Tip for acoustica and question..

[marc32123]

Right now I think the one thing that is holding me back most, and also one of the hardest things to accomplish for electronic/soul/hip hop style music, and even rock etc.,
What I think I am lacking is the skills to make good beats. It is impossible anyways to replicate an acoustic style hi hat pattern/loop for example.

I wish Mixcraft had a lot more good sample acoustic drum loops. More acoustic hi hat/hip hop style beats...

Does anyone know of any good sites for acoustic loops like high hat loops, in particular for hip-hop and soul style music?

[Mark Bliss]

Wheres the tip?
You've lost me again Marc. Even looking for the question in that post leaves me a bit confused..... But I'm always willing to try.

Since electronic/hip-hop sounds seldom use anything resembling "acoustic" sounding hats, (or drums of any kind for that matter), in my observation....... Soul and rock maybe more so, but...

The audio/DAW world is absolutely flooded with the electronic/hip-hop style drum samples, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding roughly 100K free examples without any effort whatsoever. And it seems to me about 90% of all tutorials covers processing them for these genres. And there are IMO perfectly useable examples right there on the computer in front of you right now.

Realistic acoustic sounding drums are a little harder IMO, simply because even being interested in them seems to put us in a minority. But in reality, it only takes looking a little harder.

Maybe you could try and clarify the post just a tad?

[Rolling Estonian]

Realistic acoustic sounding drums are a little harder IMO, simply because even being interested in them seems to put us in a minority. But in reality, it only takes looking a little harder.

Or spending a bit. I can't help but mention EZdrummer2, they have tons of options, including Americana, Indie Folk, Nashville etc. Best drum software out there imo, very versatile and made to customize including hi hats.

M

[Mark Bliss]

That suggestion has seemed to come up a few times when drum creations questions have been discussed hasn't it!

FWIW, they have add on sample libraries in the electronica end of the spectrum as well, Not that I would know anything about them.

The sounds are IMO for the most part outstanding. A lot of the "work" is already done for you. The workflow isn't for everyone, and as far as I can tell, the electronic drum crowd "ain't so hip" to it. Maybe I am wrong.

The program and a small collection of relevant add ons is going to run what, $200 to 250 retail? Pretty good deal if the sounds and workflow suit you really.

But Its NOT for everyone. Especially given the abundance of electronic sounding drum samples available for absolutely nothing. Whatcha, whatcha, whatcha want?

[Rolling Estonian]

The best part about it is having an invisible man playing drums!!!!!

No, it isn't for everyone and what you can get for free for that genre of music it probably isn't worth it. But for older guitar players who have a great disdain for everything drums it works great!

M

[vizionheiry]

Did you download the free pack of MVP loops?

There's also an abundance of free hip hop drumkits on Reddit. Try r/drumkits.

Marc, I think it may be best for you to understand how to program hip hop drum patterns. It will free you up from relying on loops and allow you to create the patterns that you want for each song.

Someone loaded this Drum Programming bookhttp://www.slideshare.net/flebbo/drum-p ... -a-drummer online. It offers exercises on creating drum patterns.

You can use the step sequencer in Mixcraft to follow along with the exercises.

[ruhestrom]

yea best tip someone can give you is, get away from loops... they are normally good for basic placeholders, but building your music just based on them will let you dry out on variety pretty quick... get a cheap (or affordable to you) midi keyboard and start making your own beats... you can always use some loops as reference at the beginning... but learn it, it´s worth it in the end...

i´m personally thinking about getting an e-drum set, for less than 300,-€ they are not bad nowadays, for use at home at least and i guess that´s the closest i´ll get to play the beats like i "feel" them

[fredfish]

The June and July editions of Computer Music Magazine has a 2 part article all about building drum beats and fills.

The free downloads for the 2 months also contains a load of fairly good drum beats including a whole section of acoustic drums beats, Hi-Hats and a load of loops as well.

This link is for the downloadable version costing £3.33

https://gb.zinio.com/www/browse/issue.j ... ion=true#/

This link is for the hard copy costing £6.25

https://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/ ... ck-issues/

Very good read anyway!

Cheers

John

[msnickybee]

Just to add a different perspective... and agree with Marc.

I feel the pain too, a lack of built in acoustic loops.
And I for one will *never* move away from drum loops. I've lost count of the number of songs I've done with "blues ballad" drums sliced and diced!
My reasons are this - 20yrs ago with an Alesis SR-16 (still got it somewhere!) I had my fill (see what I did there?) of drum programming, and loops for me give a more realistic feel than I can program quickly. I subscribe to Computer Music, and that article fills me with "my kids will go without food for weeks if I spend time doing that" feelings....

I've yet to see a hand programmed loop (ezdrummer aside) sound as good as a live played sample, but, this is where you correct me you guys...

So I think it comes down to time and patience. Both of which I lack...

I'll shuttup now.

[fredfish]

Nicky - I don't disagree with you at all. I too would usually go down the route of using pre-made loops - or in my case I use Superior Drummer.

However the thread was beginning to go down the route of how to program your own beats and also the OP wanted access to samples and loops. Those two copies of Computer Music not only have the article but have a ton of loops and hits. For example there are just over 500 hi-hat loops including acoustic and electronic.

I mentioned the article as it is a very good read - will I implement much if anything in there? Probably not

Oh and there is a very fine mastering vst that comes with the June issue as well!!

Cheers

John

[Mark Bliss]

Another thought, from my observations, many people working with electronic styles (EDM, Hip-Hop, etc.) skip the MIDI editing, quantizing, etc and simply place their favorite samples where they want in the timeline using the snap to grid function and get on with processing the sounds. (Or use pre-processed samples. That's the point of building their collection of favorites right?)

The basic concept is presented in this very old tutorial I created, using the premise of building your own custom click track. Yep, there's easier ways to build a click, but perhaps it contains the foundation of additional drum and bass track building ideas?

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... ayms=15000

Eh, I went ahead and fixed a few images and steps and updated the old content to Mixcraft 7. Now its slightly more current.

[Rolling Estonian]

Mr. Bliss,

Excellent work as always! You're tutorials are great and have helped me tons.

In case you don't hear it enough, thanks! Myself and many others appreciate it.

Now get back in that man cave of yours and make some more!

M

[Mark Bliss]

Thanks for checking it out and thanks for the compliment.

Hope it supplied some inspiration.