How to make YOUR Programmed Drums more real!
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2024
- Tired of your drums sliding like they were played by R2D2? Here’s how to program your drums so they sound like HUMAN played them!! Get Extinction Level Event at spectredigital.com/product/ex... today!
0:00 Alright everybody!
1:01 Why I hate Programmed Drums
2:16 Recording drums is expensive
3:32 Full Mix
5:08 at the desk
8:23 Out of the box
10:04 It's all about the bleed!
12:37 get off the grid
16:43 Humanize!
20:26 Surprising results
21:44 Raw drums
22:45 where to get it
About Spectre Sound Studios:
I'm Glenn Fricker, engineer here at Spectre Sound Studios. I love making records, and after doing it for sixteen years, I want to pass on what I've learned. On my channel you can find tutorials on how to record guitar, bass, real drums and vocals. There's reviews and demos of tube amps, amp sims, drums, mics, preamps, outboard gear, Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, and plugin effects.
We've covered Moon on the Water, played Bias FX, given you the absolute best in Stupid Musician Texts, ranted & raved about bass guitar, and this channel is where The Eagle has Landed.
Everything you've wanted to learn about recording Hard Rock & Heavy Metal can be found right here on this channel!
I also respond to your comments & questions: The best make it into the SMG Viewer's Comments series of videos. Loads of fun, lots of laughs.
Thanks for checking out my channel & please subscribe!
After years of watching you hate programmed drums with the fury of a thousand suns, then release your own samples, and now begrudgingly sort of accept that midi drums have become a norm, I have a very deep appreciation for this particular video. It really shows that you love music and the recording process and care about making all productions the best they can be. Cheers!
Glenn finally puts out a video for those of us who have close to no expendable income.
I have close to no expendable life. Sigh..........
@@gilbertspader7974 same here my guy
His budget guitars are 500 bucks
@@leoncorbett4553 Bro I'll tell you what. It's hard to find a good live and recording guitar for under $300 US in today's economy. It's got nothing to do with the quality and everything to do with inflation. I had a Dean Vendetta XM that cost me $120 US in 2010 and that thing was a beast until my father traded it for meth
@@rivervaughanmusicstuff5771 I should have thought before leaving my comment. Sorry. I hope the situation with your dad’s addiction is better, and/or that you’re in a safer situation.
At this rate, Glenn’s just going to be yelling as an intro without saying any actual words and then cut right into the intro music
I’m here for it
It will evolve to continue past the intro, and then one day the entire video will just be the yelling.
@@ICACJ One can only hope! ☺️
@@ICACJ I want this and only this
Thanks for the kind words and shout-out Glenn. Beyond stoked we finally get to show everyone what we’ve been working on!!
This video is just what I asked for last week. Good job, glenn! You and the crew who made this software nailed it.
Ty!
That bleed tool is actually so sick! What a great innovation!
I agree it's a great feature, and it is indeed innovative.
But it wasn't really an innovation here because other drum software has already had it for years.
Such as Superior Drummer, which IS a bit spendy, but extremely amazing software that is worth every penny.
Gonna be hard to beat SD3 in my opinion, particularly in the sample quality and flexibility departments.
Which is why it is the industry standard drum software, particularly for triggering with an e-kit.
But if this can come close at a cheaper price point, more power to them.
And for the record, this does sound pretty good, in my opinion.
And as long as it's more affordable, I think Glen could find some success with it.
Seems like GetGoodDrums will be it's biggest competition.
And while I have never used Kontact Player, so have no strong opinion about it one way or the other.
But I constantly see people complain about it in comments sections of products that use it, so that could be a negative for some folks.
@@jeremymull6138 Kontakt player is excellent, easy to use, and very accessible. You only need to buy the library, not the full version of Kontakt, in order to use it.
@@JordonBeal
Good to know.
Like I said, I have no opinion on it, since I've never used it..
I was simply pointing out that it seems to be a deterrent for some people, based on comments I frequently read.
@@jeremymull6138 Totaly! I wish that demos were possible with Kontakt libraries.
The mix at the beginning was fantastic. Really enjoyed how each instrument was audible and filled its own sonic space.
Hmmm.. the bass is not that audible, really.
@@unduloid dude it's perfectly audible, just the amount it's supposed to. But it's a mediocre modern metal bass sound anyway, so idk
@@dindinbre
It sounds more like a down-tuned clanky guitar, not really like a bass at all.
@@unduloid yea, I seriously dislike modern sansamp bleed shit they are doing with bass. It really does sound like that
@@dindinbre
I don't think Sansamp is the issue here.
I've got another one for "how to (not) behave when playing shows"...so last week the following happened to me: We played a show opening for another band at a local bar, and after our set we of course immediately started to get our amps and stuff off the stage to make room for the other band. Soo, after returning from carrying my guitar and fx board back stage real quick to pick up my amp, I wonder where the hell it has gone. About a minute later I found it dumped in front of the stage by the feet of some beer drinking visitors. After some quick asking around I found out that the guitar player of the other band had arbitrarily put my amp there, explaining "I just wanted to clear the stage quicker for us, you know, we're the main act, maaan". So, moral of the story: If you play a show with other bands and you want to help with hauling gear, you are often very welcome to do so. But for f***s sake if you think you could be helpful, don't EVER be too cheap to use your big goddamn mouth to actually ASK if that is okay and what exactly to do BEFORE even thinking about touching other people's gear or moving it places! If you don't, you're not helping anybody, you're just a douchebag.
Duuuuuuuuuuude. That's one of the cardinal sins of band life. Whoever that clown is he's going to have a REALLY bad day in the future.
@@Powermad-bu4em Some a-holes really do not realize how small of a world the music scene is.
Those guys are the worst. I had someone try telling me my amp was his. I had a Line 6 and dude had a Marshall. Yeah, real easy to get those mixed up...
@@rivervaughanmusicstuff5771 Im this case I would have happily swapped amps with him :D Wow...Man, I wonder what substances some people smoke...
@@RedHeadGuitar 150w Line 6 versus 50w mini Marshall? Nah. Now if homeboy was running a stack? Different story.
Good to see I've been doing it right so far. Thanks for setting a good example for those of us without the means for real drummers!
Gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen! Thanks for you videos and humor. Because of some of your talks i´ve been practicing more and improving a hell of a lot, even getting lessons (after 23 years playing guitar).
Keep the awesome job!
This sounds great! I’m patiently waiting for your bass plug-in! Those tones are so good!
Wow this is like a middle of the road between GGD and superior drummer 3! and it sounds amazing too! Great job Glenn and friends!
I’m impressed with how they sound NOT routed out individually!
Glenn you beautiful bastard. I was literally thinking in my head the past few days on how to get programmed drums to sound human. As someone who’s looking to make music, your channel has been extremely helpful on what and what not to do. Still got a lot of stuff to research and set-up, but I’m definitely getting ELE.
Cheers and have a good one.
Congrats on the new product launch!! Always nice to see something you've been working on for a long time come to fruition!
I wanted to mention 2 tricks that have helped me in my drum programming journey that you might like. 1) Turn off snap to grid when programming. By doing this, you're automatically getting some humanization, plus you can purposefully lag / lead the performance based on what you're looking for. 2) Take an older song that you like the drum performance of and import it into your DAW (you want a song that has not already been quantized to hell and back). Then create a tempo map for the song so your grid will follow the tempo swings and stay in alignment. Then using any drum sample software you want, re-create the drum beat with it so it matches the song as perfectly as you can (definitely turn off snap to grid for this). After you've done this, thanks to the tempo map, you can see exactly how in-front / behind the beat the drummer played the performance compared to the tempo! I found this to be really inspiring and informative as to when drummers might tend to rush or lag the tempo, then I can use that knowledge when I program my performances :)
Great useful content Glen. I was aware of most of these techniques, except adding the "bleed" factor back in. Nice touch there!
Great product at a great price, thank you spectre digital team! 🤘
Congrats Glenn and company. Sounds real to me thanks in large part to the Bleed Control. Brilliant.
This drum pack kicks ASS! I've recently gone from an Audacity and.....garage band.... setup to Reaper and Kontakt. It's been a night/day difference and all for the better. The UIs are better. The samples are better. On top of that, I don't have to use the damn iMovie app anymore! Thank you so much for giving us great content with information that's actually useful!! Loving the ELE pack and still exploring the Reapack plugin you demo'd! For the people like me doing solo projects: Free apps can give a decent sound with a lot of work, but they can only get you so far.
That's been a challenge for me in programming my own drums. Working the subtleties on velocity and humanization has helped a lot. Having some drum experience, I tried to always think like a drummer and what they are doing. I found that I was using the drummer third arm technique a lot early on. Now I scrub through my drum parts over and over making sure I don't miss anything. Steven Slate drums are what I use in my productions. However, I may cross over to ELE for the bleed control. That's a nice touch!
I have been wondering how the hell to program better midi drums so I can stop yelling at myself for being an idiot... And now I finally started to get a better idea about it from another guy who also yells at idiots.
Thanks Glenn! 🤘
Glenn Ive been watching your videos a ton in the past week, my mixes already sound almost passable - for a guy with also only a week experience using a real DAW.
Good shit keep it up man
For years, I've been picking through my drum programming, beat by beat, tweaking velocities and timings. It takes hours and hours, but it's been worth doing. THIS sounds like the answer Glenn. Just putting together a new DAW/computer, and ELE may well be on my list of extras. FUGlenn!
I’ve been waiting for this since I started watching your channel
Perfect timing, just got your ELE kit last night and been wanting to improve my midi programming!
Hope you enjoy the kit!!
@@JordonBeal Loving it so far, the rock presets are pretty close to the sound I'm trying to get so there is very little I have to do in the way of balancing. Same for the metal presets for my metal covers. Been trying them out on various covers I've already got midi on. Great job to everyone involved on this plug-in!
The energy Glenn puts in the beginning of his videos is obnoxious...
...ly contagious. I love it.
Amazing stuff dude, really nice job
Wow! The drum bleed makes a big difference. Great job Glenn! SpectreSoundsStudios upping the ante again!
Been waiting for this!
Thank you!!!!! I'm new to midi and programming drums, this is great info
The Drums sound awesome! Will get it this week.
Great stuff Glenn!
Great work! This drum sound really nice
Great stuff Glenn, thanks.
Just the fact that you learned how to record killer drums live means a lot more than being able to substitute samples and make it sound real-ish
Daaaamn, that was ear opening! As a guitarist I've always kinda been deaf to drums, just aware that they're out there in the mix but unable to tell if they're off time or contrarily - too on the grid. Now I'll definitely make use of that AKAI MIDI keyboard that's been sitting for far too long on my desk and go play some semi-live drums myself - and of course come for help when I hit a brick wall. Many thanks to you!
Well done. Hope it's a great success
Killer shit happening here Glenn! You must feel like a proud Father with this drum program and rightfully so man.🤘🏼💀🥁
Sounds great! I think I will buy it soon
Thank you for the great advice. Programmed drums have been the weak link in all my mixes. Taking this advice and resubmitting my mix next week. The only negative comment you made about my mix was the drum programming. Thank you again.
as a beginner in the field of music production and mixing stuff is this video a very big help! thanks glenn! and you should think about a career as a vocalist :D that scream was metal af!
That sounds fantastic!
I don't have the best space to do drums, but I still mic up the whole kit, process everything as best I can, then blend in a kick with the real kick, and a snare with the real snare, add some good parallel comp, keep the toms and over heads real, and I feel like that's the best of both worlds. I really can't stand drums with the midi set to 127 the entire song, but I do know some people like that effect. I feel like slightly blending can re-enforce some weakness of having a poor room, or technique possibly, and still get that punch you're looking for without taking away the personality of the drummer.
EDIT: Learning to embrace the bleed was one of the best things I learned over time. Great video Glenn!
Can't wait to try it out man! Now im going to have a dream about a three handed drummer...thanks!
How about no!!!
Well done, it's so hard to actually make a Drum Plugin.... I know from spending 2 1/2 years never finishing making one. I hope you guys make millions from it!!! Sick!!!!!
great video! when we recorded our drummer we used to trigger the toms snare and kick...we would record the room performance as well and sort of blend the 2..sounded pretty damn good that way
there is something oddly beautiful about being a fan of this channel for over 7 years at this point, and it is the fact that you can see Glenn change his perspective about certain topics along the way during the years, as new technology arrives or new ways to do stuff appear.
always willing to change his mind when there is new evidence about it.
Ty! Always be willing to try new things!
Having worked with Glenn for only 6-7 months, now, I can safely say that he is incredibly open-minded.
That scream got me goosebumps, you are a great vocalist.
Awesome intro Glen. :D
That "Good Morning" intro was awesome!!!!!
Awesome stuff Glenn! Give me your thoughts on this: I use a single electric drum pad and record groove with dynamics then move it to different drums in the DAW (hats, toms, cymbals ect.) This way my timing and dynamics seem human and I can have my kicks and crashes in time with the performance. The only downside I have experienced so far is snare rolls don't translate that well...
Amazing content!
I love that humanizing feature in Reaper! I'm always programming drums exactly on grid and then apply some humanizing afterwards. And it's instantly so much cooler than before! ALWAYS!
Me too. I always fiddle with midi. Especially with humanizaition.
I was about to get the mixwave Gojira kit but this sounds sick! These will be mine ohhhhh they will be mine!
I think Glenn might be the only person on UA-cam I would take advice from on how to program drums.
This is amazing! I really loved these drum focused videos. Will brass or metal snare drums work better for metal? I think that unlike in guitars, in drums the tonewood or material matters a lot
Great intro!
Bought ELE, moved from AD2 to ELE using the same exact midi tracks.
I am a drummer, I have been playing for almost 25 years, and I like to program my drums with the real velocity and timing imperfections that I would have if I would play them.
I have to say that ELE is by far the best drum plugin I have had so far.
Glen! Please also talk about recording/mixing a hybrid kit (real cymbals e kit shells).
one thing about humanization of midi I learned from Misha Mansoor, was that say a kick and snare hit at the same time perfectly..... They don't sound like 2 different drums at the same time. They sound like one instrument. So the humanization moves the transients enough to hear them both and gives the drums more clarity.
Sounds good!
For someone who frequently shat on midi drums, you're really good at mixing midi drums, hmmm?🧐 Jokes aside, it's amazing what can happen when people keep an open mind and try new things! Great work once again, Glenn, looking forward to using Extinction.
something I recently discovered in reaper is a little JS plugin descriptively called "MIDI Velocity and Timing Humanizer" that does exactly that, but without changing the midi itself, although it will also be random every time so never exactly the same each playback.
I use this plugin on a lot of my virtual instruments now because having those tiny random flams adds an incredible amount of character to instruments.
Most recently I put it on a acoustic guitar and piano VST and it really changes a lot for those.
Bleed and a slight bit of swing makes drums sound more human like.
Whenever I have to program drums, I also use variable tempo together with humanising. Some bpm up and down every few bars. It helps a lot
I was already curious
but then i saw it can come with the drum programming course as well for less than the course itself. Now im very interested
I wish I had 84USD right now because those drums do sound sick. I already do the other stuff in this video, seems like the missing element is the bleed for sure. I'll be on close look out for the other videos in this series to see if there are any other tricks you bring up I've missed.
Holy FUCK is Glenn mixing programmed drums? I thought I'd never see the day Fuckin Aye Glenn! Get it!
Sounds Great.
Got a question though, how does Extinction Level Event compare to Superior Drummer 3?
As example, the custom kit I currently use in SD3 takes slightly above 4.3GB, that includes double kick in/out/sub, multizone snare top/bottom, hi-hat, 3 toms, 3x3 zone cymbals, 2x1 zone cymbals, OH mics, 3 room mics for bleed (near, mid and center), 3 additional articulations (kick, snare and floor tom) and about the same effects as used with real drums.
I use mesh-head e-drums with center/side triggers and tripple zone cymbals to make my own beats, which also gives some uneven velocity and some slight offbeat hits besides that it does matter where I hit on them mesh-heads, even when it comes to rim shots.
Takes a bit more time since I basically need to practice playing what I want to play, but makes it probably more human than drop, drag and adjust.
My birthday is coming up soon. After I get a new interface (upgrading from firewire to thunderbolt), this is the exact thing I need to work on my compositions from home!
Very cool plugin! It sounds great and is a fraction of SD3's cost with what looks like a lot of the same features.
Question with background: I use SD3 with a Yamaha DTX6KX late at night when the muse strikes and hook it into SD3 via MIDI 2. When I first started using SD3 ToonTrack didn't have presents for my kit. Does this product come with presents for different kits or do you have to add them manually?
The drum recording episodes not doing so great is very disappointing. They were well put together and I found them quite helpful in my first attempt at recording a 9 piece kit with 14 mics.
Please bring back the shirt. I would love one! Musicians whining about the gear reminds me a lot of gamers who bitch about "lag" when in both cases it is often wnough isn't so much what circumstances are doing to them as much as it is a lack of skill. The cure for both is to keep practicing.
You should be able to run your e-kit into the software and load up a midi map preset to start. There's a preset for Vdrum kits, Superior Drummer, and several other preset maps. There's also the option to make a custom map and save that. I hope that helps! As a drummer myself, I can say this software really shines when used with an e-kit.
SPOT ON! I am a drummer that started and played for years on acoustic drums but about 10 years ago I purchased some roland V drums. I LOVE THE V DRUMS! They are so clean you must be on for there are NO PLACES TO HIDE IN THE ACOUSTIC NOISE. I have to say V drums make you better. ALL imperfections show. I have corrected timing and hits. I only want to hear what counts and V drums are the way to come correct. The drummers that can't play on V drums hide their imperfections in the noise be it timing or accidental stick hits. Clean is the way to be......save your party for after the session. ROCK ON GLEN!
I've not got access to a space to record drums and make music more for my own enjoyment.
My process for programming drums (which I'm always refining) has the following steps:
1. Program the parts
2. Adjust velocities to account for double hits, ghost notes, flams and parts played with non-dominant hand, as well as drum fills
3. Take everything on beats 2 and 4, turn off snap to grid and bring them slightly before/after beat (depending on whether I want to push/pull the beat)
4. Humanise the timing and velocity of everything to taste
5. Automate global tempo changes (speed up/slow down) by a few bpm to simulate a real drummer's response to things
It can be time consuming but well worth it to make something that sounds like a human and provides a sense of groove and feel to the song - personally, I feel like it actual gives me 'emotional weight' to the songs.
Glen's suggestion of varying the samples (e.g. different parts of the snare) is something I've just started doing to add more dynamics to the sound so I'm glad I'm on the right track
The stuff about the bleed was really interesting, so I'm definitely going to look at how I can do something like that
Top notch content as always 🤘🏻
NICE!! Glenn, till when is the intro sale, cause its end of month and I am broke 😔
Hello, Glenn !
When will ELE 2.0 Update be available?
It was supposed to be in February, right?
Thanks!
Holy shit! I learned today how to humanize properly. Stupid me have been going trough every single drum hit one by one until this moment. I'm even scared to calculate how many hours I have wasted in my life because of this.
My computer won't support Kontakt but I'll be buying this for the channel and for the TCI files. Nice job!
Wait what? Why doesnt it support Kontakt?
Best intro I’ve ever seen
Peace sells to me was more effects for drums than drum samples. I could be wrong but that's the way I see it.
As for the song you played the one thing I noticed straight away was the bass drum beats, you could hear the pedal control... Amazing job dude I'm looking forward to getting this. Now can you make something that stops people using the same guitar sound 🤣
Hey Glenn Great vid! Have a question. Can you plug in a smaller amp into a larger bass amp? Like hooking a Fender Champion 20 to a Peavey combo 115? Thanks.
Hey Glenn are you offering any mentorship programs or anything relates? My mixes suck and I need some training. Thanks!
That opening scream was reminiscent of Noddy Holder! Slade are cool, so that's a good thing 🙂👍
Cracking good episode BTW
Ty!
Hey Glenn! Is there any chance you'll add a second floor tom to the program? It already sounds impressive as it is!
Can’t say for certain!
That’s awesome. Very informative. Price of the plug in is still a little steep for me though.
Hey Glenn. Amazing content as usual. I have a question that's not really related to this topic. But would it be possible for you to do a shootout of some amp modeling stomp boxes like the Stymon Iridium, NuX Amp Academy, Joyo Preamp House, Atomic Amplifier-box MK2, etc? They all seem amazing from the videos I've heard, but would love your take on them with how you do shootouts.
Thanks for everything you do. Greetings from the country that people in the United States think is fake, Australia.
Can you use other samples? Can I say import Ugritone's 90s death metal drum library into this? And will the bleed effect function with other sets?
(Sorry if that's a dumb question. After a 10 year hiatus from music I'm just now diving back in. I'll be having to learn a lot of stuff that's just basics for today's home recording guy)
In Logic Pro you can "export" a recording and transform it to midi, then you get exact timing an velocity. Have helped me while the engineer forgot to record the snare drum on a live show. One of the toms had snare bleed and i could add a samle to add in the snare.
Interesting!
Hey Glen
Have you ever tried using a physical drum machine (like the Alesis SR-16 for example), and if so, what do you think about them. The touch pads are sensitive
and you can get some pretty convincing sounds. You can also record drum patterns in real time, or you can program each pattern manually. Would like to know
your thoughts. Thanks and keep up the good work.
God damn, that intro was impressive! I was expecting the plot twist of Glenn being a Super Saiyan. "For you see, bassist. You're not dealing with your average Glenn anymore!"
I don’t know if you usually do videos with no background music but I noticed this time, you should make more videos like this it feels more personal
Gonna buy your Plugin Glenn, the bleed effect sold me on it
Because of temporal masking a snare followed shortly by a hi-hat will sound different that a hi-hat followed by a snare. This is used along with frequency masking to compress audio into mp3, ac3, opus, etc. Also the precedence effect comes into play. Be careful of the order of notes when 'humanizing', your ears pay more attention to the initial attack of a sound than the sustained portion.
Oh YEA!!!!! So as a long time drum programmer, by hand, with Cool Edit as a daw... then later in Acid with real samples... I would hand set the sample volume for each section... now, I can draw a velocity for any midi drum I use...
I also like using a master velocity curve in tandem with individual velocity for items ... let's me get those Peart rolls right.
I used Way Cool Edit with Digital Wings way back in the late 90s!
Man with those kind of screams you are good as a vocalist!!
Very cool and amazing sounding drums! The drum programming interface you use: does it come with Reaper, or is it an extra plugin (Or is it Part of ELE)?
That’s part of Reaper
@@SpectreSoundStudios Nice! I'll definitely buy ELE 🙂
It would be really interesting to hear some of the cool patterns people are coming up with using ELE. Maybe some description of "how the sausage was made". I'm sure there are amazing ideas people are working on using ELE.
Instant LIKE on that OP scream.
This just might be the greatest thumbnail I’ve ever seen on UA-cam. I can’t stop laughing!!
We don't deserve Glenn. He's the man who has the balls to tell us what we need to hear rather than what we want to hear.
Very cool! Sounds as good as most of the usual suspects I've heard (I only have AD2 :😢) How many midi files come with it? Its tempting for sure.