For any one out there who does or has had experience with or knowledge of.. or maybe have questions your selves..
Who here is programming/cut/paste/whatever drums in PT using what ever..
WHAT are you doing?

How are you doing it?

Anyone writing drums in GuitarPro and dropping thing into midi/PT?..

Anyone care to post tracks or vids that they've done drums on/for? post examples of your work?


and THANXXXXX! \m/

Not sure how helpfull this will be but i struggled with drum tracks for a long time. Tried almost everything under the sun, Superior drummer, loops, virtual drum machines...the way i see it, if you're just making backing tracks to jam to you could probably get away with using just loops (EZ drummer comes with various midi sections for intro, verse, chorus etc.)

BUT, if you need realistic drums for your own songs, there's really no easy way out, you have to get familiar with the basics of drumming and become a virtual drummer in a way. This is a good read for programming drums: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb98/articles/rythm.html

I don't have any videos on this but everything on my soundcloud page was done with keyboard playing or a korg pad kontrol and quantizing and editing details by hand. It' s a huge pain in the ass sometimes and a long process but eventually you will get better/faster at it.

What really helped me was analyzing drum parts from my favourite songs and then try to copy that in my own songs when i needed a similar drum part for my own ideas/riffs.

The way i do it is i simply play the kick and snare parts on the keyboard first and add hi hats and cymbals with the mouse. Fills can be tricky but practice makes perfect. It also helps to remind yourself that drummers only have two hands so if it sounds immpossible to play it probabaly is.

I really wish there was some kind of magic bullet for this cos it would save us all a lot of headache but i noticed that the only guys who are brilliant at this are/were drummers themselves and know what kind of a groove they're after when they start recording. I'm by no means an expert at programming drums but i've come a long way from sucking at it to getting some decent drums for the stuff that i do.

I haven't done much.. but I did my recordings using EZdrummer. Sometimes I would program a few kicks and snares and then work from there. Once I got something decent I'd copy and paste that section to fill out my verse/chorus/whatever. Not super realistic since the entire verse or whatever is more or less identical, but big deal.

If you want to get some more intricate drumming, take one of their loops. It's all midi so you can take that and move things around, add, delete, etc. It's way easier to start with something, than to start with nothing and add a million hits. I did all mine with my mouse.. no keyboard or anything. Pretty simple really.

Kevin,

I guess it depends upon what you want. Do you want to distribute the songs, like for a top 40 CD, backing tracks for instructional videos, or just to pass the idea on to a real drummer....cuzz after all drummers need all the help they can get. OK OK DON"T NOBODY get defensive here. My grandfather was big band era drummer.

Personally, in my studio I record and sell a lot of 45 second or less tunes of mostly original material. Loops can work well but sometimes getting just the right sound can be difficult.

Typically the canned midi beats EZdrummer, Superior, etc. aren't going to be what you want either.

I use Addictive Drums and I trigger them with an Alesis DM6 to "play" the software. Usually that is all I need, but if I want a truly good rhythm performance I have our band's drummer perform on the E Drum.

Now, programming the drums in like is being suggested is a very good way if you don't have edrums.

Just be sure to use midi merge mode in protools when you do, and only program one or two bars at the most at one time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWhx4BVXDTE How to use midi merge.

You can look at Groove Monkee and see if there is something there that may be close and edit the midi file in pro tools as well. http://www.groovemonkee.com/en/

Hope that helps some

I really appreciate the info and advice guys.. KEEP IT COMING!

A quick back ground.. I never had a guitar lesson in my life but I studied classical piano from age 6 and percussion from age 12 through college.. my instrument major in college was percussion.. I understand drumming and how to read/write rhythms, etc.. its the actual making/programming part ... the midi part..etc..

what I'm doing is composing drums for things on my cd/in my writing that my drummer can't do, etc.. this is MY music to get out to folks.. I'm also shopping outside drummers.. its just getting to the other studio across town where the kit is mic'd up is a huge pain in the keister and they just won't put any extra hours into a day no matter how much I bitch that 24 ain't enough.. and.. well you get the picture.. on top of teaching/writing/playing full time and three kids.. I'm neck deep in this.. but gotta get the drums the way I hear them in my head.. its gotta be right.

Understood.

I HAVE written drums in Guitar Pro 6, but to ME that is a real PITA.

I MUCH prefer sibelius first 7 notation software, about $90. You can write your percussion with a mouse or use you keyboard (just as you can in Guitar Pro) but the work flow in Sibelius for me is better.

believe it or not but one can get pretty good results with the loops provided when you get pro tools. If you are clever with trimming and editing clips, using fills you can make I think There some youtube vids. on this type of thing.

saxon j
https://soundcloud.com/saxon-j

Thanks sax. Gonna scoot over and check out your soundcloud..

Bob.. I agree with writing in Guitar Pro.. complete PITA.. I'll check out that Sibelius.. I had one of their older version of the notation thing and I didn't get along with it.. I think it was Guitar Tracks or something similar.. but this was so long ago that PowerTab was still being updated..lol..

WOW that was a long time ago! good luck.

I agree completely. The loops that came with Pro Tools are very good, I just wish there were more fills included. For that reason, I am a big user of, and give a big recommendation to Smartloops.

For some of the guys here that do a lot of technical metal stuff, this is probably not the best nor easiest route, but for more straight ahead and pop type material, I find loops to be just as good (if not better) than real drums. And we certainly hear them on big hits all the time.

After buying quite a few of their smaller loop sets, about a year ago I went ahead and bought their Pro Drum Works, which is a complete set of numerous beats recorded on three different sets each (acoustic, trap, and bombastic rock). It's been the best investment as far as drums go I've ever made.

I remember a while back you posted a song you were working on that had a King's X kinda vibe, and for that sort of material, loops should be great.

Edit: here's the link if you want to check them out: www.smartloops.com