Programming Drums for a Song

brgreg78

Hi all. This is a pretty rudimentary question about recording a song, I’m just curious how some of you approach this issue. How to you approach programming drums for a new song in the rock/pop genre? What I mean is, let’s say you have the basic song structure (verses, choruses, bridge, etc.) and you want to start laying down some tracks: do you program a rough drum track first then go back and add fills? What’s your workflow for such a process? Also, let’s say you’re using Cubasis 3 or a similar DAW. Any and all feedback will be appreciated!

richardyot

Personally I create kits in Nanostudio 2, you could probably do the same in Cubasis, and then figure out what kind of beat I want for each section (verse, chorus, instrumental etc). I'll then add fills later for variety and to transition between one section and another.

I like to actually play the beats on the pads in NS2 rather than just enter them into the piano roll, it feels much more natural doing it that way to me.

The drums on this song were performed in this way:

Alternatively you can save yourself a lot of work by importing your track into GarageBand and using the AI drummers, they do a pretty good job:

brgreg78

@richardyot said:
Personally I create kits in Nanostudio 2, you could probably do the same in Cubasis, and then figure out what kind of beat I want for each section (verse, chorus, instrumental etc). I'll then add fills later for variety and to transition between one section and another.

I like to actually play the beats on the pads in NS2 rather than just enter them into the piano roll, it feels much more natural doing it that way to me.

The drums on this song were performed in this way:

Alternatively you can save yourself a lot of work by importing your track into GarageBand and using the AI drummers, they do a pretty good job:

So once you’re ready to add fills to transition your sections, how do you do it? Do you edit your already existing drum track or do you program a new drum track with the fills?

I ask because I’m trying to find the most practical way to add fills to my drum tracks once I have a song fleshed out. Basically, I’ll copy a drum section and edit the last few bars to add in a fill to take me to the next section. Once I’ve done this for the whole song I’ll re-record this new edited drum track into the project. I’m just wondering if there’s a “smarter” way to do this.

richardyot

I just play the fills on top of the existing drums. The new parts will just get merged with the underlying MIDI.

brgreg78

Interesting. I’ve thought of doing just that.

Ailerom

I record a basic guide guitar track. Practically the basis for the song but a rough first take. Then I program Drums and Bass around that. I then get to recording the guitar tracks. I usually have to go back and modify fills and bass transitions.

PhilW

I use two methods - either I play in the drums manually to fit the music once the basics of the track are sketched out, usually in two or three passes (kick and snare, hihats and cymbals), or I record quite a few bars of one of Lumbeats apps such as Rock Drum Machine, and then cut, paste and move around to fit my piece. This gives me a selection of different fills for example. It is the particular song which dictates the approach.

MobileMusic

Once you have the melody, use the brilliant Drummer in GarageBand - you can pick and choose genre, fills and more... Just split the Drummer track where you want fills and customize the fills using its various parameters. You can even have various drummers, genre, preset, etc. for each region on the same Drummer track.

There is nothing like GB Drummer on iOS. Period.

Fingolfinzz

I usually get a barebones drum beat going roughly in the style I want and build around that and once I have something going on, I’ll delete my drum track and create a new one with fills and whatnot for each part by finger drumming so I can get some more natural feeing drums that go along with the dynamics of everything else

michael_m

While I don’t own a drum kit, I usually play along on an air kit to get some idea of what I want. Once I know how I would play it myself, I look for a tool and kit that will work.

drez

I finger drum everything either on my phone or iPad. I will generally just do a bunch of measures of fills and pick/choose/tweak from those. Basically just doing a bunch of “takes” and go from there.

u0421793

What I've noticed I'm doing recently is taking whatever drums I've done on a track, and stripping back so that it's less dense but still contains the interesting bits, then adding Drummer to go alongside it, to gain the strength + sensible side of drumming.

brgreg78

I really appreciate the comments of those who’ve chimed in. This discussion has given me some new insight into the process of laying down a song.