Help me breath life into this drum sequence

Hey guys, I'm working on this track. I want to have some nice heavy snare patterns on this part. As you can hear, the drums sound stiff and robotic. I'm wanting to give them flavor and make the rolls sound more realistic and higher quality. Any technical advice that you guys could give me would really be appreciated. The track is a WIP so eq and stuff of that nature aren't perfect right now.

https://soundcloud.com/imttmi/liseurgic-v2

Mod do you mind fixing the misspelled breathe in the title. Thanks.

use a real snare sample, particularly one that's been hit hard enough to resonate a bit, let them fall behind the beat a bit for a heavier feeling, add some accents to make the beat more dynamic - also change up the rhythm a little maybe instead of the 1 - 2222 1,2222 pattern maybe some kind of 1a2222 2 2 2 2 1-1-1-1 22 stuff (just imagine the drum line in your head then figure out where to put the hits - but keep coming back to the original pattern if you see what I mean, just play around it a bit) - also maybe variations in envelope, even slightly off beat could help

definately changes in the velocity/accents though, to emphasise the bounce of the beat

filter out some of the deep bass from the snare, some people say enhance the fundamental frequencies - personally not sure if that works, also, maybe sidechain compression on everything that's not the snare so it stands out?

another thought - use two different snares or a snare and a noisy tom at a lower level to enhance the spaces between hits or layer a couple of snares with slightly different patterns for more dynamics

I think what would make the beat more lively also is hard short deep thumpy kicks and a hihat pattern

Thanks for the advice.

I think the beat could use some more variation

I have made adjustments to the accents, but I haven't altered the velocity. I tried doing velocity changes on another track and I wasn't really pleased with the results. I'm thinking either it needs to be very precise and not altered that much to sound natural or a real break needs to be used to make it sound more authentic.

The snare is already setup to trigger two snare samples when it hits. I could make some changes to it so that there is some more color. I'm almost always added multiple snares or double tracking things so that there are 4,6,8, oscillators to give things more personality and depth.

I also need to eq the drums as well and get that kick out in front a bit and maybe very the pattern.

i think the most important thing is using a harder snare sample, I know people hate the amen break but that snare for example gives tons of movement (not saying you should use that one)

normally with velocity I do hits between half and whole but depending on how it sounds in the mix - for example a ghost note I do at about half the velocity of a regular hit - sometimes I put rolls from whole to half or vice versa

  On 7/2/2014 at 9:09 PM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Hey guys, I'm working on this track. I want to have some nice heavy snare patterns on this part. As you can hear, the drums sound stiff and robotic. I'm wanting to give them flavor and make the rolls sound more realistic and higher quality. Any technical advice that you guys could give me would really be appreciated. The track is a WIP so eq and stuff of that nature aren't perfect right now.

 

https://soundcloud.com/imttmi/liseurgic-v2

Dude- this is pretty fucking good.

As for breathing life into this track-- personally, I would leave everything as-is. EXCEPT-- okay. EXCEPT--- the pop snare ting. Not the machine gun snare. I think the mechanical machine gun rolling snare ting- and its mechanical nature- is charming. The pop snare, though-- if you adjust some of those to slightly later (like 1/80th of a beat forward), it would help with an organic flow. Then that organic flow would interact with the machine gun snares, and the rolls wouldn't sound as mechanical either.

In a general sense- if you want "more life" in your drums- make solid decisions on what to quantize and what to keep slightly off grid. As a random example: Luke Vibert has mad snapping snares+claps and phunq, but it's not only cuz EQ-- a lot is putting shit off grid, having chhs off grid to shuffle, etc.

Hard-electronic-sounds can be made organic by fucking with the grid. Playing with velocity makes it sound more human. Using real drum samples, fucking with grid and velocity can lead to human-playing-drums results.

Moar EQ, Panning and Reverb.

The drums sound quite flat even though you've obviously done quite a bit to make the velocity pop.

Make dem pop, yo. What are you running on your drum bus/individual outs? I feel like with compression, new snare sample, some EQ and light reverb once you get the compression down on the mix

  On 7/5/2014 at 10:00 PM, peace 7 said:

 

  On 7/2/2014 at 9:09 PM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Hey guys, I'm working on this track. I want to have some nice heavy snare patterns on this part. As you can hear, the drums sound stiff and robotic. I'm wanting to give them flavor and make the rolls sound more realistic and higher quality. Any technical advice that you guys could give me would really be appreciated. The track is a WIP so eq and stuff of that nature aren't perfect right now.

 

https://soundcloud.com/imttmi/liseurgic-v2

Dude- this is pretty fucking good.

 

As for breathing life into this track-- personally, I would leave everything as-is. EXCEPT-- okay. EXCEPT--- the pop snare ting. Not the machine gun snare. I think the mechanical machine gun rolling snare ting- and its mechanical nature- is charming. The pop snare, though-- if you adjust some of those to slightly later (like 1/80th of a beat forward), it would help with an organic flow. Then that organic flow would interact with the machine gun snares, and the rolls wouldn't sound as mechanical either.

 

In a general sense- if you want "more life" in your drums- make solid decisions on what to quantize and what to keep slightly off grid. As a random example: Luke Vibert has mad snapping snares+claps and phunq, but it's not only cuz EQ-- a lot is putting shit off grid, having chhs off grid to shuffle, etc.

 

Hard-electronic-sounds can be made organic by fucking with the grid. Playing with velocity makes it sound more human. Using real drum samples, fucking with grid and velocity can lead to human-playing-drums results.

 

Thanks for the awesome compliment man. I uploaded a longer version of the WIP if you want to check it out.

https://soundcloud.com/imttmi/liseurgic-v2-wip-ext

Everyone else, thanks for the advice. I will consider all of it as I work on completing this track. You've all been very helpful. The track definitely needs a lot of work, but I have a lot insight now.

The grid, man, the grid 8)

But no really, everything everybody said + I think there are too many snares. They are just rolling uncontrolled and the drum track doesn't breath this way. Even if you put them off grid there would still be too many - lose some of them, especially those which are on the top of kicks. It should flow nicer then.

Cool melody btw

could you maybe sweep the velocity up on a few of the rolls to give them a bit more umph! but yeah like all the other posts, just add a few different velocities. a few different timings to the rolls too otherewise sounding good man :)

  On 7/8/2014 at 10:02 AM, Dpek said:

The grid, man, the grid 8)

 

But no really, everything everybody said + I think there are too many snares. They are just rolling uncontrolled and the drum track doesn't breath this way. Even if you put them off grid there would still be too many - lose some of them, especially those which are on the top of kicks. It should flow nicer then.

 

Cool melody btw

  On 7/8/2014 at 10:11 AM, BIOXLAT said:

could you maybe sweep the velocity up on a few of the rolls to give them a bit more umph! but yeah like all the other posts, just add a few different velocities. a few different timings to the rolls too otherewise sounding good man :)

Thanks guys. I'll post the finished product for everyone when it's done.