Lessons

Lesson Info

Part Writing Part 2

Let me do a brief recap of where we're at we went into rift to riff one is on the hat rift two's on the ride rift who is more of a pre chorus type situation on ly reason that riff one went through the line of times it went through because we don't have vocalist we're doing a drum classmen reality to be way longer be other elements happening so ok pretty much works but that's a group that I would go back and tweak later but in the interest of moving forward this third one wood beam or where the course would happen this so I wanted something completely different for that just to really set apart is of course supposed to pop, right? So I was thinking some I think along the lines of tom be cool, tom beet uh, allah queens of the stone age or something? Uh, which is a band that I dig so we're looking through here I do, I think they're sweet, sweet writing so I think you're sweet I think you're seeing all right so tio cleaning here I went tio heavy tom's and let's just check out what what kin...

d of pizza go so I could take that and cut it up and make it into something but want to keep checking things out that's actually phil that's pretty cool but since I'm not the type of person who likes to just take the first thing that comes my way I am going to check some other ones so variation one is a little bit lower and it kind of sounds like variation to focuses on some higher tom's being that the riff is a little bit higher in nature I'm going to just go on a whim and take the lower drum one tio give it a little more separation so let's just see made it work as you can see it kind of works and it kind of doesn't but that's where I would mess with the groove the basic the element of it that done done which is pretty cool though that right there that might be what I used on my original version of the song uh way meet this delay because it's just going on forever cia um so this group is something I would cut up so let's see ok so basically I was gonna delete that don't even need it you're right that's a different one that's this one they're two tracks of leads all right so this right here is the basis for what I'm looking to do I am going to just ah grab it to here in the loop it they were and go back and tweak it a little further so let's see what we got so far it might be an odd amount space yeah it is that's why I get some of the crashes in there well you're poking around here uh want to do it a couple more shadows mr ryan night from black dahlia murder I ryan tell a lie said hi my feet from the netherlands is cutting in and out of it need to go warm up before the show great job, pal love you ryan okay, so but we put the tom beat on what would be the chorus and uh and I grabbed the first the first beat copy it onto where the verse rift comes back and uh well uh we basically without refining it yet which were going too well are we basically have the makings of the makings of a song the makings of the makings of a song okay, so now we've got that and ah in my opinion before you start adding fills and messing with everything should ask yourself does that get the point across like do you guys think it gets the point across? You can say no do I need to change in these besides tweaking like are these beats close enough to where I can move forward and tweaked them what they was what you thinking? Yeah, I think all the grooves definitely matched the structuring of the makings of the making of song makings of the makings of that's where we're at right now yeah so that from this point I would have created its good to move forward and start tweeting individual little things so what were you saying? Were you about to say something yeah just had a question about more of the program shows it by default going into just the same kit even though you're choosing separate grooves well the kit that I have selected is this papa rocket so you can choose from multiple gru's yes like check this fall through it like our just for the sake of being funny because I don't think this kid's going to sound but for this style music I am going to load metal machine ok give it a second load the middie is still gonna play through that doesn't sound bad but it's different so yeah, the the midi packs the grooves are not proprietary to the kids which is part of what's so cool about this when you get a library of groups it'll work for any one of these kits that you get s o you know put it on a rock easy acts that's more the kit that I was using my original example give you something that totally won't work real quick just you can hear the difference like the jazz kid watch it work just because I say because I said it won't work it's a brush is on there this will be the one one more question from thie chat rooms which is from to shatter not pronounce yeah uh where do you find the key maps iii which many note on the piano roll correlates to which kind of hit on the drum kit you see this little question mark right here when you hit this question mark you get this menu so we are in jazz macy's has description and middie layout so click on many lay out we'll see what happens a pdf should pop up and there you go this is what they give you for the options are different in superior drummer a superior drummer it's a whole other story and uh whole other course but this is how you do it and easy drummer they give you this pdf for everyone of the drum sets and there we are printed a question mark uh many layout yes the question mark is right there in the top right of the plug in and you know, it's it also gives you the description which is kind of cool if, uh nerds out there want to know it's the description of exactly who recorded it um he meaning the drummer the producer where it was done like all that stuff you know I don't know if you want trivia I don't really care about that kind of stuff but pay me back to this um so we were on the original kit for some reason but I might just go to iraq because I know that's what I like all right so start with this first first beat, I feel like the high hat our little bit overbearing, so I'm going to find that hats and I'm going to bring down the velocities on them overall, okay, that's exactly what I'm gonna do. I believe that this's them. So question for you. Sure, why are you bringing down the velocities rather than the level off the high hats? You know, in the mixer? Because I think that it's not it's, not a volume issue so much as it's, how hard the drummer actually played the hat the hat sounds different if a guy's playing it medium intensity, the hat itself will sound different velocity corresponds to how hard something's being hit and of course, if you're hitting harder, it gets louder, but the tone changes, so what I'd be doing if I turn down the volume right now is I'd be taking this tone that I don't think fits and just turning it down, whereas right now I'm going to be changing the tone completely gotcha! So so you see, I selected it, the hats and I'm bringing down the velocities a little nothing major it's not quite as overbearing and, uh maybe a different hat will be a good idea here, maybe not that one, so I decided to go with high and dry hats not so bringing in all over the place and taking everything over has kind of wanted something that kind of just establishes that you keep the pace like like the shaker would in a pop song check it out though look at how varied these velocities are it's not just sts that's not what's happening at all um these velocities air all over the place on what you would think is just a very simple high have pattern just keeping a pulse going so on that note we have ah question from the chat room which is aaron from florida how were the preset grooves not kwon ties to de strictly quantas the drums when you're quant when you're creating a song so I know I know from talking to and tried guys that they deliberately did not kwon ties the groups do you want to talk about why they may have made that decision? Yes the grooves air not kwon ties because they're played by reald drummers and they're supposed to feel like a real drummers it would almost invalidate the reason tio go through the trouble of getting these guys to play this stuff of your if they then quantifies the middie the whole benefit of getting these expansion packs is that you have the field not you know, not just the meat choice but also the field of all these great drummers on the field comes from variation in time so that's you can always kwan ties them if you want I mean you could even take it to the level on diff this is too advanced for some people let me know but you could even go to the level of busing these down to individual tracks and then using beat detective and edit them like you would a normal drum session in the studio with a real drummer I mean these are basically reald drums just converted into mittie so yeah, they leave them as they were played some it's pretty cool I think some of these drummers air so great that you really don't need to bother quanta izing anything so back to this high hat I'm gonna let you guys in on a little secret I never really used the mixer on this thing so we'll see this does what I want it that okay so I want to point this out and solo out easy drummer yes here the amount of variation in that all right? So one of the things that I noticed about bad drum programming back in the day when I was programming beats and still to this day when I get stuff from people when there's like closed high hat there's just like closed high hat and it's quiet has literally one or two samples and it's just it just doesn't sound right for some reason I've never been able to figure it out why until now but that sounds legitimate to me and again check out o play it so load out and ah check out the va la city variation on that okay, so that high hat is highlighted so notice it's going soft loud soft loud soft loud soft loud soft, loud soft loud but even within that there's variation is not just it goes down to a one soft velocity and one loud velocity is changing every every one of them is different now however, it looks like the loud ones are very close to each other there's still little variation there so even on these simple you would think all you had to do is program in quiet hat and that will take care of it even on these simple beats, the dynamic velocity variation is key to making this sound real here is unsold sounds like a drama inflate it because and mind you that's already that's already messed with and that's not the original group anymore. Okay, so sorry about the second beat. Ah, a lot of things that don't really work well with the rift. The kick pattern is a little too busy in the wrong parts that's a little too not busy in other parts so let's examine that, as was the ride bell isn't hit hard enough says you can see right here you've got a lot of kicks going on I'm gonna start by removing the ones that are under the snare because lots of drummers don't ever even do that. And this point when we're talking about something like kicks, it's important to really think to yourself, like, listen, your head, what kind of beat do you want this to be? Where do you want the kicks to happen? That right? There seems like too much to me, this guy right there were out to fix the phil, obviously the film's jack. All right, so now I think that that's made a monumental improvement to the field of that with the rift riff is kind of busy, so the kicks don't need to be as busy, contrary to what all you metal people think that kicks do not need to match the riff, you don't need to match every single note. Actually, you might get more mileage out of your beats if you add a little bit more space there's a lot of power in the space just noticed that guy say later it was nice knowing you, so I think the rift has a lot more space now. Uh, it doesn't get in the way of the moving of the guitar movement, whereas before the kick pattern was so cluttered that it was just getting in the way so that's a quick improvement that I made to that uh let me examine the ride really quick that feels a little dinky and it is a little thinking I feel like we need a little more reid bell in there so I sit here so just going to take these as a tester the upbeat and shift him to the bell I believe this is the bell, but there's played lightly so I'm going to raise the velocities a little bit on them now might be a little too much so I see that they're scrag lear's faras velocity goes to bring that one down a little. Okay, so that's kind of what I was going for with reid's I'm gonna basically ah, repeat that idea for the rest of the thing and mind you, I'm not copy pasting what I just did I'm taking this performance and I'm applying the same concept to it um of taking these upbeat these rise on the up beats and putting them on the bill I know I did not take this and just copy paste it over to here like a lot of you would be inclined to do or I would have been inclined to do it once upon a time since this is an actual performance uh just transferred into mittie why mess with that? Looks like the drummer even made a little mistake there and played a double hit on the ride so they leave in a little the little inconsistencies or variations or in this case sounds a little mistake it's gone and again I'm going to apply the same concept this time to this third time so this phil right here is almost there in my opinion the only thing missing is one time hit at the end because uh the it has to bridge over has to basically connect us to the chorus and right now so I'm just gonna find a time that's lower than the that one and then just do that guy think through a crash on the one of the course only one thing is bugging me still right here that I'm gonna fix is that this ride pattern just kind of stopped I should continue on the bill however these velocities are a little much I know one thing when it goes to this tom part it's kind of like the flow stops a little bit and that's not supposed to happen so we're goingto go toe high hat on the foot and just add at a pulse so no sounds like that that would be it so I was goingto make sure that it's that I'm just gonna grab a middie note and put it there and then add a pulse and on this I am copy pasting but that's not where it ends I'm going to then randomize it yes it does yeah thiss would be where we consult the question which note is it if we're just checking there's closed agincourt battles, don't see they have different ah dinner versions because sometimes they do because they have, like, closed tip, all right, close petal. I think the velocity is just too high. Did I think that's what it is, and also it's the same velocity every time right now. So, yeah, exactly fake is hell. So all right, so the reason I'm doing this is because this was not a performance because I am augmenting a performance so there's no ah there's, no feel that I would messing up. I'm going to be creating feel on this, okay, so that went to the end, okay, so first of all, over all these air too loud, second of all, they're all the same velocity, and I think it should go loud, soft, loud, soft, loud, soft, lot soft. So let's, just check these out. It was the glamorous world of of drums there that sounds a lot more like the deal.