Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

Let’s talk drum machines. Although there’s nothing I’d like more than to work with a real drummer, my lack of garage space, rehearsal time and patience with puny mortals (cyborgs and Dave Weckl excepted) puts me at a disadvantage. But I’ve gotten by pretty well. All of the post-Cleveland era Walkingbirds songs use programmed drums, including American Thing, The Big Lie That Solves Everything and Everything They Say, which are my favorites as far as drums tracks go.

So what follows is an overview of the process I use to create drum tracks without drummers, based on a few years of trial and error.

Samples

First, let’s make sure that we’re all in agreement that MIDI drums unconditionally suck. Okay. That leaves us with drum samples. And by that, I mean samples of real drums. You can search for these on the Internet at places like FindSounds, or you can purchase samples on CD. I bought the “2000 Drum Samples” CD from SuperLoops about a year ago, and I’ve been extremely happy with the quality and variety of samples. I use them everywhere. It requires a little bit of extra work, because the samples come packaged together in several large WAV files, and need to be sectioned out with an audio editor. For example, the “Snares Dry” file has about 200 clips of some guy hitting different snares with different sticks at different speeds. It’s up to you to locate and edit out the ones you want.

I suggest taking the time and building up a large library of snares and cymbals, since these will be the most audible in your mix. Think of it like an artist’s palette — the more colors you have available, the better. Don’t mess with the pitch or speed of the sample; it’ll just end up sounding unnatural and weird, especially cymbal samples.

You can also find drum loops — samples of live, human drummers playing a measure or two in a particular style. These are pretty neat, but I don’t use them, mainly because 1) they’re never precisely on the beat (although there are now programs like ACID and ReCycle that can align loop samples to measures) and 2) it’s harder to do transitions, like from verse to chorus and back, without having it sound weird and abrupt.

Software

I use FruityLoops for all my drum sequencing. Which is pretty funny, because FruityLoops is mainly designed for electronic music. It’s a pattern-based sequencer, meaning that I use the samples to create drum patterns of (usually) one measure in length, then arrange those patterns into a song. In this sense, FruityLoops is no different that the classic Roland drum machines like the TR-808 and Dr. Rhythm. The “express” version of FruityLoops costs around US$50 and is only available for Windows, AFAIK.

FruityLoops also gives me a good bit of control. I can control the pitch and velocity of each sample on every beat, which is crucial for avoiding those super repetitive 80s New Wave-sounding snare fills. There’s also a ton of effects that can be applied to both individual samples and the overall output. I like messing with the Fruity Free Filters, which apply strange envelope effects with names like “Party Next Door,” “Telephone” and “Tiny Speakers.” I could go on and on about the tons of other features FruityLoops has, but I won’t. Check it out and be amazed.

The only other drum sequencer software I’ve liked is the drum machine that comes with Propellerheads’ Reason, available for both PC and Mac. I have a copy, but haven’t used it very much due to weird audio disk problems with my iBook.

Approach

I usually start out by creating a handful of patterns to hook together into a scratch drum track. It usually goes like this: a pattern for the verses, one for the choruses, another for the intro, and if the song has one, another for the bridge or instrumental section. I try to get the basic song structure and tempo down so that I can sit down and play along comfortably with the drum track from start to finish. Feel is also important. If the song is supposed to have a slow groove, or insistent pulse, or some other intangible quality, I try to nail that early when composing the patterns. It’s impossible to do later on after you’ve added guitar and other instruments.

Following this, I start making variations on the basic patterns to liven things up. For example, I’ll copy the main verse pattern and add an additional flam, or open high hat, or whatever. Sometimes I’ll have four or five variations of a pattern to choose from. The more patterns you have, the less predictable (and less mechanical) the final track will sound.

After that, I move onto the transitions. This usually means taking the measure between two song parts (say, verse and chorus) and editing the pattern so there’s a natural flow from one into the other. I easily spend more time on transitions than any other part of the track, because these points help carry the song forward and set the listener up for the next bit. For example, the verse-end drum fills in American Thing help create tension, allowing the chorus to explode. There’s really no formula for this; you have to have a clear idea of what you want to start with.

Once I’m done with the overall track, I usually end up waiting a week or so, playing along with it every day or two, tweaking it and making sure I’m happy with it. Then, I export the entire track as a single WAV file and import it into a Cakewalk track. If at some point I feel the need to tweak something, I can go back to the FruityLoops file, tweak and re-export.

Tips and Tricks

The following are suggestions based on my experience, not hard and fast rules by any means.

• Listen to your favorites. Pay attention to little details, like the position and volume of the high hat, or the sound and shape of the kick drum. How does the drummer move from one end of the kit to the other?
• Visualize the drum kit as if you’re sitting behind, or standing in front of it. Where is the ride cymbal? Where is the low tom? Use stereo panning to give each instrument a “space” in the overall mix.
• Remember that even the best drummers only have two arms and two legs. It’s unlikely that a drummer could keep a four count on the ride cymbal, high hat and snare. In other words, avoid writing patterns that are unplayable by humans.
• Don’t go crazy with the crash cymbals. They’re almost always louder than they need be, and tend to fuzz up the high end with white noise. The best cymbal is implied.
• Be careful when editing cymbals that you don’t accidentally cut off the trailing end of the sample. A little reverb can help hide these mistakes, but it’s better to go back and recut the sample.
• If your drum machine or sequencer has a “humanize” setting, DO NOT use it. All this does is randomly vary the pitch and velocity of each instrument on each beat, and will turn your track into a mess from which there is no “undo.”
• OTOH, if you have a “randomize” setting for samples, try it. This usually lets you assign several samples to the same patch, and the program randomly chooses the one to play on each beat. If you give the randomizer several different-but-similar-sounding snare samples, the result will be a much more realistic-sounding snare, since the number of identical samples played in a row will decrease.
• Remember that the majority of drummers are right-handed, so everything played with the right hand will be slightly stronger than that played with the left. Remember this when doing things like snare and tom rolls. You want BAP-a-ditta BOP-a-ditta BAP, not BAP BAP BAP BAP BAPBAPBAPBAPBAPBAP.
• The more beats you have per measure, the more definition you have. It’s hard to do 32nd-note fills when you only have 16 beats in the pattern.
• If you plan on creating MP3s of your songs, beware stacking identical samples (especially cymbals) too close together. The human hear might not hear anything weird at 128kbps, but at lower rates the lossy MP3 compression will introduce all kinds of weird, cyclical noise. If your recording software has an “add noise” or “add dither” option, try using it to add a bit of random noise to the drum track to break the consistency of the brighter instruments. Better yet, make sure your high-end samples aren’t louder than the other instruments in the same frequency range, and let the overlaying of sounds naturally provide the dither.