How do you make a drum machine recording sound more natural?

Cmc29

What ways are there to make a drum machine recording sound less fake? I like to use a bit of reverb but are there other ways to get a more natural sounding drum track? Any ideas or tips would be great. Cheers everyone

dav nagle

Cmc29 wrote: »

What ways are there to make a drum machine recording sound less fake? I like to use a bit of reverb but are there other ways to get a more natural sounding drum track? Any ideas or tips would be great. Cheers everyone

As we both know a drum machine will never sound like the real thing but when I started recording my demos' I used a zoom drum machine, now I use BFD 2. So if you a very close simulation of real drums check out BFD 2, it is the best drum emulator in the world.

Now lets say you are happy with your drum machine than here are a few tips:

1. Drum machines often sound very low in the frequency range so stick an EQ on the drum track you are working at and boost the high frequencies. Boosting the high frequency will make the drum sound more lively, sharp and clear.

2. Use a compressor on the drum track to make the drums pump out of the stereo speakers.

3. Try working with pan on the drum machine, try panning the drums real wide if you are going for a big rock sound.

4. Change and vary the beats allot

Best of luck

condra

Play the drums rather than paint them in. Dont over-quantize them.
Use more, and longer looops.
A bit of swing usually works a treat.
Vary the velocity, especially on hats.
Use automation.

Anima

Instead of boosting frequencies, you could try layering a sample which already has the frequency content you're looking for. It'll sound better. Also velocity is very important, especially on hi hats.

dav nagle

Cmc29 wrote: »

What ways are there to make a drum machine recording sound less fake? I like to use a bit of reverb but are there other ways to get a more natural sounding drum track? Any ideas or tips would be great. Cheers everyone

When you mentioned a drum machine I am guessing it doesn't have a simple velocity interface, more detail about your drum machine might help us all.

QuadLeo

womoma wrote: »

Play the drums rather than paint them in. Dont over-quantize them.


Vary the velocity, especially on hats.
Use automation.

I agree. Don't over quantize. And I find the best method of giving a machine a more realistic feel is to vary the velocity. If you're programming using MIDI in Pro Tools there is a tool to vary the velocity randomly. Other sequencers probably have this function too.
The slight difference in volume between each strike gives a more realistic sound to the kit especially when paired with a less rigid quantization.


PS. Never use MIDI notes snapped to a grid. It sounds way too perfect to be real.

unclebill98

Reverb.
Don't have all the samples sound exactly the same. Vary snare sound.
Don't over quantize.
I'd not eq it too much if at all. Except Kick. Most of the samples are cleaned up so they should not need any.

Use Hyper samples as found on Reason's Drum Fill Patch. I am sure other software has the same thing. This is a great way of getting that real sound, I was very impressed by it when i first heard it.

af_thefragile

You'll hafta layer the drum tracks.
Its best if you give a seperate channel for every drum component. LIke one channel to the kick, one to the snare, one to the hi-hats etc.
You'll end up with like almost 10 channels for drums alone but you'll be able to do a lot more with your drums that way.

You'll hafta layer your kicks/snares with different sounds of the kicks and snares. Like add a good mix of a clicky kick and a boomy kick and a good mix of the snare stick and rattle. Same goes for hi-hats. If you're going for a dance/techno sound then you can later your kick with a sub bass and boost the frequencies at 63hz. It'll give your kick the punch and boominess.

Then you'll hatfa play with the dynamics. Add reverb to the snare, hi-hats, cymbals etc. EQ them as you'ld like them to sound. Pan them all properly to give the drums some stereo depth and width. Compress the Kick so it can pump out. But don't compress the whole drums or you'll lose many dynamic features (unless you're looking for dance/techno then compressing the whole drum track will increase its power). Mess around with the velocity for the snare,hi-hat and kick over the track. I won't say quantize the track to a swing. If you wanna do that, just do it for the hi-hats. Or else your might have slight problems to record all the other instruments with the groove too. And you can get away without quantizing the drums if you can work your velocities properly.

Basically you'll hafta treat the drum machine as a rigid but badly recorded drums (unless you've got really good quality samples) and just work with them as you'ld mix a normal drum track.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

just dont program it as if the drummer has 4 legs and 6 arms , unless you are going for this effect - this is the biggest mistake i hear in programmed drum tracks by non drummers , keep it simple and groovy .

PaulBrewer

DaDumTish wrote: »

just dont program it as if the drummer has 4 legs and 6 arms , unless you are going for this effect - this is the biggest mistake i hear in programmed drum tracks by non drummers , keep it simple and groovy .

+1

studiorat

Looped Hi Hats. Reason's full of them. I find them very useful. And just keep it simple.