How do you broach the topic of...

[DwaneHollands]

Quantising...

important to know what kind of timing you're dealing with, and what subdiviions you can hear.

dont expect to highlight a whole take and press Q...that will not work.

You'll need to quantise in parts, and also sometimes per drum part.

Make sure you're always changing from 8ths, 16ths, Triplets and Dotted time...otherwise the result will suck hard.

Other than that, you wont get good unless you practise like a mad man, also practise programming drums from scratch, you'll get ur eyes used to what your ears hear...etc

also, if you flip between crotchet, dotted, and triplet grids, you can see which grid lines up best for each part and Qnuantise accordingly...

Thanks for the tips Jamil!

I'll spend some time looking at it. I'll need to check out those different grids you're talking about too. I've done a small amount of drum programming and doing rolls that sound realistic, took me hours to get right. Reaper has what appears to be a triplet grid (4t, 8T, 16T, 32T) and also what I think might be a swing grid? (4S, 8S, 16S). Oh it has a swing amout field for that too.

Yeah, I really want to be able to program my drums for my stuff, since It's hard to track guys down to track it generally. More control too. I actually found a video last night by Roman Chris Murphy about using a real hi-hat overdub to add realism to programmed track. So I'm thinking about perhaps overdubbing the hi-hat with electric kit when I start programming drums again. Perhaps even do the rolls I suppose!

[DwaneHollands]

maybe i make to many dance beats but select all hihats and quantise to 8ths or 16ths whatever
quantise kicks snares to 8ths/4th.

Grab the whole track and bring it a few smidges ahead of the beat and voila.

dwayne if its not to a click then use a tempo track you can program this. i still havent had to use elastic audio or warp audio etc but yeah, it could help.

re latency, use a mixer and cut the electronic drummings brain sampler for tracking. that will have 0ms latency.
Change over to your CPU drums later

Yeah I think I can set markers in reaper and then adjust the tempo from each marker independently. I'll try and get this one quantised or edited to the normal tempo. But for programming I've thought about some subtle tempo changes to build impetus for an end of a song.

yeah, I think we might have to revert back to using the drum brain's samples for tracking. I need to get a little headphone amp, gang the click with the direct drum brain input (bypassing the interface).

[jkhuri44]

todays drum VST's are good enuff to program the whole thing, hi hats are sick too.
if its not sounding right, keep practising...and make sure your velocities are always varied. i've done lots of funk style programming which sounds like a dude jamming on a drum kit...even on sub par drum VSTs...all snapped dead set to the grid, and with no tempo changes...using something like BFD, or DFH...u should have no problems getting it properly real.

Dwayne, the "S" grid is probably the dotted grid...no idea why its called S...

[DwaneHollands]

todays drum VST's are good enuff to program the whole thing, hi hats are sick too.
if its not sounding right, keep practising...and make sure your velocities are always varied. i've done lots of funk style programming which sounds like a dude jamming on a drum kit...even on sub par drum VSTs...all snapped dead set to the grid, and with no tempo changes...using something like BFD, or DFH...u should have no problems getting it properly real.

Dwayne, the "S" grid is probably the dotted grid...no idea why its called S...

Yeah, those cymbals in BFD2 are pretty good - although I can't find any that sound like zildjian A-Custom's. That really 'pish-but-heavy-sound'. WHATEVER THAT MEANS, RIGHT? But the one's they have 'll do, haha!

I'll keep working on it!

[jkhuri44]

if you're doing rock stuff, there will be a rock hi hat in there, these things are made for rock and metal...pretty much.

i guess you cant have it be a perfect world, heck, even if they did have zildjians, they might not be recorded the way you wanted?!?

if u nail your programming, you wont care...is my guess....i've combined live/programmed drums before, and tbh its not my fav method...i prefer editing takes as a whole, alot more organic and sensical.

[DwaneHollands]

i guess you cant have it be a perfect world, heck, even if they did have zildjians, they might not be recorded the way you wanted?!?

haha, that's true!

I can't wait to get my programming chops up to scratch!

[Julian Nichols]

Thanks to whoever suggested the "Well, that was a complete load of utter F%$ing wank" line. I was in the studio yesterday and the singer and I decided that would be our code for "That was a really good take". So eventually she absolutely nailed it in the vocal booth and here's me dropping that line. The engineer looked at me kind of funny, and she burst out laughing, giving the double thumbs up. Hey, it broke the ice...

[rick]

I was producing a well know artist on a major label on a platnium album
the production was spilt into a few different groups- each producer doing three or four tracks
the artist and the label were hedging their bets

I get the call one day that my four tracks were recorded "last week in america "
by somebody much higher up the ladder then me .. oh well it happens

we ended up just doing the lead vocals on the tunes over the american beds

after we got through a bunch of stuff the artist was unsure of the vocal approach
I hated what he was doing and I encouraged him to try a couple of different methods
in one of those new methods - he nailed it , i knew it the hairs on my neck stood up
thats enough for me !
I stopped rolling tape and erased the other versions while we were listening back to the master
he was happy

the record went off to the mix guy who was also one of the other producers , I ring in to see what day I am coming to the mix - err ... apparently I wont be required !

the artist went crazy at me because my tracks were apparently unmixable
there is only one lead vocal on the tape !
auto tune doesnt even work its so fucked .. we had a fight ...
know this ...fighting with the artist often means the obvious
I lost the rest of the gig

a year later the artist rings me up to do some other stuff , apoligises for his ways ..tells my tracks are the only ones on that record that sound like "him" - wishes he had of listened to me instead of his yes men .. yadda yadda

over the years off and on we work together
- we have a trueness in conversation that comes from mutual respect built up over time and alcohol


I guess my rambling point is - if what is going on is shit and you call it out your probably going to get fired
sometimes getting fired isnt as bad as it looks
if you dont call it out and it still smells after you have worked on it you dont get hired again
you have to balance what is really a problem and what is just work in progress

that artist seems to have left his "yes" men studio guys way behind years ago
i think its important to betrue to the artist and yourself

but its also important to know your own skill limits

many times i just let the wheels spin to see what happens - with the right support and encouragement
artists do the most amazing things - its great to get everybody to that place so you basically have nothing to do except smile

and just because i dont often get the chance to say it

I have spent time in the studio with celine dion
before she was super famous ...
she was very nice