I did about 4 songs with programmed drums and I knew that from the get go. I was like 'ok I COULD make this beat sound really crazy etc' but since I used to drum a bit way back when I was also aware of the 4 limbs of a drummer and so I made beats that a REAL DRUMMER COULD totally play and funnily enough all the beats sound good even if they don't sound like a real drummer (due to sound sample quality) etc.
@Sherpa Cast LOL! That happens to everyone first time programming drums. Luckily when I got my first drum machine, a friend who is a drummer set me straight.
Been there, done that. xD Now all we need to do is teach our drummers that our guitarists don't have 50 fingers and can't play 32nd sweep patterns at 260 bpm.
That's why I went and bought a used kit. After using Superior Drummer 2 for years, I've never got results that sound real, even messing with timing and velocity. I think the combination of clean recordings and grid-based programming is what holds it back. Since I've been practicing on a real kit, I've noticed that where I hit on the snare drastically affects the overtones, which is very useful when switching from fast and slow rhythms, and that wasn't a feature on SD2. Also, tuning the kit is something that changes the sound a lot, too. SD2 only had some pitch shifting, but not actually tuning between batter and resonant head. Downsides for real drums... I can't play as fast as the program. However, I can use this as an upside by allowing my limitations to guide the writing process, which is how everyone used to do it back in the day, anyway.
I try to make my free drum plugin like a real drummer by having it miss rehearsal for lame reasons, having a pizza delivered in the middle of tracking, letting groupies in to watch, and having to remind it how a song starts.
As an alternative, you could get an electronic drum kit and use that to trigger the drums via midi. All the convenience and sound quality of midi drums with more of the touch and feel of a real drummer.
i use the pads on a little midi controller to do mine to a click. the click is just for me as i tap the notes into the velocity sensitive pads. after that, i turn the click off. otherwise sometimes i just play a scratch guitar track and tap the drums to that without a click.
hell must have turned over...kinda glad seeing glen seeing the pro's and cons...we don't have expensive kits...mics...even sound treated rooms for drums..so for those that do have em..please use em.
Lol if you dont have a drummer or its a lack of gear, samples and especially programming are definitely okay. But if you have a drummer and adequate gear..well then you have a bassist with drumsticks and need to find a drummer.
@@SpectreSoundStudios to be fair, samlped drums were about a decade old before you started screaming about it Glenn.... and lets face it... you only have to punch the rhythm in to a computer once!. i'm pretty sure there's a t-shirt in that statement somewhere
@@SpectreSoundStudios Why not just tap them in yourself with your fingers? If only I could get the same dynamics of the live performances I do on the table. I seem to be able to convincingly make most of the sounds. If there was only a way to translate them. Any suggestions? Changing the subject, the drums on my Boss Dr. 880 sounds much better than what your buddy is playing on his computer. Then again maybe it has a lot to do with what your doing with them. If the performance is good enough it can cover a multitude of computer transgressions.
Kudos to, Glenn, on recognizing the benefits of using drum programming within modern production. I am a drummer and came from a similar background as Henning from back in the day using a four track tape recorder. We just didn’t have the resources to produce live drums. Over the years, as production equipment has become more affordable and accessible, I’ve been able to get the gear needed to record live drums. But learning over the years how to program a less perfect/ less robotic programmed performance has came in handy when I haven’t been able to mic a kit and record due to a busy schedule. Thanks for this video!
Superior Drummer 3 has a really neat feature where you can replace a live drum track with a MIDI sampled track. It’s not something I’d do for a record, but when we bring our PA (also a 16 channel interface) for a show and have everything mic’d up but the setup was rushed or the mic placement never got dialed in, that’s a great fall back for recording live shows! It even picks up on velocities pretty well!
Yesss. Let them know. Programmed drums aren't bad, the person programming them just needs to know what real drums (played by a human drummer) sound like and WHY they sound that way.
I had to teach myself all of this over the course of 5 or 6 years, it does help that I am a self-taught drummer which helps me understand what I can and can't put together as a drum track within my program of choice (that being SD2). But I am glad to see that the most studious German music production youtuber that I know made a course so that y'all can do all the learning in one place and not have to scour the depths of the internet for "professionals" on the topic.
I program my drums but I've used a 16 pad controller to "play" the drums along with the track so the timing and velocities are a little more natural than pointing and clicking on the grid. Now I use an electronic kit that is mapped to my drum VST so I play a "real" kit but I have the ability to mix/process each drum individually and since I'm a guitar/bass player, I can fix my poor drum issues. I have an acoustic kit, one day I'm going to aim for a better room (space and treatment) and some mics and do the real thing but it works for now!
Remember: This is super in depth technical and theory based stuff. You'll definitely get something out of it but overall you just need to understand some of the tweky stuff and use your ears from there. There's obviously some subtle things to know and such but overall it gets to a point in here where it's a tad overwhelming. Remember, the music matters more than perfection. But what is perfect for one isn't the same for another.
Just bought Henning’s course this week. Pretty amazing in-depth coverage that isn’t afraid to name names when it comes to the software. Pretty refreshing. Only just getting into it and I’m already learning stuff I didn’t even know I needed to know about. Best bucks I’ve spent in ages. Knowledge is power. the
Hi Glenn! In lack of an acoustic drum kit, I’ve been experimenting with superior drummer 3. It’s quiet a job to program and humanize the track. And as you can set up a plain, clean kit in SD 3. I’ve done so just so I can mix it as an acoustic recording. It’s not the same result but It gives me training to mix. It’s pretty fun to do. And it does not sound like an over compressed R2D2 like most of the pre mixed presets in SD3.
I'm on a very tight budget and I'm still learning All I have is Ezdrummer. However taking what I could from this video I changed up the velocity and the tempo here and there added and removed some drum notes and even though I can't quite make it feel totally human the variability does help make it sound a little bit better and organic. Thanks much!
As a guitarist who just wants to work out ideas it's definetely easier and more comfortable than doing this with real drums. But my little creations aren't going to be heard by many people. I just like hearing my ideas on the guitar with some drums. That is really fun to do and can't recommend this enough. Also helps with your timing on the guitar. You really have to play tight. However I think if I ever wanted to record like an EP or album I think I would definetely record with real drums. Anyway great course I am sure and like Henning said there isn't that much out there that teaches you how to do it properly.
Picked this up and as someone who has zero clue on the nuances of drumming, I am glad I did. Henning talking about the thought process of programming but also having an actual drummer to show you some of the nuances of the concepts and how they differ from programming is a great feature. I know Glenn hates programmed drums, but I think this course is beneficial in helping teach/refresh approaching rhythm to everyone who buys it as well. You learn more than just "programming". Definitely recommend to those who have spent years on another instrument but never have taken the "dive" into the drum world in any way.
@@podd1984 I think James is a pretty solid singer. But there's a video of Bob Rock talking about auto tune on TH-cam somewhere where he speaks of the methods back in the pure analog tape days that studios were using for years prior there being software autotune versions. Also the black album injustice and most of the metallica albums relied heavily on tape edits for the perfect drum performance. I saw a video somewhere of them using pro tools and lars after a performance take was telling the engineer where he wanted his kicks placed. So yeah a lot of edits happen on metallica records, from back In the day until now. Uncertain about the kill 'em all days though that sounds pretty raw and and there's a lot of out of tune guitar bends in solos on that record, so that was probably one of the only albums they did cut raw. But I could very well be wrong.
I can proudly say one of my few strengths is drum programming. I never understand why others that do it are so lazy with it. Timing, dynamics, ghosting, different styles of hihat etc etc. One thing I am improving on is the snare sound which I've been learning from listening to Glenn's mixes. Also programming mistakes into the drums makes a huge difference.
I have to be honest - I have not even finished the first videon in the course and what I learned helped me drastically improve the drums on a song I'm currently working on.. good stuff.
Yessss, a newww video!! As the soundguy and producer of my band, I was really looking forward to this video! My drummer wants to try some samples on his drums, so I'm gonna binchwatch your channel again the upcomming weeks! Keep up the good work Glenn! Greetings from The Netherlands!
I mean he has a degree from Berklee for arranging and sound design - I'd LOVE to see a course on each of those subjects! There is NOTHING on Post Prod sound design for Metal. Either way - totally getting this course :)
Bought the course and started this weekend. Blown away by the depth, and I'm still in the section that's discussing different drum plug-ins and routing.
It's interesting to see how many ways drum programming can be handled. I use a pretty unremarkable method--piano rolling a large bank of a free sample set (around 80 or so samples) so that every single instrument has multiple velocities. This makes snare rolls and rides in particular sound natural. They sound punchy because I route them to both a dry bus and a compression bus, and carefully EQ each drum channel so the frequencies don't interfere with each other too much. You can use samples from years ago and still have them sound good if you take time to mix and master with care.
I provided some drum tracks for a mate of mine. He had some great drum software (BFD or something), so I played my e-kit and sent him the MIDI file, so he could use the software to play around with the drum sounds he wanted. I did a little swingy thing on the hi-hat. Sounded cool. When I got the audio back it was shite. The hi-hat sounded like it was stuttering. When I spoke to him about it, I found out he'd quantised everything but didn't realise that there were different setting for the beat values or degree of swing. Therefore my cool little swingy 16th note hi-hat groove was flattened out by 8th note straight beat quantisation. DOH!
I love recording and mixing real drums. But it's extremely difficult and I'm not satisfied with my results yet, but refining my process is part of the fun! But programmed drums are awesome. I can just sit at home and do some great sounding demos and what not. It helps that I play the drums as well and so I know what a realistic drum track is supposed to sound like.
I love HENNING ! If you like deep dive reviews . Henning RULES !! I can only imagine this course hits everything you will ever need to know in programmed drums. He don't halfass.
My favorite middle ground has been buying an electronic drum kit with mesh heads and playing live with my drummer while recording. The dynamics and timing was captured in MIDI and I didn't have to quantize because he can play to a click. The difference realistic dynamics can make on most drum software is incredible. It's the reason those included midi grooves always sound much better than standard clicked in material. I personally find the process of making clicked in drums sound dynamic and realistic too tedious.
Great Job! Also I think Hell just froze over. Truth I was fooled by Frogleaps recordings and thought it was some of the best "real " sounding drums I've ever heard. Well that dude Leo spends time programming nuances. It makes a difference.
"Truth I was fooled by Frogleaps recordings and thought it was some of the best "real " sounding drums I've ever heard." what is on camera, and what is actually happening are two very different things No disrepect to Leo, he's amazing at what he does. Would love to record him on the kit for real one day!
@@SpectreSoundStudios It would be also cool to talk samples with him, he did have some tutorial videos, explaining that he never locks anything to the grid, and he explained that he definitely doesn't "127" everything. Maybe you heard some differences in the past, but also maybe he's much improved. However those video "tutorials" are older now, and he seemed pretty adamant on making the beat sound as human and as "natural" as possible by manipulating the velocities. I really do hope you get him on the show to drum and also talk about his programming methods as well. I know you did the fake drum challenge last summer. How about a new fake drum challenge, Can you do better with a mouse click programming than a real drummer challenge. "No e kits" a loud. Acoustic V.S. R2D2. Who has the best mouse clicking skills. etc... Cheers! ...and get Leo on the Show for Realz!
The most important things I learned using samples (for rock/ metal at least): 1. Put some effort into it. Especially premix. Spend some time in the program HUD making each drum sound right. Adjust mics, set drum ring length. Use some hours doing that right the first time and than save it. 2. Think how a drummer would play it. Drummers have dominate hands and feet. They generally don't hit a drum as hard with both hands. Drum rolls, snare rolls and high hat rolls are intentionally not all the same velocity. 3. Use your ears. If it sounds wrong, there is a way to make it sound right.
Hopefully this will help fix the fake drum crisis we find ourselves in today. I Do stuff on hard mode with real drums so maybe not my cup of tea but I can see this video being very helpful to the programmers.
Cool to see he covers blast beats. By far the hardest thing to make sound realistic. What’s the thoughts on drummers triggering stuff in a live setting though? There’s some pretty high profile drummers that trigger both their snare and kick live.
Kudos Glenn. You could've just stuck with your viewpoint, but you have applied your own rules to yourself with the pragmatism about programmed drums. And done so publicly. Respect dude.
I’ve been doing a cover song series on my channel, and since i started doing it, it’s changed the way i program drums. I try to emulate the original drums, and in doing so, you learn to pull back, and work on the relationship between reality and computer based drumming. It’s a lot like learning a song on guitar by ear, the way it used to be done....
I am the drummer in our band and I use the Behringer UMC404HD for drum recording. For that, I need a guitarist who plays with me but is not being recorded. When the recording is finished, I go home and program midi drums, beat by beat and do not add any cool fill ins or anything. Then everyone in the band gets their own copy of the midi drums which they insert into their DAW and practice guitar, bass and / or vocals at home.
When you're a Toontrack user (either EZDrummer or Superior Drummer) it comes with midi recorded by pro's. And there even more genre specific midi for sale, so there's actually no need for bad drumprogramming! Oh, and the midi is easily adjustable too.
but you are adjusting a performance... that isn't creating something specifically for YOUR music. What if you hear a drum part in your head that you want for your song... using MIDI grooves is cool, but definitely a compromise.
@@EytschPi42 Only if you're a drummer, right? And who else has got the chance to say that you have drums played by Gene Hoglan, Dirk Verbeuren or Nick Barker (to name a few) on your tracks. For me, it's easy. I am a drummer, I have an e-kit and I can create whatever I need when it comes to drums. I think a lot of people take the whole DIY a bit to far... In the end it's the music that counts, right?
I just learned how to use dynamic split in Reaper to use samples in unison with my performance, that was recorded without a lot of punch. It's helped me get the sound I needed without sacrificing the performance I have also been using Addictive Drum with my TD25kvx, and that has been great for capturing the human elements. As long as you don't pin the trigger sensitivity.
As someone with no real access to a drum kit or drummer, I've been going obsessively nutty with the mixing of my sampled drums. I've also been dissatisfied with my lack of knowledge when it comes to the nuances of drum playing and replicating that in a non-shitty way. So I might check this course out. Reminds me of when I moved from sampled guitar and bass to playing real instruments. The former requires a technical composer's view, but the latter works better with an intuitive approach.
Out of necessity I use programmed drums (Superior Drummer 3). Luckily my best friend is a drummer with an electric kit. So I just get him to play drums, recorded as MIDI, and have him send me the file. Or in a pinch I'll play from a keyboard. Not quite as good, but still more realistic that clicking and dragging notes on a grid.
I have needed a course like this for a while. As a guitarist, I have song ideas that just don't fit with the drum midis that you can buy for Superior Drummer 3. Most of the time the preprogramed Toontrack midi grooves work fine for very straight forward songs. But if you have a very syncopated rhythm to your song or very specific accents, you have to alter your songs to fit the midi grooves, which completely changes the intended feel of the song. And I am completely a beginner to getting into the midi editor in Cubase or SD3-- every time I try to edit the drum midi it becomes a train wreck in record time....lol. I would love to have a real drummer to work with again and be in a commercial studio facility, but until this pandemic gets sorted, that is on hold. And I need to get back to writing and recording, so that means I need to master working with programming realistic drum parts myself. This course is exactly what I have been looking for. Thanks, Glenn and Henning!
I'm both an engineer and drummer and Glenn is 100% correct in his aversion to programmed parts. I think something that doesn't get brought up enough is the fact that drum samples are simply recordings of real drums, with all the mic placement, EQ, compression and panning baked into them that makes a real drum recording sound good. So just learn how to record real drums!!
Something I definitely need to do more of is basically what Misha suggested by making a habit of transcribing drum parts using the same attention to detail and precision that I exhibit when transcribing guitar parts! I already know how much my programming chops would exponentially improve if I were to commit to transcribing & programming drums that I hear from scratch!
As a "virtual instruments producer" and drummer, I can say: Everything Henning said is right. I analyse my own drum tracks and search for "WHAT MAKES THEM REAL", so I can program my drumtracks in a realistic way. Henning covered all of the points I already know and much more. Thanks for that! btw, I do "VSTI covers" in my YT channel, and I'd appreciate you taking a little time to check 'em out!
Nice intro song! Fun fact, a few years back we would quantize drums for hours, sometimes days to make everything as tight as possible. Nowadays it's almost like the exactly opposite ! I'm glad people are pursuing some sort of "more organic realistic natural" sound.
Killer, thanks for letting us know about this corse Glenn. I find Henning a great teacher and it just so happens I'm working on programming drums myself. I'll take all the help I can get to get them to not sound so robotic . I'm sure because it's from thomman the price is great too ,all that knowledge for a hundred bucks sounds like a steal
As a solo rock live performer using a looper , I can cover vocals, guitar,and bass. Drums are the final frontier. My choices are limited to different foot actuated drum machines.Having played with some of The best drummers around, it's painful to use a machine in my live solo perfotmances. I like loud drums,but with a machine i turn it down
this is cool, I had to actually play drums, and play in a band with a drummer before I understood how a drummer actually plays. I tend to use the humanize button and work from there. usually about 15%- 20% velocity and 3%-5% timing then work from there, it gets me in the neighborhood so I can minimize the amount of screwing around.
I still don't have the means to record a real drummer, just got an 8 input interface and still saving up for the mics. This seems useful since my drummer prefers going out with a girl we've all told him is crazy and not good for him over spending the afternoon with me telling me how he plays our song so I program the drums properly. I can't afford this course right now but be sure I'll get it eventually.
Geez. Props to Henning for putting this all together into something for us plebs to understand. Even the good drummers do shit they don't realize they are doing.
my programmed drums are unique, as it is me playing the cajon, then splitting it up like a drum set, then eqing it to make it sound closer to a real drum set, then time aligning it manually (I don't know how to play the cajon, so I need to time align it).
I used two different Boss Dr Rhythm drum machines during my Tascam Porta One 4-Track and Tascam 688 MIDI 8-Track days..... you really have to think like a drummer when programming drums... can’t have the high hat going and hit two crash cymbals at the same time.... I used to air drum when programming..... lol....
Just finger drum the beat in a midi keyboard. Its all about having a good midi part. No need to mess with velocities if you get them right while finger druming.
I think more expressive electronic drums could be made from old speakers with 3d printed mounts with skins. Perhaps a little foam between skin and cone. The kick drum might be interesting with a speaker as microphone
It's funny you raise the 127 topic. I'm just getting into programming drums with GrooAgent, and there's a special universal slider for "how loud do you want it". And of course, at 127 it sounds the juiciest, the punchiest, etc. (and, unlike a topped off midi track it still maintains some nuance) So i thought, why not bring it down all the way to the middle - for loud parts, and even lower for soft parts? I'll get so much variety in sound that way, and as for punchiness, i can somehow re-tweak it using compressors, envelope shapers etc.
if Im doing Midi Drums, I always keep my downbeat and off beat on the grid, but will humanize the shit out of the hats or any beats that are 16th or faster inbetween those beats. Georging the whole kit can open up the kit a lot and make it feel more real. Wavesfactory makes a plug called snarebuzz or something that can do a good job of fake georging. Other than that, I'll have 2 kick and snare samples, one that is slightly detuned from the other. I use the detuned sample for quieter hits and the sharper sample for loud, because drums do that. they pull sharp the harder they are hit.
A question for Reaper users: If you use the humanize feature, does that throw the timing of the drums off significantly even when adjusted by just 1%? I can humanize the velocities a bit, but any humanize adjustments to timing make the drum track unusable for me. Does anyone else have this problem, or better yet, does anyone know a way to work a bit of timing inaccuracies without making the drums sound noticeably badly off click? Thanks for any responses.
my way is to never actually use the 120+ range, when it's backbeats it's generally about 110 ish range, and the rest floats around 100 and fills about 80 to 90, and softer hits usually go below 64. and for blast beats the snare is oftentimes around 40-72 depending on the type.
Once I realized drummers don't have 5 arms my programs started sounding much better.
I did about 4 songs with programmed drums and I knew that from the get go. I was like 'ok I COULD make this beat sound really crazy etc' but since I used to drum a bit way back when I was also aware of the 4 limbs of a drummer and so I made beats that a REAL DRUMMER COULD totally play and funnily enough all the beats sound good even if they don't sound like a real drummer (due to sound sample quality) etc.
@Sherpa Cast LOL! That happens to everyone first time programming drums. Luckily when I got my first drum machine, a friend who is a drummer set me straight.
Or you *could* get 2 drummers like King Gizzard :P
th-cam.com/video/3RBSkq-_St8/w-d-xo.html
Been there, done that. xD Now all we need to do is teach our drummers that our guitarists don't have 50 fingers and can't play 32nd sweep patterns at 260 bpm.
My programmed drums never sound robotic because I mess with the timing and velocity until they sound more like my robot is just learning the drums.
Same here
It's all fun and games until the robot drummer gets pissed, breaks up the band, then becomes Skynet for revenge.
@@bradyoung6663 i hate when that happens
Yeah taking them off the grid a bit makes a difference
@@bradyoung6663 And starts dating your laptop
It's nice to see that the "Baldi's Basics" franchise really expanded and even includes Baldi teaches drums now.
He always had a tight rythm. *slap slap slap slap slap slap slap slap*
ahm.... Skarvig.... I know where to find you!!!!
@@EytschPi42 could this be classified as stalking? 🤔
@@skarvig1201 shhh
Comment of the week
After watching this video I think it may be easier for me to just play the drums. Damn.
... or purchase Jamstix.
When you get your information from this channel naturally everything seems daunting. There isn’t much going on here.
@@whitex4652 Jamstix does not get enough love - such a great product.
That's why I went and bought a used kit. After using Superior Drummer 2 for years, I've never got results that sound real, even messing with timing and velocity. I think the combination of clean recordings and grid-based programming is what holds it back.
Since I've been practicing on a real kit, I've noticed that where I hit on the snare drastically affects the overtones, which is very useful when switching from fast and slow rhythms, and that wasn't a feature on SD2.
Also, tuning the kit is something that changes the sound a lot, too. SD2 only had some pitch shifting, but not actually tuning between batter and resonant head.
Downsides for real drums... I can't play as fast as the program. However, I can use this as an upside by allowing my limitations to guide the writing process, which is how everyone used to do it back in the day, anyway.
@@blueshift9 ahhh I haven't used my Jamstix in a few years. Hmmmmm
EZDrummer’s humanise option is good. Also, routing the channels to individual tracks so you can EQ them individually. And think like a drummer.
I try to make my free drum plugin like a real drummer by having it miss rehearsal for lame reasons, having a pizza delivered in the middle of tracking, letting groupies in to watch, and having to remind it how a song starts.
As an alternative, you could get an electronic drum kit and use that to trigger the drums via midi. All the convenience and sound quality of midi drums with more of the touch and feel of a real drummer.
i use the pads on a little midi controller to do mine to a click. the click is just for me as i tap the notes into the velocity sensitive pads. after that, i turn the click off. otherwise sometimes i just play a scratch guitar track and tap the drums to that without a click.
that´s a great way to do it!
That's what I've been doing for years! 😉
I started doing this a year ago and have been loving the results.
Yeah and kits on Thoman are like $400. Not to damn shabby
hell must have turned over...kinda glad seeing glen seeing the pro's and cons...we don't have expensive kits...mics...even sound treated rooms for drums..so for those that do have em..please use em.
Glen: Drums samples are the devil's work...
Also Glen: This video
Yep. No matter how much I scream about it, sampled drums aren’t going anywhere.
Lol if you dont have a drummer or its a lack of gear, samples and especially programming are definitely okay. But if you have a drummer and adequate gear..well then you have a bassist with drumsticks and need to find a drummer.
@@SpectreSoundStudios to be fair, samlped drums were about a decade old before you started screaming about it Glenn.... and lets face it... you only have to punch the rhythm in to a computer once!. i'm pretty sure there's a t-shirt in that statement somewhere
Oh so the devil isn't cool anymore? lol
@@SpectreSoundStudios Why not just tap them in yourself with your fingers? If only I could get the same dynamics of the live performances I do on the table. I seem to be able to convincingly make most of the sounds. If there was only a way to translate them. Any suggestions? Changing the subject, the drums on my Boss Dr. 880 sounds much better than what your buddy is playing on his computer. Then again maybe it has a lot to do with what your doing with them. If the performance is good enough it can cover a multitude of computer transgressions.
Kudos to, Glenn, on recognizing the benefits of using drum programming within modern production. I am a drummer and came from a similar background as Henning from back in the day using a four track tape recorder. We just didn’t have the resources to produce live drums. Over the years, as production equipment has become more affordable and accessible, I’ve been able to get the gear needed to record live drums. But learning over the years how to program a less perfect/ less robotic programmed performance has came in handy when I haven’t been able to mic a kit and record due to a busy schedule. Thanks for this video!
Superior Drummer 3 has a really neat feature where you can replace a live drum track with a MIDI sampled track. It’s not something I’d do for a record, but when we bring our PA (also a 16 channel interface) for a show and have everything mic’d up but the setup was rushed or the mic placement never got dialed in, that’s a great fall back for recording live shows!
It even picks up on velocities pretty well!
I love Henning's shirts. And his channel. He knows how to be weird and entertaining. He also gets killer tones.
Yesss. Let them know. Programmed drums aren't bad, the person programming them just needs to know what real drums (played by a human drummer) sound like and WHY they sound that way.
*if they want the drums to sound like they're played by a real human.
Having a real drummer there and going back and forth with the programed drums seems like a great idea.
Wow! Really awesome course, thank you so much Glenn for promoting programmed drums course ;) lol Looking forward to take the course :)
I had to teach myself all of this over the course of 5 or 6 years, it does help that I am a self-taught drummer which helps me understand what I can and can't put together as a drum track within my program of choice (that being SD2). But I am glad to see that the most studious German music production youtuber that I know made a course so that y'all can do all the learning in one place and not have to scour the depths of the internet for "professionals" on the topic.
I program my drums but I've used a 16 pad controller to "play" the drums along with the track so the timing and velocities are a little more natural than pointing and clicking on the grid. Now I use an electronic kit that is mapped to my drum VST so I play a "real" kit but I have the ability to mix/process each drum individually and since I'm a guitar/bass player, I can fix my poor drum issues. I have an acoustic kit, one day I'm going to aim for a better room (space and treatment) and some mics and do the real thing but it works for now!
I swear these two were seperated at birth and Glenn got all the hair.
....and charisma.
Remember:
This is super in depth technical and theory based stuff.
You'll definitely get something out of it but overall you just need to understand some of the tweky stuff and use your ears from there.
There's obviously some subtle things to know and such but overall it gets to a point in here where it's a tad overwhelming.
Remember, the music matters more than perfection.
But what is perfect for one isn't the same for another.
Just bought Henning’s course this week. Pretty amazing in-depth coverage that isn’t afraid to name names when it comes to the software. Pretty refreshing. Only just getting into it and I’m already learning stuff I didn’t even know I needed to know about. Best bucks I’ve spent in ages. Knowledge is power. the
You guys’ banter is worth the price of admission alone. Love you guys.
Great episode. I’m gonna get this guy’s course. Thanx!
Got it yesterday, its amazing. ya'll need to buy it
I just love watching Henning for the ever-changing wall of guitar amps behind him. plus his shirts.
All you need is Metallica’s rehearsal space, Bob Rock and $50,000,000.
Oh and Lars’ Bell Brass and a bunch of lacquered wood panels.
Is the 50,000,000 to get lars as far away from the drum set as possible?
@@JesusLordOfLords455 lmaooooooooo
Hi Glenn! In lack of an acoustic drum kit, I’ve been experimenting with superior drummer 3. It’s quiet a job to program and humanize the track. And as you can set up a plain, clean kit in SD 3. I’ve done so just so I can mix it as an acoustic recording. It’s not the same result but It gives me training to mix. It’s pretty fun to do. And it does not sound like an over compressed R2D2 like most of the pre mixed presets in SD3.
I'm on a very tight budget and I'm still learning All I have is Ezdrummer. However taking what I could from this video I changed up the velocity and the tempo here and there added and removed some drum notes and even though I can't quite make it feel totally human the variability does help make it sound a little bit better and organic. Thanks much!
As a guitarist who just wants to work out ideas it's definetely easier and more comfortable than doing this with real drums.
But my little creations aren't going to be heard by many people. I just like hearing my ideas on the guitar with some drums. That is really fun to do and can't recommend this enough. Also helps with your timing on the guitar. You really have to play tight.
However I think if I ever wanted to record like an EP or album I think I would definetely record with real drums.
Anyway great course I am sure and like Henning said there isn't that much out there that teaches you how to do it properly.
Picked this up and as someone who has zero clue on the nuances of drumming, I am glad I did. Henning talking about the thought process of programming but also having an actual drummer to show you some of the nuances of the concepts and how they differ from programming is a great feature. I know Glenn hates programmed drums, but I think this course is beneficial in helping teach/refresh approaching rhythm to everyone who buys it as well. You learn more than just "programming". Definitely recommend to those who have spent years on another instrument but never have taken the "dive" into the drum world in any way.
Can't wait for Glenn to learn about vocal tuning which has been going on for decades and his lesson on it :) oh and also tape edits XD
Bob Rock talks about this.
@@MykEviiL yeah no way James Hetfield sings that well without some tuning. And Lars, ouf... Even with punch ins!
@@podd1984 I think James is a pretty solid singer. But there's a video of Bob Rock talking about auto tune on TH-cam somewhere where he speaks of the methods back in the pure analog tape days that studios were using for years prior there being software autotune versions. Also the black album injustice and most of the metallica albums relied heavily on tape edits for the perfect drum performance. I saw a video somewhere of them using pro tools and lars after a performance take was telling the engineer where he wanted his kicks placed. So yeah a lot of edits happen on metallica records, from back In the day until now. Uncertain about the kill 'em all days though that sounds pretty raw and and there's a lot of out of tune guitar bends in solos on that record, so that was probably one of the only albums they did cut raw. But I could very well be wrong.
@@podd1984 You're a drummer based on what I just saw and pretty solid too. Open to collabs?
Tape editing? Make sure the razor blade is demagnetized so you don't get a click at the edit. ;)
I can proudly say one of my few strengths is drum programming. I never understand why others that do it are so lazy with it. Timing, dynamics, ghosting, different styles of hihat etc etc. One thing I am improving on is the snare sound which I've been learning from listening to Glenn's mixes. Also programming mistakes into the drums makes a huge difference.
I have to be honest - I have not even finished the first videon in the course and what I learned helped me drastically improve the drums on a song I'm currently working on.. good stuff.
Yessss, a newww video!! As the soundguy and producer of my band, I was really looking forward to this video! My drummer wants to try some samples on his drums, so I'm gonna binchwatch your channel again the upcomming weeks! Keep up the good work Glenn! Greetings from The Netherlands!
I mean he has a degree from Berklee for arranging and sound design - I'd LOVE to see a course on each of those subjects! There is NOTHING on Post Prod sound design for Metal. Either way - totally getting this course :)
Yeah! I want it to!
Bought the course and started this weekend. Blown away by the depth, and I'm still in the section that's discussing different drum plug-ins and routing.
It's interesting to see how many ways drum programming can be handled. I use a pretty unremarkable method--piano rolling a large bank of a free sample set (around 80 or so samples) so that every single instrument has multiple velocities. This makes snare rolls and rides in particular sound natural. They sound punchy because I route them to both a dry bus and a compression bus, and carefully EQ each drum channel so the frequencies don't interfere with each other too much. You can use samples from years ago and still have them sound good if you take time to mix and master with care.
Hey Glenn! Great video super excited to start this course!!
I provided some drum tracks for a mate of mine. He had some great drum software (BFD or something), so I played my e-kit and sent him the MIDI file, so he could use the software to play around with the drum sounds he wanted. I did a little swingy thing on the hi-hat. Sounded cool. When I got the audio back it was shite. The hi-hat sounded like it was stuttering. When I spoke to him about it, I found out he'd quantised everything but didn't realise that there were different setting for the beat values or degree of swing. Therefore my cool little swingy 16th note hi-hat groove was flattened out by 8th note straight beat quantisation. DOH!
Why did the intro song sound a half step higher than normal?
Because it was also sped up, but I'm not sure why it was sped up…
that course is soooooo awesome!!!
I love recording and mixing real drums. But it's extremely difficult and I'm not satisfied with my results yet, but refining my process is part of the fun! But programmed drums are awesome. I can just sit at home and do some great sounding demos and what not. It helps that I play the drums as well and so I know what a realistic drum track is supposed to sound like.
I love HENNING ! If you like deep dive reviews . Henning RULES !! I can only imagine this course hits everything you will ever need to know in programmed drums. He don't halfass.
Just bought mine. Thank you both!
TLDR: record a drummer on your phone and then recreate it with a drum program
My favorite middle ground has been buying an electronic drum kit with mesh heads and playing live with my drummer while recording. The dynamics and timing was captured in MIDI and I didn't have to quantize because he can play to a click. The difference realistic dynamics can make on most drum software is incredible. It's the reason those included midi grooves always sound much better than standard clicked in material. I personally find the process of making clicked in drums sound dynamic and realistic too tedious.
Great Job!
Also I think Hell just froze over.
Truth I was fooled by Frogleaps recordings and thought it was some of the best "real " sounding drums I've ever heard. Well that dude Leo spends time programming nuances. It makes a difference.
"Truth I was fooled by Frogleaps recordings and thought it was some of the best "real " sounding drums I've ever heard."
what is on camera, and what is actually happening are two very different things
No disrepect to Leo, he's amazing at what he does. Would love to record him on the kit for real one day!
@@SpectreSoundStudios It would be also cool to talk samples with him, he did have some tutorial videos, explaining that he never locks anything to the grid, and he explained that he definitely doesn't "127" everything. Maybe you heard some differences in the past, but also maybe he's much improved. However those video "tutorials" are older now, and he seemed pretty adamant on making the beat sound as human and as "natural" as possible by manipulating the velocities. I really do hope you get him on the show to drum and also talk about his programming methods as well.
I know you did the fake drum challenge last summer. How about a new fake drum challenge, Can you do better with a mouse click programming than a real drummer challenge. "No e kits" a loud. Acoustic V.S. R2D2. Who has the best mouse clicking skills. etc...
Cheers!
...and get Leo on the Show for Realz!
I have to use programmed drums as I don't have the recording space. This seems very useful. Can't wait to delve into it.
The most important things I learned using samples (for rock/ metal at least):
1. Put some effort into it. Especially premix. Spend some time in the program HUD making each drum sound right. Adjust mics, set drum ring length. Use some hours doing that right the first time and than save it.
2. Think how a drummer would play it. Drummers have dominate hands and feet. They generally don't hit a drum as hard with both hands. Drum rolls, snare rolls and high hat rolls are intentionally not all the same velocity.
3. Use your ears. If it sounds wrong, there is a way to make it sound right.
Imagine catching up to 2021. What a trip.
Hopefully this will help fix the fake drum crisis we find ourselves in today. I Do stuff on hard mode with real drums so maybe not my cup of tea but I can see this video being very helpful to the programmers.
Cool to see he covers blast beats. By far the hardest thing to make sound realistic. What’s the thoughts on drummers triggering stuff in a live setting though? There’s some pretty high profile drummers that trigger both their snare and kick live.
Kudos Glenn. You could've just stuck with your viewpoint, but you have applied your own rules to yourself with the pragmatism about programmed drums. And done so publicly. Respect dude.
I’ve been doing a cover song series on my channel, and since i started doing it, it’s changed the way i program drums. I try to emulate the original drums, and in doing so, you learn to pull back, and work on the relationship between reality and computer based drumming. It’s a lot like learning a song on guitar by ear, the way it used to be done....
I am the drummer in our band and I use the Behringer UMC404HD for drum recording. For that, I need a guitarist who plays with me but is not being recorded. When the recording is finished, I go home and program midi drums, beat by beat and do not add any cool fill ins or anything. Then everyone in the band gets their own copy of the midi drums which they insert into their DAW and practice guitar, bass and / or vocals at home.
When you're a Toontrack user (either EZDrummer or Superior Drummer) it comes with midi recorded by pro's. And there even more genre specific midi for sale, so there's actually no need for bad drumprogramming! Oh, and the midi is easily adjustable too.
but you are adjusting a performance... that isn't creating something specifically for YOUR music. What if you hear a drum part in your head that you want for your song... using MIDI grooves is cool, but definitely a compromise.
@@EytschPi42 Only if you're a drummer, right? And who else has got the chance to say that you have drums played by Gene Hoglan, Dirk Verbeuren or Nick Barker (to name a few) on your tracks.
For me, it's easy. I am a drummer, I have an e-kit and I can create whatever I need when it comes to drums. I think a lot of people take the whole DIY a bit to far... In the end it's the music that counts, right?
I just learned how to use dynamic split in Reaper to use samples in unison with my performance, that was recorded without a lot of punch. It's helped me get the sound I needed without sacrificing the performance
I have also been using Addictive Drum with my TD25kvx, and that has been great for capturing the human elements. As long as you don't pin the trigger sensitivity.
April 16th 2021....the day hell froze over
As someone with no real access to a drum kit or drummer, I've been going obsessively nutty with the mixing of my sampled drums. I've also been dissatisfied with my lack of knowledge when it comes to the nuances of drum playing and replicating that in a non-shitty way. So I might check this course out.
Reminds me of when I moved from sampled guitar and bass to playing real instruments. The former requires a technical composer's view, but the latter works better with an intuitive approach.
Out of necessity I use programmed drums (Superior Drummer 3). Luckily my best friend is a drummer with an electric kit. So I just get him to play drums, recorded as MIDI, and have him send me the file.
Or in a pinch I'll play from a keyboard. Not quite as good, but still more realistic that clicking and dragging notes on a grid.
we know him... we love him... it's Henning!
THANK YOU!
I have needed a course like this for a while. As a guitarist, I have song ideas that just don't fit with the drum midis that you can buy for Superior Drummer 3. Most of the time the preprogramed Toontrack midi grooves work fine for very straight forward songs. But if you have a very syncopated rhythm to your song or very specific accents, you have to alter your songs to fit the midi grooves, which completely changes the intended feel of the song. And I am completely a beginner to getting into the midi editor in Cubase or SD3-- every time I try to edit the drum midi it becomes a train wreck in record time....lol. I would love to have a real drummer to work with again and be in a commercial studio facility, but until this pandemic gets sorted, that is on hold. And I need to get back to writing and recording, so that means I need to master working with programming realistic drum parts myself. This course is exactly what I have been looking for. Thanks, Glenn and Henning!
"that was the worst shirt in History!"
Glenn - "Until Today!"
Brutal! hahahaha
Yeah, that shirt is...well, there's no words.
I'm both an engineer and drummer and Glenn is 100% correct in his aversion to programmed parts. I think something that doesn't get brought up enough is the fact that drum samples are simply recordings of real drums, with all the mic placement, EQ, compression and panning baked into them that makes a real drum recording sound good. So just learn how to record real drums!!
Something I definitely need to do more of is basically what Misha suggested by making a habit of transcribing drum parts using the same attention to detail and precision that I exhibit when transcribing guitar parts! I already know how much my programming chops would exponentially improve if I were to commit to transcribing & programming drums that I hear from scratch!
i just wanna get a show where we get to watch these guys just ramble about nothing to eachother
Don't worry, it happens every time Glenn visits Germany!
They say rock n roll is dead and here it is for only $99 while supplies last..
As a "virtual instruments producer" and drummer, I can say: Everything Henning said is right. I analyse my own drum tracks and search for "WHAT MAKES THEM REAL", so I can program my drumtracks in a realistic way. Henning covered all of the points I already know and much more. Thanks for that!
btw, I do "VSTI covers" in my YT channel, and I'd appreciate you taking a little time to check 'em out!
Henning is an amazing guy. Congrats on the new product.
Nice intro song! Fun fact, a few years back we would quantize drums for hours, sometimes days to make everything as tight as possible. Nowadays it's almost like the exactly opposite ! I'm glad people are pursuing some sort of "more organic realistic natural" sound.
It is a very colorful course
I've just realized that I've watched Henning so long I remember when he wore normal shirts.
Nice, I needed this!
Killer, thanks for letting us know about this corse Glenn. I find Henning a great teacher and it just so happens I'm working on programming drums myself. I'll take all the help I can get to get them to not sound so robotic . I'm sure because it's from thomman the price is great too ,all that knowledge for a hundred bucks sounds like a steal
As a solo rock live performer using a looper , I can cover vocals, guitar,and bass. Drums are the final frontier. My choices are limited to different foot actuated drum machines.Having played with some of The best drummers around, it's painful to use a machine in my live solo perfotmances. I like loud drums,but with a machine i turn it down
Just learnt more about Henning than watching any of his YT videos. Nice
this is cool, I had to actually play drums, and play in a band with a drummer before I understood how a drummer actually plays. I tend to use the humanize button and work from there. usually about 15%- 20% velocity and 3%-5% timing then work from there, it gets me in the neighborhood so I can minimize the amount of screwing around.
I still don't have the means to record a real drummer, just got an 8 input interface and still saving up for the mics. This seems useful since my drummer prefers going out with a girl we've all told him is crazy and not good for him over spending the afternoon with me telling me how he plays our song so I program the drums properly.
I can't afford this course right now but be sure I'll get it eventually.
Geez. Props to Henning for putting this all together into something for us plebs to understand. Even the good drummers do shit they don't realize they are doing.
my programmed drums are unique, as it is me playing the cajon, then splitting it up like a drum set, then eqing it to make it sound closer to a real drum set, then time aligning it manually (I don't know how to play the cajon, so I need to time align it).
I used two different Boss Dr Rhythm drum machines during my Tascam Porta One 4-Track and Tascam 688 MIDI 8-Track days..... you really have to think like a drummer when programming drums... can’t have the high hat going and hit two crash cymbals at the same time.... I used to air drum when programming..... lol....
Just finger drum the beat in a midi keyboard. Its all about having a good midi part. No need to mess with velocities if you get them right while finger druming.
MDrummer. The most underrated drumming platform in existence. This course looks great.
No mention of using triggers on drums or an e-kit? It's super easy to get basic tracks down that way.
This courses looks really cool. Love watching you two rib each other.
Always a blast to see Henning and Glenn together. Cheers and greetings from Germany 🤘😍🎸🍺
I think more expressive electronic drums could be made from old speakers with 3d printed mounts with skins. Perhaps a little foam between skin and cone. The kick drum might be interesting with a speaker as microphone
Nice! Very informative.
no clue what he's talking about... so... I guess that means that I need this course! :)
It's funny you raise the 127 topic. I'm just getting into programming drums with GrooAgent, and there's a special universal slider for "how loud do you want it". And of course, at 127 it sounds the juiciest, the punchiest, etc. (and, unlike a topped off midi track it still maintains some nuance) So i thought, why not bring it down all the way to the middle - for loud parts, and even lower for soft parts? I'll get so much variety in sound that way, and as for punchiness, i can somehow re-tweak it using compressors, envelope shapers etc.
right, I purchased it. lets go!
Good man Jeff! Thanks!
Watching this two chatting is a whole show apart. Nicely done!
So, I purchased this.. received confirmation of payment. Then crickets... Is this a DL?
Hi mike, please hit up SD support. We’ll get it sorted. It’s a streaming lesson.
if Im doing Midi Drums, I always keep my downbeat and off beat on the grid, but will humanize the shit out of the hats or any beats that are 16th or faster inbetween those beats. Georging the whole kit can open up the kit a lot and make it feel more real. Wavesfactory makes a plug called snarebuzz or something that can do a good job of fake georging. Other than that, I'll have 2 kick and snare samples, one that is slightly detuned from the other. I use the detuned sample for quieter hits and the sharper sample for loud, because drums do that. they pull sharp the harder they are hit.
A question for Reaper users:
If you use the humanize feature, does that throw the timing of the drums off significantly even when adjusted by just 1%?
I can humanize the velocities a bit, but any humanize adjustments to timing make the drum track unusable for me. Does anyone else have this problem, or better yet, does anyone know a way to work a bit of timing inaccuracies without making the drums sound noticeably badly off click?
Thanks for any responses.
I had this on in the background and started to worry that I was stroking out
my way is to never actually use the 120+ range, when it's backbeats it's generally about 110 ish range, and the rest floats around 100 and fills about 80 to 90, and softer hits usually go below 64. and for blast beats the snare is oftentimes around 40-72 depending on the type.
and for double kicks it can start from 80 and hovers around 100.
New sub. Great video, hello from Hamilton, Ontario Henning...Hometown of this drummer by the name of Neil peart.
Billy Corgan teaching how to program drums great!
A digital Roland style of electronic drum kit a great way too.
Any particular reason why the theme song is sped up in this video?