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while reggae rhythms are characterised by a heavier third beat. There are also p
hysical limitations on
how hard you can strike a drum: beats played in quick succession will tend to be
quiet, since you
can't raise the sticks as high, or get so much travel with the bass drum pedal,
between hits.
4. Also, don't ignore dynamics within the song. In dance music, the drums are of
ten compressed to the point
where they are totally even in volume throughout, and any dynamic changes are ef
fected by simply dropping out
parts of the rhythm. Real drummers, however, use crescendos and other dynamic ef
fects to add feel to a track;
often, for instance, they will build up the volume going into a chorus.
5. Use sounds which are appropriate to th
e dynamic level of
a particular drum sequence. Some percussi
on instruments,
like crash cymbals, are virtually impossi
ble to play quietly,
while others, like rimshots, bongos and h
andclaps, are
inevitably relatively quiet. A sequenced
full-on drum assault
will thus sound a little false if it is b
ased around huge,
reverberating rimshots or triangles.
6. Use only percussion instruments which
are appropriate to the
style of music you're trying to emulate,
and remember that most
real drumkits actually contain a very lim
ited number of drums. Not
many rock drummers would have wind chimes
, timbales, tablas or
claves in their standard kit; similarly,
if you're aiming for a '60s pop
feel, that 808 snare probably won't be a help. Few drumkits feature all of the h
uge range of toms found in many
synth drum sets - it's often best to choose two or three and use only those. Als
o, be careful when reproducing
drum parts played on brushes: some synths' so-called 'brush' sets actually repla
ce only the snare samples with
brushed sounds, and don't bother to provide brushed samples of cymbals or toms.
7. It's one thing to have the feel of a pattern in your mind: however, it's much
harder to analyse the
slight timing variations that produce that feel. The best way to capture 'feel',
therefore, is to play the
parts into your sequencer, from a keyboard or other controller, in real time. St
art with the two most
important - usually the bass drum and snare - in a single pass. Playing the drum
s well is, like most
instruments, difficult, and requires a lot of learning. However, it's not hard t
o use two fingers to bash
out a basic rhythm, and doing so makes it much easier to capture the elusive 'fe
el' of a real drum
part. And the beauty of sequencing is that you can correct any mistakes afterwar
ds.
8. If you're not sure what sort of feel your drum part should have, or you can't
seem to get it right by just recording
to a click track, remember that you don't have to record the drums first. If you
r song centres around a particular
piano or bass riff, for instance, you could try recording that into your sequenc
er first and add the drums later.
Being able to hear the important instrumental parts is very useful for deciding
what kind of rhythm will or won't
work.
9. If you do need to edit the patterns you've entered, avoid snap to grid or sim
ilar functions. It's all too
easy to end up not only correcting mistakes, but also the timing variations that
are responsible for
the 'feel' of the part.
10. Though editing can be used to remedy mistakes or really sloppy timing, there
's
little point in painstakingly bashing out your rhythms in real time if you're th
en going
to quantise away all the variations. If you must quantise, leave a fairly wide m
argin
so that only really late or early beats are corrected.
11. Bear in mind that a lot of real drumming styles actually depend on
consistent deviations from theoretically accurate timing. Sometimes this is
quite obvious, as in the case of heavy syncopation or 'swing', which
imposes a triplet feel on a four-beat rhythm, but it can be much more subtle.
For instance, playing slightly ahead of the beat, particularly on the first and
third beats of a four-beat bar, is a common device used to add urgency to a
rhythm, and is characteristic of much disco, pop and country drumming. In
other genres like the blues, by contrast, drummers sometimes deliberately delay
the 'off' beats to
create a laid-back feel.
12. Don't simply record a one- or two-bar sequence and then repeat it throughout
the entire song. Even if you
want to have the same drum pattern all the way through, record it several times
and mix the different versions
up. Each version you record will have slightly different dynamics and timing var
iations, and the variety will help to
reproduce the looser feel of a real drum track and implement some of the dynamic
changes I've already
mentioned.
13. Keep it simple. With today's sequencers and multitimbral sound sources, it's
easy to over-egg the
rhythmical pudding, either by adding improbable numbers of virtual tambourine, s
haker and triangle
players, or by programming intricate rhythms and fills where most real drummers
would exercise
self-restraint (or lack of ambition!).
14. Listen to drumming on records to pick up the sort of patterns and fills that
get used in a particular musical
style. Careful listening can make you realise that your assumed ideas about a pa
rticular style of drumming are
actually quite wide of the mark. For instance, it's very easy to get into the ha