Adding fills to existing AD2 drum track?

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Hi

I have a song with a basic addictive drums track on it, and there are parts that need a fill pasting in. If I just drop the fill onto that part of the track it doubles up and I get both drum sounds. How do I fit the fill in to replace what is below it?

 

Rich

[Sidney Earl Goodroe]

I always write my own tracks but I had the privilege of having access to a drum kit in a rehearsal space to learn how drum patterns are performed and I am a trained musician that reads and writes music. That being said, I have taught music students to use the patterns in a DAW to build their tracks. I found an easy way to audition fills that some would argue is too cumbersome but when you get used to it can be pretty quick!!!

I must say that using the track builder in Superior Drummer 3 has replaced this workflow and simplified it immensely!!

Here goes.

1-Create main groove track. This track only contains the bedrock groove of the song. You could just insert a one or two bar pattern and multiply it to fill as many bars as you want. Now, play the drum track and everywhere that a fill occurs, delete that measure! You could even go within that measure and just delete half the measure, a quarter of a measure, etc,, Just get rid of the spots where the fills will take place.

2-Now, create right underneath the bedrock groove track, another track that is used specifically for fills!! Make sure both drum tracks are assigned to AD2!!! Now you can search for fills and just drop the fills wherever you choose on the fill track!! You have the choice of using the full measure of the fill or cutting just the portion of the fill you want! Now audition what you have and decide what you want. If the fill is not what you're looking for, delete it and insert another until you find the magic one that trips your trigger!?

Repeat this process for the rest of the track. With some creative cutting and sliding things around you can get some really polished drum tracks that don't sound cobbled together.

When you write this process out it looks really complicated but it is not.

Now, after you have placed all your fills in the fill track and everything sounds seamless, simply click and drag the fills from their track up into the correct position in your bedrock track. Once you have merged the fills into the bedrock track, delete the empty fills track. If all has gone well you simply bounce to clips and you have one seamless drum performance!!!!

As I said before, this process looks complicated in writing but it is simple enough to perform and over time is pretty fast and efficient.

I hope this helps anyone out there!! I'm sure someone out there has a better way and hopefully they will chime in and I can learn another way to do this and pass that along to my friends!

I wish you luck, my friend.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Sidney Earl Goodroe

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Cheers I will give this a try. How do you find where to delete the fill part? Use piano roll or something? ( I am a novice!)

[razor7music]

I put drum rhythms in one MIDI take lane, and drum fills in a separate MIDI take lane in the same track. Easy to do, easy to edit.

[reginaldStjohn]

6 hours ago, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

Cheers I will give this a try. How do you find where to delete the fill part? Use piano roll or something? ( I am a novice!)

If I am understanding you you want to remove the existing drum hits that are located at the same time as the fill that you just inserted?  If that is the case then you can split the track in the track view and drag the edges to make room for the fill. You can also drag select the time range in the track you want to clear and hit delete. Another option is to go into the Piano Roll View (PVR) and manually select the midi notes and delete them thus making room for the fill.

I you drag the drum fill pattern onto an existing midi track it should create another "take lane" inside the track. you can then swipe the cursor across the drum fill in the expanded take lane and it will replace the existing midi with that of the fill.

[RICHARD HUTCHINS]

Thanks Guys, as usual very helpful, I'll try these methods out. Steep learning curve!

[Sidney Earl Goodroe]

Great tip on using take lanes for the fills! You could have several fills waiting to be auditioned in the same measure.

[Chez Jonesy]

Hi guys. I'm struggling figuring out how to hear the original TAKE LANE sound while recording the second TAKE LANE. For some reason, the main drum track does not play (muted) while I am trying to record the new take lane.

 

Any thoughts on how to fix this one?

 

[reginaldStjohn]

You have to change the recording mode to "sound on sound". The default is "replace".

 

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X3&language=3&help=Recording.11.html

[razor7music]

On 10/25/2019 at 1:14 PM, Chez Jonesy said:

Hi guys. I'm struggling figuring out how to hear the original TAKE LANE sound while recording the second TAKE LANE. For some reason, the main drum track does not play (muted) while I am trying to record the new take lane.

 

Any thoughts on how to fix this one?

 

This one puzzled me for a while too and I found out the solution in this forum. If you arm a particular take lane, when you start recording you won't hear anything playing from that track. If you want to hear the other take lane(s) play during recording a new take lane, just arm the track (not an individual take lane).

[Michael Warren]

On 10/24/2019 at 3:53 AM, RICHARD HUTCHINS said:

Hi

I have a song with a basic addictive drums track on it, and there are parts that need a fill pasting in. If I just drop the fill onto that part of the track it doubles up and I get both drum sounds. How do I fit the fill in to replace what is below it?

 

Rich

are you using Paste Special from edit menu. I believe fhere is the option to overwrite events in bar or selection you are copying to.

 

[craigr68]

On 10/28/2019 at 5:53 PM, razor7music said:

This one puzzled me for a while too and I found out the solution in this forum. If you arm a particular take lane, when you start recording you won't hear anything playing from that track. If you want to hear the other take lane(s) play during recording a new take lane, just arm the track (not an individual take lane).

I very much appreciate you posting this info because I was stumped by this problem.  I tried this and happy to see it works.  Was wondering if this is in the pdf manual anywhere and/or what the original post was.  Thanks.