Non-drummer using ableton: Drums never sound human enough!

[ThumbsDown]

I love me some Radiohead (Phil Selway), I love me some Beck (Joey Waronker), I love me some jazzy Squarepusher and psychedelic Krautrock rhythms, and I'd love to implement those kinds of beats into my music but I can't seem to reproduce those sounds in ableton!


I've tried to make my midi drums sound more realistic to no satisfactory results, and most tutorials I find on drums and the drum tools in ableton teach me how to make house and EDM (Which I personally have no interest in)


Anyone know what options I might have to getting more organic sounding, jazzy and krautrock rhythms? I've considered drum pads and sampling, but it would be cool to hear some advice from the people here who might have run in to the same issue or perhaps just know better solutions to stuffs.

[Michael42]

Howdy,
O.k. here is my plan to make more human drums.

1) edit imperfections
edit the velocity of yor hihat, edit every hit, so that the hihat becomes more dynamic.
A real drummer doesn´t hit the hihat every time at the same location. If you´re lazy use
the velocity tool in the midi effect sections and add some randomness, especially for the hihat.

2) "the human drummer"
Imagine - a human drummer has only two hands and two feet,
so hitting a snare, a hihat, a kick, a crash and a tom at a time does not contribute to a human feel

3) Varations
If you copy/paste or duplicate drumpatterns, its nice to make some variations, add or delete a tom,
exchange instruments on certain beats.

4) Ghost notes
Program or play some really quite notes on snare, kick or hihat in the gaps of your beat

5) Air
perhaps you could also add some air to your grooves by recording loop of a shaker or some simple claps you mix underneath
the drum pattern. If your lazy add a sampled loop out of a library at a very low volume.

6) Breaks
Try to sing the breaks before you program them.

7) groove
experiment with the groove settings and avoid to quantize everything to the grid.

By the way i prefer NI studio drummmer or ableton drum racks.

Any further tips ?

[Michael42]

Perhaps check out my drums on
http://www.soundcloud.com/funkulator

[SittingPanther]

Using midi effects can help a bit, without having to do as much editing per note. For instance, the velocity effect can randomly add in subtle (or extreme if you set it) velocity differences; giving a bit more organic feel.

Tasteful amounts of audio effects can add worlds of organic feel. Try using a chorus, phaser, flanger, or really any effect with LFO. Especially when used with slow rates, you can give subtle sonic differences, to say, a hi-hat retriggering 8th notes over an extended amount of time. Applying different effects over different types of drums, at different rates, can make for some awesome digital drums.

[Crabclawfajita]

You need to think like a real drummer which is covered very well in the second post. Velocity and groove being the most important to breathe life in your percussion. The key is to make your hits sound varied. This takes practice so make sure you practice and even things like watching real drummers perform or studying drum lessons will help you. The secret is to mentally think like a drummer (even if you can't play like one ) Practice, experiment, study the method, and invent your own.

I use Superior Drummer which provides really nice sounds for realistic sounding drums. It has a humanize feature which varies the velocity so your hits don't always sound the same which may be helpful. You could also check out Native Instruments Battery for some really nice sounds as well.

good luck and godspeed.


-----------------
http://www.soundcloud.com/sunandspring

[jbodango]

IMO it's real important that you pay attention to your hats. For example if you have Ableton Session Drums packs, make your eighth note patterns alternate between hit and shanks. Or maybe a shank everything other measure on the and of 4... this is in addition to mangling the velocities.

Also explore what very low swing settings will do to your existing patterns. I'm talking between 1% - 8%.

[JoeOsoDopke]

Study a producer like J Dilla to achieve a real human feel to programed drums; the way he programs his drums and the samples he uses makes it sound like an actual drummer is playing it. A good example, would be anything on the album Vol. 2 Vintage Beats.
The best advice is pay attention to where each drum sits: the kick drum can be behind the hi hat, the snare behind the hi hats but in front of the kick, etc. a "groove template" will not do this for you as it will syncopate the drums all in time with each other (to my knowledge).
A good way to think about it, is thinking of each drum as its own entity with its own dynamics and place in the beat.

[Angstrom]

Study real drummers on tutorial videos on youtube.
listen hard to what seems simple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOWdp1sOxvA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly8Sq6xHyHE#t=31

Really you need a drum library with lots of variants on the hits and lots of velocity layers. Ableton's session drums is actually pretty good for this. I use the multi-mic kits/ I prefer the Live 8 versions, than the L9 versions.

One thing I'd recommend is to make good use of the 'open' hi hat pedal macro. move that dial from the open to closed position and note the 'nearly closed' sound. If you tap out a basic grooving 16 beat with some velocity as a drummer would then varying the 'open' macro as if it were foot pressure gives a lot better sound.

here's a quick Bernard Purdey rip off

https://soundcloud.com/angstroms-parts/ ... ic-example

[jbodango]

ask me in a week or two about the pandacorn treehouse sample library. you won't be disappointed.

[jbodango]

One thing I'd recommend is to make good use of the 'open' hi hat pedal macro. move that dial from the open to closed position and note the 'nearly closed' sound. If you tap out a basic grooving 16 beat with some velocity as a drummer would then varying the 'open' macro as if it were foot pressure gives a lot better sound.

+1

[sowhoso]

i've tried it all and the absolute best way to get realistic drums is to simply buy midi grooves played by real drummers. why kill yourself (and time) trying to lay down a great groove if someone else has already done it for you

NI Studio Drummer, Steven Slate Drums, Toontrack, Groove Monkee all have great midi libraries. i tailor their grooves to my music and save myself hours and headaches

no one listening to my music can tell the drums are samples and midi

[Angstrom]

Well, that's certainly the quickest and easiest way.

I guess it depends if you actually enjoy making and editing drum tracks, if you don't then you probably should just buy them in. But for me it's like sculpting, I find it an enjoyable relaxing activity. I could just buy myself a good sculpture, but I'd never get one exactly as I imagined it, and I'd lose out on all the fun of the creation process.

As I said, if you don't enjoy doing that part - just buy it in. No need to struggle with stuff you hate.

Alternatively, and this is really controversial : hire or recruit a session drummer (drugs and booze) and tell him/her what sort of thing to play This is actually really gratifying. At the most basic you need a room, 4 mics (kick, snare top, snare bottom, overhead) and your copy of Live & an interface.

[sowhoso]

Studio Drummer has some cool features for manipulating midi files to get tons of variations. in fact, you can import any midi file to do this

check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RXJ0l9bvaA

[Forge.]

.. Groove Monkee ...

+1

And rumour has it someone i know very well from this forum made some excellent tutorial videos for them!

[Forge.]

BTW - that new Logic X drummer thing is really surprisingly good