and reverbs, phasing and other plugins to create drum insanity.

Figure 6 – 2 capsule kick mic plus condenser on snare

What about miking drums? Much has been written on the subject and you can refer to previous Recording articles for more detail, but here are some basic tenets that might help as you search for cool:

Close mics on drums are usually best handled with dynamics, because their slower response will help smooth the transient nature of drum hits.
You might want to keep your ribbons away, as high SPLs could destroy them.
Condensers are good for room or overhead mics, but don’t count them out for close miking too. When I first started recording, my boss would routinely record kick drum with an AKG 414, placed right in the hole like a normal kick mic. It sounded great!
Try using mics in un-orthodox ways. (Figures 6, 7)

Figure 7 – 2 capsule kick mic, 57, and overhead small diaphragm on floor tom

If you ARE a drummer or you have one, and your limitation is mic selection, remember that less can be more. Many great drum tracks were recorded with one mic (Figure 8). The key here is experimentation with what you have, and close attention to what the drums are doing in the room. Don’t be afraid to move things around and manipulate the acoustics. Blankets in corners or on walls can help deaden a room, or, perhaps you want to remove furniture to liven the room. Next, move your mic or mics around and listen. If you have to record test swatches, do that. What sounds awesome won’t necessarily look right. Do bear in mind, as you play with rooms, that once you record the sound of a room, you can’t take it out, so a really dead space might be want you want. Think ahead about the overall acoustic space you want for the song.

Figure 8 – Heart mic – also mic stand resourcefulness!

Beyond The Kit

Figure 9 – Bundle sticks on kitchen table

You may have a drum kit and a drummer, but if you don’t, you’re not doomed! You can create rhythm tracks out of almost anything, and sometimes a big drum track isn’t even right. If you can hit it and it makes a sound, you can create rhythm. Some sounds may not be all that awesome, but others could surprise you. You can start with traditional percussion instruments: bongos, conga, shakers, cajón, etc. If you haven’t got any of that (even if you do!), plenty of household items have potential. Sticks, tables, sinks, buckets, and your body all make sound when you smack them! (Figure 9) I once made a decent high frequency snare sound out of an upside down coffee can, and there’s no shortage of hand claps these days. Try tracking 3 or 4 tracks of those. In some cases, you can thump on a cardboard box and come up with a kick sound, or use the body of an acoustic guitar to thump out a rhythm. If you have a piano, you can bang on that in several places. If the “instrument” is loud, see how it sounds in the room, and try a room mic, or a combo of room and close miking. If it’s a quiet thing, close miking might work better. Don’t be afraid to try a combo of mics, because whereas less may be more, sometimes more is more! (Figure 10)

The important thing is to think about the FUNCTION of each drum. If you picture a drum kit, and think about the functionality of each part, you can create that same function with alternative means. Kick would be some kind of low frequency element, lower in pitch and with less crack than the snare function, which operates as your back beat, or the two, with requisite creativity. A hi hat functions as a more constant rhythmic bed in some even higher frequency, and sub-divides your beat so the listener stays in the groove. Cymbals are for annoying producers. Try stepping on the cat to simulate (Figure 11).

Your thinking outside the box shouldn’t stop there though. You don’t necessarily need to simulate the functionality of a drum kit. You can create a rhythmic bed that shirks that convention, or you can use the other instruments in a production to create the foundation and use percussion to add spice, emphasis and flavor.

The main thing that’s going to give your production a feeling of legitimacy is doing things on purpose, and spending the time to find unique and interesting sounds that serve the purpose of the song.

Programmed Drums

In part two next month, we’ll talk about creating cool rhythm tracks with synths or computers, but it is worth mentioning now that you may want to augment or support a mainly acoustic track with something programmed. The most common and obvious version of this is drum replacement, which happens a lot more than you might think. Programs like Drumagog or Steven Slate’s Trigger can replace the drums in a performance with sampled drums, and this technique is used all the time to help engineers mix drums. Most often, it’s kick or snare that gets replaced, but other drums are candidates as well. Replacement can be used creatively too. You could replace a normal snare with a crazy one for a measure, or create a layered sound. You could flip the beat by replacing snare with kick! My favorite augmentation is a simple addition of a nice crisp kick drum to augment a trap kit or other track that lacks the character I need to fit the mix. I do this often, because kick drum recordings often sound bad, and in a lot of tracks, an electronic kick doesn’t stand out as “fake” as easily as something like a snare. Most often, I don’t use replacement software, I just play or program a kick pattern that matches the kick or kick like element in the acoustic tracks. The possibilities here are endless, and we’ll go into more detail next month in part two: DIY Drums – Programming.

For now, keep using your imagination and experiment! There’s a whole world of variety you can find in your rhythm tracks if you just keep searching!

Oh – and now – go to part 2 – programming – and then mix and match between them!

I’m an awful drummer, but I keep a crappy drum kit stuffed in a corner, with a cajón for a throne. Some part of it gets used on almost every song. Talk to me about on Facebook if you want.

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