How to ruin a drum track...

[Craig Anderton]

15 hours ago, msmcleod said:

I've definitely found this.

Something even more strange was when I started using the TC Helicon VoicePrism to add a small bit of rasp to my voice. After a while, I found I was doing the rasp myself even though I thought my voice was incapable of it.

Cool, it's not my imagination. Something even stranger is that I was never able to sing with vibrato for, well, decades. When DAWs came along, I started adding "faux" vibration with modulation. When I sang along with these tracks to do overdubs, I acquired the ability to do vibrato and now, it's a natural part of my singing.

I do recall a study once along the lines that people who thought about practicing piano gained almost as much proficiency as those who actually practiced it. Maybe these phenomena are related.

[Larry Jones]

On 5/12/2019 at 1:38 PM, Myriad Rocker said:

I'm on the search for a technique to use when programming drums that gives them feel and room to breathe.

I posted a question like yours on the old forum and got many great answers. Check out the thread. I'm sure you'll find something that helps.

[kennywtelejazz]

As far as I'm concerned John Bohnam is and was a One in Ten Million drummer .

Yeah,  I get how quantize can drain  the life out of  feel ...What about the opposite .

Why not  turn some of the crappy drum loops we all  have on our hard drives into better sounding loops by learning how to tempo map a player of John Bohnam ' s caliber .

BTW , I do understand that music has changed drastically   in the past 19 / 20 years .  Still if somebody wants to go old school and keep the feel of the groove , what is stopping them ?

 

Kenny

Edited May 17, 2019 by Kenny Wilson

[Craig Anderton]

20 hours ago, Kenny Wilson said:

Why not  turn some of the crappy drum loops we all  have on our hard drives into better sounding loops by learning how to tempo map a player of John Bohnam ' s caliber . 

I've written and lectured about this extensively. This is the basis for things like groove templates, but even something as simple as pushing the snare late by a few milliseconds gives more of a "Bonham"  feel. For dance music, I'll often push the high-hat ahead by just a little bit to lend urgency. 

[mettelus]

22 minutes ago, Craig Anderton said:

For dance music, I'll often push the high-hat ahead by just a little bit to lend urgency. 

Now I know why dance music makes me want to wet myself!

[kennywtelejazz]

On 5/16/2019 at 1:06 PM, Kenny Wilson said:

Why not  turn some of the crappy drum loops we all  have on our hard drives into better sounding loops by learning how to tempo map a player of John Bohnam ' s caliber .

 

 

10 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

I've written and lectured about this extensively. This is the basis for things like groove templates, but even something as simple as pushing the snare late by a few milliseconds gives more of a "Bonham"  feel. For dance music, I'll often push the high-hat ahead by just a little bit to lend urgency. 

Craig there is no doubt in my mind that you have written and lectured about this sort of topic extensively ..

I think  i  need to study harder .

thank you for taking the time to respond .

 

Kenny

[Notes_Norton]

My first instrument was drums. I added sax, bass, guitar, wind synth, flute, keys, and vocals (not in that order).

If I was playing some disco or EDM songs, I would want to quantize the drums.

But playing pop, rock, blues, country and most other forms of pop music, I want to keep the beat, but definitely not quantize. I play the drums live into my backing tracks and Band-in-a-Box aftermarket styles. That way I can get the feel right.

Quantizing is the opposite of the groove.

Sometimes the 2's and 4's need to be played behind the beat a bit, sometimes ahead. It depends on the style and the song. Sometimes the eighth or sixteenth notes need to be pushed or laid back a bit too. Again it depends.

Listen to some of my favorite drummers, (and Bonham is one of them) like Bernard Purdie or Hal Blaine. Two drummers with very contrasting styles, but almost never quantized.  Al Jackson Jr. played for many Stax cuts in it's prime and his rhythm was great, sounded simpler than it was, and always grooved - never quantized. Back in the jazz genre Buddy Rich swung those eighth notes using the proper delay for each song and always staying true to the song as did Gene Krupa and Max Roach. Steve Gadd another versatile drummer who even managed to inject a slight groove into disco tunes. I could go on and on with Cobham, Bruford, Blakey, Ginger Baker, DeJohnette, Morello, and on and on. None of these great players are known for quantizing, but they are all known for keeping the metronome steady as a rock when needed.

When recording, I don't quantize anything, drums, bass, keys, and so on. If I can't get it right, I just do it again. To me, quantizing and compression are the two tools that when overused suck the soul out of a recording. That's my opinion, fee free to disagree because when it comes to making music, there is more than one right way.

PS, excuse me for not playing the videos. ATT has phone line troubles due to the rain we had recently, and the DSL speed is such that they play about 2-10 seconds before buffering again.

Insights and incites by Notes

[Craig Anderton]

I'd also add it's not just about quantizing rhythm, but tempo. Tempo changes are crucial in helping a song breath. Check out this article for an analysis I did of tempo changes in a variety of songs, using CbB. The article also includes the "time traps" concept I wrote about in The Huge Book of Cakewalk by BandLab Tips, but applied to Studio One.

I also did a second article about "feel," and how to restore feel with timing shifts - it's basically an article about "un-quantizing" quantized parts.

[bitflipper]

Perhaps the most common mistake hobbyist composers routinely make: picking a tempo and stubbornly sticking to it for the whole song. Tempo changes are the easiest way to liven up a recording, especially if your base tracks are MIDI.

Something as simple as a subliminal increase of one or two BPM on the chorus will make your track more interesting, even if the listener doesn't know why.

[Craig Anderton]

8 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

Perhaps the most common mistake hobbyist composers routinely make: picking a tempo and stubbornly sticking to it for the whole song. Tempo changes are the easiest way to liven up a recording, especially if your base tracks are MIDI.

Something as simple as a subliminal increase of one or two BPM on the chorus will make your track more interesting, even if the listener doesn't know why.

And as I point out in the article, you can even do it after the fact. So you record to the click, have your signal processors sync, and all that good stuff. But then, add the final touches that belong more to the realm of mastering.

Sure, people could say "but the tempo changes should have been there from the beginning." But they're not - so you do the next best thing.

[Notes_Norton]

On 5/19/2019 at 1:32 PM, Craig Anderton said:

I'd also add it's not just about quantizing rhythm, but tempo. Tempo changes are crucial in helping a song breath.

Definitely.

When making a backing track for my duo, I often make subtle changes to tempo. Common variances are to speed up the B section a bit and/or speed up the end a bit -- but there are so many song specific changes that it would be impossible to list them all. Slowing the tempo of a section broadens it, rushing it adds excitement. 

Even with dance tracks, where the dancer isn't supposed to notice any tempo changes, subtle and gradual tempo changes are very useful to add energy to the tune.

Of course there is rubato, but I find that difficult for a backing track so I avoid that as much as possible.

My first instrument was drums, and through the years as a predominately sax playing multi-instrumentalist I have had the opportunity to work with some great drummers, and also the opportunity to sub on drums while the drummers played other instruments (like melodic percussion or the drummer in one band who played trumpet too).

The 'out of the grid' groove and the tempo changes are something a good drummer just does automatically. It feels right and in that way it is right. Most good drummers don't sit down and analyze things like 'I'm going to lay back the 2s and 4s' or 'I'm going to swing the 8th notes a bit', or 'I'm going to speed this part up a bit', they just feel it and do it without any thought.

Which brings me to a related subject (hopefully not to hijack the thread). Thinking is done in practice sessions. When it comes time to play the music for a recording or an audience, thinking can be your enemy. The best music is made with no thought involved. That includes the drum track.

Insights and incites by Notes

[kennywtelejazz]

On 5/19/2019 at 10:32 AM, Craig Anderton said:

I'd also add it's not just about quantizing rhythm, but tempo. Tempo changes are crucial in helping a song breath. Check out this article for an analysis I did of tempo changes in a variety of songs, using CbB. The article also includes the "time traps" concept I wrote about in The Huge Book of Cakewalk by BandLab Tips, but applied to Studio One.

I also did a second article about "feel," and how to restore feel with timing shifts - it's basically an article about "un-quantizing" quantized parts.

Excellent   tutorials   

I have glanced at all 3  ...I'm in the process  of still absorbing the first article .....

I noticed in the first article the tempo graph seems to fluctuate somewhat like a LFO sine wave  ...after closer inspection  it became clear to me that the whole tempo fluctuation graph was in a general range of approximately  10 BPM 's  per song .

Those are very subtle tempo shifts ,  No doubt , they contributed greatly to the songs feel.

Each song has just enough natural tempo changes  to keep the listeners brain and ears   engaged  through the song play ... 

You write  super  helpful articles Craig ,

thank you for posting your work  here in this thread ,

 

Kenny

[Craig Anderton]

You're very welcome No need for others to re-invent the wheel.

[Gswitz]

On 5/19/2019 at 9:39 PM, bitflipper said:

Perhaps the most common mistake hobbyist composers routinely make: picking a tempo and stubbornly sticking to it for the whole song.

when i practice, i move tempos up and down by arbitrary increments with each try. This helps me when i play with others.

At one point i practiced a bunch of bluegrass tunes at fixed tempos for months before trying them with others. I was unable to vary tempo at all.

 

[bitflipper]

That would be a useful technique when playing with some tempo-challenged drummers. A buddy of mine plays solo with a drum machine, and has done so for decades. He's done it so long and has developed such a strict sense of rhythmic consistency that he now finds it frustrating to play with a live drummer.

Fortunately, my band's drummer is rock-solid, tempo-wise. Unfortunately, once he decides on a particular tempo, there's no persuading him that it should be slower.