Drum roll... please.

[AHornsby]

I need some advice making = decent = drum rolls, or should I say midi drum rolls. It's not just midi notes at 124th's as it sounds excruciatingly rote, well, like a midi drum roll.

[I'm currently working on a soundtrack for the play: 'Happily Never After' where the back story is about the psychiatric follow-up of characters of 3 well known fairy tales. So, the idea I have with the track has to be a little different that the original melodious works.)

Wanna listen to a little of it?

formcforum.mp3

(520.7 KiB) Downloaded 181 times

[Mark Bliss]

Hmm, interesting virtual drumming challenge!

I have never tried programming it. But I do recall trying to learn to do rolls on a snare in my youth.
First, it seems there are some slightly varying styles and techniques. But the basics of it include a hint of a leading or timing note, and allowing the stick to "bounce" a bit loosely in synchronized time.

The best result might come from a combination of several very subtle things. I think I would experiment with slightly higher velocities on a lead note (first of ea. measure and/or at the quarter maybe?) and then slightly humanize the MIDI roll. Might even benefit from a slight hint of well timed slapback delay, not sure.

[aquataur]

You know the Acoustica Studio drum video?. The drum rolls are not bad for a relatively simple instrument.

Sampled drums like EZD are another category.

-helmut

[Mab098157]

Here's an old thread...http://forums.acoustica.com/bbs/viewtop ... =roll+drum

[Mark Bliss]

Theres a good point in that old thread about taking advantage of multi-layered samples. I overlooked that important suggestion.

[msnickybee]

It takes a huge amount of effort wading through, but I personally stick to samples for drum rolls. Have a close look through them built in library, kind of ignoring the genre initially, there are some good ones in there.
I've tried programming drum rolls. It's....super hard.
Same goes for EZD, I guess it all depends how valuable your time is!

[aquataur]

I believe EZD & Co are good because they are played by a real drummer. Samples are getting mapped to those events.
Programming those layered samples by yourself I can imagine is not so trivial.

I have done stuff like that before. You start with events that are all more or less identical, fix your abysmal timing by pulling all events straigt, then what do you have to play with: velocity and timing. You are trying to accent some events according to the beat by fiddling with velocity. Of course you are at the mercy of the layers. Then use the "humanize" function that does weird things, certainly not what a real drummer would do. It becomes, um, different and you don´t know if it is better than the original.

-helmut

[M@rkus]

At 08:05 you have a nice roll; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2TuymOIBBE

Sennheiser´s "Drummica" is a free midi drum vst that I think i great.

Best regards/
M@rkus

[Mab098157]

tutorial on ghost snares in midi http://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/a-g ... audio-4126

[Mark Bliss]

At 08:05 you have a nice roll

Perfect for working with circus clowns....
Actually that looks like an interesting drum VSTi.

tutorial on ghost snares in midi

Good general tutorial/tips on getting started with programming realistic drums IMO. And technique 3 pretty closely describes what I was trying to get at in my first reply.

Nicky's right though, a lot of work for a drum roll isn't it.

[AHornsby]

Nicky's right though, a lot of work for a drum roll isn't it.

@All Thank you.

Some call me stubborn. I see myself rather as a perfectionist and with talk of copyright infringement from loops now and then I'd rather it be someone else infringing on MY stuff.

I have been working on this (throughout the day) since early this morning and I have come to some conclusions. It's not really work as it's more a labour of love so if it takes another two or three days even, I'll get it right though I am really close right now.

[There is orchestral percussion (tympani) and marching band -- snare, tom, bass drum --experience on my resume' and I can still hear some of those cadences to this day.] I'd bet I'm not the only one in this forum that can hear instruments without them being played.

Now, after all that I was able to see an entire rehearsal this evening and may have to tone down the curtain call music some. I'll keep the drum roll in as I became even more determined after viewing that video with the 'clown' remark. I thought it would be more suited for a trapeze act myself -- but to each his own. -h

[Mark Bliss]

Nothing was intended as a knock on your efforts, quite the contrary. Even the comment in the video was IMO just a funny crack, not to ba taken as a "why bother."

And yes, hearing it in my head is how I assessed my ideas for my first reply. I do that all the time. "Hear something" a certain way in my head and try to think of how I would recreate it that is.

Stubborn, determined, picky, whatever you want to call it, I can relate and respect. But dont lose touch with this fact.....

You are always going to be by far your own harshest critic on these kinds of things. In this case, you could use the very most "machine gun" MIDI roll for your curtain call and no one would notice but you.

Sometimes the best way to settle the issue of "good enough" for yourself is to set a reasonable time limit for your effort, whether it be minutes or a few days is up to you.
I have learned obsessing beyond reason isnt as satisfying in the end as one might expect, and accepting "good enough" is never the personal letdown one might expect either.

Just a little advise from my own experience.

[Mab098157]

Another option may be to grab midi with a roll in it. Copy out the snare roll from it, paste in a tweak? Maybe a midi for "tonight, tonight" by Smashing Pumpkins (if midi file exist). Always love Chamberlin's drumming on that song. I'm sure we can quickly list many other uses of rolls in contemporary music.

[AHornsby]

You are always going to be by far your own harshest critic on these kinds of things. In this case, you could use the very most "machine gun" MIDI roll for your curtain call and no one would notice but you.

Yup. Tell me about it. This is why I put down the oil pallete years ago and picked up my guitar again. I can paint pictures with music now. -h

[msnickybee]

I've still got an Alesis SR16 somewhere, and ever since programming drums on that, I swore I'd never do it again!

Somehow (and I know it's just me) I feel I can get away with tweaking synth and piano midi notes, a velocity here and there, but midi drums? My ear spots it.
But, I'm sure you're burying it in the overall mix, and that does make a difference.
Just don't go solo'ing tracks and listening acutely with the metronome for hours and hours like I do (blame insomnia)