Drum Programming

What software do you use to program drums?

When I was working at my Moulton Studios in San Francisco, drums were programmed in Logic, using EXS as the sampler, and that usually was for kick, snare, open hat, closed hat, shaker, and an occasional percussion loop (i.e. congas). There also was an additional drum loop as audio, many times; two more drum loops, usually short, like 1 or 2 bar loops just to thicken up the programmed stuff.

Now that I have relocated to my new studio in NYC, I don’t use logic anymore. Since February 05′ I have been programming drums all as audio files in Pro Tools. I would throw in a kick snare, hat and maybe some closed hats and move them around and use the Logic quantization grids that are in Pro Tools now to make the drums swing and be as tight as my old way of doing things with midi in Logic. I still add a few audio drums loops.

Sample Session

Heres a breakdown of the tracks in the photo:
——-
Kick
Kick Bounce
Snare
Open Hat 1
Open Hat 2
Step Hat
Closed Hats
Perc Buss 
(the next 6 tracks are routed to this buss and compressed all together)
Old Loop
Live Loop
Conga Loop
Bongos
House Loop 1
House Loop 2
Fills
Tom Hits
Crash
——-

In the example there are 2 mono and 14 Stereo tracks used to make the Drums.

In order to get this many drum loops and drum parts to work together the loops have to be VERY tight, and or Locked, to the same quantize grid. If they are all using different quantize grids and there are that many loops going on it is going to sound loose. I take my time cutting up and aligning every drum loop. I used to use Recycle and drop the file in the EXS 24 Sampler and then quantize them via the midi file but now Pro Tools has Beat Detective for this same thing using all audio files.

The mixing of the drums is another article altogether but as you see in the example there is a buss used for many or the drum loops and percussion loops (Per Buss). I find that by routing those bits to a bus and compressing it a little the whole group has a little more cohesive sound, like it is meant to go together.

In this example it has a very full and complete sound but this same approach with different loops might just sound too busy. In order to avoid this I usually use real simple House Drum loops just to thicken up the overall drum sound.

This example is from an actual remix I did and there is a lot to it.

Remember, sometimes simple sounds better. Let your ears be the judge and have fun.

• 
•