Laying down drums/kits properly, creatively

[lunitunez]

hey so I was just wondering how everyone handles their drums, what i do is keep my synth bass on one midi track, kick and snare on another, and then hi-hats etc all on seperate midi tracks, I used to grid quantize my drums at 80% usually @ 1/16 or 1/8 so they dont sound robotic, but now ill record my drums @ 100% grid quantize, and then maybe do like 20%-40% shuffle quantize on the kick and snare. I dont know if doing the 100% grid, and then 20%-40% shuffle is a waste of time or not, my thinking is get the drums perfectly lined up, and then shuffle them, but I dont know if shuffle already does that.

Also what works well for me is layering, maybe like a clap and snare, or a kick and hi-hat etc. to make the sound fuller. Same goes for when Im doing like a brass section, to make it sound fuller ill do like a high pitch brass, and then ill move down an octave or two, and play the exact same notes to make it sound fuller. like its a whole band section. What does everyone else do I need to learn new methods? Im using a fantom g6, and a mv-8800. ive stuck with Roland, my first machine was a mc-505 groovebox

[manishkurup]

Hey Lunitunez,

Sounds like you're doing pretty much standard stuff. I do sort of the same - except - I split instrumentalists on tracks - so if we're doing a show with a conga player and a tabla, I put those 2 on separate tracks, so I can either mute those tracks for the show, or lower the volume sufficiently so that it gives this really filled out effect when the instrumentalists in question are playing.

With regards to the 'robotic sounding stuff' - I have heard people saying that drums sound robotic - IMHO - my drums are quantized perfectly to 16th's or 32nds - I have little use for shuffle rhythms - since I plan my rhythms taking into account the time signatures they fit into. None of the rhythms I have done for performances in the past have sounded artificial/robotic to me - probably because I iontorduce variations in the patterns rather than leave it to the machine to shuffle compensate.

So unless someone can post a 'robotic - quantized' vs a free-time (or shuffled) audio example, and explain why it sounds bad - I dont really believe in this whole 'perfectly quantized is bad' view. I have taken pretty weird rhythms, analyzed them, and perfectly quantized them - with no audible bad effects .

IMHO 460 TPQN should be good enough to handle any resolution possible, with any timing, perfectly quantized.

Manish.

[lunitunez]

right on kurup, i have to work on my variations as you suggested so my compositions dont sound repetative thanks for your insight