Back to basics - How do YOU start a beat?

[Paulie]

I use a vsti called Geist... I always layer kicks and snares. Sometimes snares with claps. This not only gives phatness but also unique sounds when mixed together correctly (which geist makes easy).

Your beats are always kickin'. When you layer kicks and snares do you keep everything panned center, or do you spread them out?

[WeWillWriteUaSong]

Your beats are always kickin'. When you layer kicks and snares do you keep everything panned center, or do you spread them out?

Thanks Paulie! I keep kicks in the middle. Snares or claps I'll pan as needed.

[Len911]

Entirely correct. But when you've done all that work, you have one synth on one track that's providing one drum sound (kick or snare or whatever). Now where's the rest of the kit? All on separate tracks? For the whole kit then, do you need 4, 5, 6 instances of that synth (or other VI's)? Then you need to figure out how to play the kick and snare together (plus the other drums) from just one midi keyboard to check how they work together. Its usually not impossible to do such things, and sometimes its fairly easy, but it can get messy if you just can't quite find the right drum sound, or manipulate what you have to suit. Sometimes its the end of the production that I feel a drum sound isn't working for me, and want the easiest way to change it.

I think it depends on how many oscillators you have primarily. There's usually at least 1 arpeggiator per oscillator, and a ton of modulators, but you are correct, sometimes it can be confusing I suppose.

Sure, every DAW has some solutions. I use Cubase, but I'm not particularly fond of Groove Agent. There are a gazillion 808 (or similar) kits out there in various formats though. Polyplex has some tasty sounds, and although you're limited to the ones it ships with you can randomise them and edit them too. Battery is good for importing your own sounds and manipulating them, then forming your own kits. EZDrummer has a hip-hop expansion, providing a tidy solution to the problem, which includes sequencing too. If the world was going to be satisfied with all the existing tools there'd be no need to keep developing more and more that offer the same food on a different plate. They haven't stopped them coming out yet though, so there must still be an appetite for new or different ways to work. I just wondered what other folk do to ease their workflow.

Have you seen Mdrummer? There's a small free one and a large pay for one, every week they have 4 products on sale for half off, so if you subscribe they will email you every week with what's on sale.
https://www.meldaproduction.com/MDrummer%20Large

I guess Melda has many included drums and effects, allows importing your own sounds, automatically analyzing, importing and randomizing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PKK-R0iFYY rhythm editor, rhythm generator, song structures, etc.

[mojobone]

One thing I don't do is split the different kitpieces out across multiple DAW tracks; those are balanced and treated from within whatever program I'm using; basically I'm treating each VI as an auxiliary sub. So Kontakt might have a dozen or so MIDI tracks driving it, but still has only two audio outputs. Same for Addictive or Stylus RMX. Everything is still internally automatable, should I need that, but I generally like to play things in at the proper level in the first place; I try to have the mix already in mind before I start recording/capturing sounds.

[ochaim]

referring to your updated post, the most flexible way to get the drums for hip hop or any "urban" style is to use sampler like battery. even groove agent in cubase will do. once the drum sequence is recorded, you can switch out samples if necessary or add layers by adding samples to another cell and linking the first cell to it so you dont have to add any midi notes to play the new layer.

also, samplers meant for drums like battery and groove agent let you assign a dedicate audio output for each cell. i always do this so i can add processing to each sample or group of samples. kontakt is such a pain to route audio ie you cant just right click and select and output like battery and groove agent.

i dont really care where the drum sounds come from, whether they are from the same kit or not, as long as it sounds good and hits right. the juxtaposition of things out of context is frequently what makes hip hop unique and interesting.

[Len911]

MDrummer Large looks very interesting indeed, but 249 Euro is a bit steep.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/product/emd

That's why you wait until it is in the 50% off sale! Every week 4 plugins are 50% off and they cycle.

[ochaim]

Graham,

There's not much but a few clicks to map Battery cells to an output. Right click on the cell and you'll see something like "assign output" towards the bottom of the dropdown menu. on the Battery track in the cubase sequencer window, there's a button that will open up all the routing options for the VST it is hosting. In the box with the track name, R and W for automations and the monitor button etc , its in the top right corner.

If you have trouble finding those buttons I can do a screenshot when I get home. Let me know

[ochaim]

yup quite the coincidence!!

theres certainly something to be said about choosing a drum sample and commiting to it!

[Len911]

MDrummer Large looks very interesting indeed, but 249 Euro is a bit steep. There's ALWAYS so much more to buy! The free version is far more attractive for my ever-slim wallet, so I've downloaded that and will have a play - thanks very much for the heads-up Len. [I just hope it doesn't tempt me to by the Large version ]

Eternal madness price: € 125 (± $ 149)
Regular price: € 249

Okay, it's on sale now!

[LOCK88]

Hi Graham, great topic, and really informative replies so far! I've found EZ Drummer to be the easiest way to try out 50 beat patters VERY quickly to find the right groove. I just want to build a quick song template so I can get the outline of the song up in ProTools. I do have the hip-hop pack, which comes with some basic kits & patterns. I DONT like the kick & snare tones, but for song creation, I don't worry too much about that. Once the track starts coming together, I start obsessing about the kick & snare tones. Thats when I bring in my Slate Trigger & Drumagog plugins. These are both AWESOME ways to change your kick / snare sounds instantly.
Robb