REAL DRUMS VS MIDI DRUMS! Making MIDI DRUMS Sound REALISTIC!

[@jordanthistle2360]

If you want to make the drums sound even more realistic. Break the drums into their own sections I.e hi-hat Kick Snare Floor Tom Ect... Then use pan on the separated kit Hi-hat would go to the left side since it is on the right. The kick stays in the middle. The floor Tom over to the right. Snare would be a bit more to the left side middle. It will push your realism over the top. Great video

[@rayemmitt5624]

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[@watsonzayd8708]

@Ray Emmitt Instablaster =)

[@rayemmitt5624]

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[@rayemmitt5624]

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[@watsonzayd8708]

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[@chaelletheartist]

Honestly, I like the MIDI drums better! They sound great, but knowing that it's possible to get fantastic drum sounds without needing thousands of dollars in equipment is really inspiring. Great work, Nathan!

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Yeah, honestly, I'd probably go back and totally remix the live drums to make them sound more like the MIDI drums. But, yes, using MIDI drums can definitely sound great and realistic!

[@boytino2646]

@@NathanJamesLarsen im working on midi drums,,,,delaying some parts of beat a little will make it more realistic?

[@allwordzaremadeup-voidz6229]

@@NathanJamesLarsen there is no love in the midi tracks

[@super2z284]

@@NathanJamesLarsen I'm very new to digital music production and the default drums in garage band sound terrible where/how do you get those drums?

[@jye_24]

Trust me I don’t drum u don’t comprehend how soulful it would would feel to do ur own drum roll. If u play guitar you understand how satisfying it is truly making the music

[@dazboot2966]

6:21 ‘I’ve got pretty darn good at playing drums in on the keyboard’ - ya think?

[@Theactivepsychos]

I know this is an old video but I've been making some drums and added a "room mic" and a "Soup Can " mic faked from a bounce of the entire drum kit. Sounds really good.

[@GarethThomasTunes]

Nice work Nathan, your midi programming sounds great. It’s something I’ve been getting into lately too. I like how you matched the midi to the drummers actual performance, you’ve got me inspired to capture a drummer’s performance (on a single mic in a practice room) then match it up with studio quality NI drums.

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Try it out man!

[@elyot4010]

Great vid! I submit to an A & R company on a regular basis that supply music libraries for TV and film. No matter what I do to the midi drums or how long I fiddle with the velocities and such, they always tell me that the drums don't sound human enough. It drives me crazy. Very frustrating. I've been watching these tutorials and I already do everything you've pointed out, still... "Everything is great but... the drums don't sound human enough" I want to throw my computer out the window

[@goobabooba1665]

Hi, what AR COMPANY you’re submitting to?

[@notmyonlyfriend]

Gotta say that the drums kinda sound like heavy dirty soul, but with more open high hats and a lot less ghost notes

[@mikehatfield7084]

Hey Nathan, really interesting video! Do you have one on how to program drums for someone who’s never really played drums before? Like the mechanics of drumming and tips on how to replicate realistic patterns with MIDI for non drummers? Cheers!

[@paulboutin7191]

I think using a real drummer playing over programmed guitar riffs would sound a hell of a lot better!! Push a button for the notes you want, arrange them how you want, and off you go!

[@MrEcted]

Fantastic result! I actually like the MIDI version better if I'm being honest. My favorite trick with drums is bussing everything out to a drum bus, then parallel compressing that and then throw on Devil-Loc (from Soundtoys) for some added grit. Massive drums every time. Sorry to live drummers, but I basically never use real drummers anymore. It's just too annoying to set up, get all the mics right, go through all the takes, hope the drummer is actually competent, etc, and then fix a bunch of shit in post, add samples, deal with a shitload of drum tracks and phasing issues, etc. It's far FAR more efficient for me to just use really high quality MIDI drums, they are so good these days that 99.9% of people would never know the difference, and I have far more control. Want a different kit? Then swap kits! Electronic drums are fine, but in the end I can create a drum track far faster than I can record the tracks with a live drummer.

[@piktormusic2538]

This process looks pretty familiar. It takes a lot of work, doesn’t it? Depending on the tune, I also “slop” the timing of the parts up to varying degrees.

[@gmouchta]

Good job man ! Take care to level match in the future though for even better comparisons ! I think still the real drums sounds alot different (rather than better or worse) Take care

[@michaelbrowne7142]

Thanks so much ! Super helpful

[@jeanjacketjohn8797]

Loved this video! You work a lot with Native Instruments. Do you have a package from them you'd recommend that's the best bang for your buck? I'm especially drawn to NI because of the awesome drum sounds you were able to find. Thanks!

[@TheDeaf424242]

I've been using NI for a long time. Studio drummer is the best drum sample set I've ever seen by a mile, but if you do a lot of production I recommend just getting kontakt komplete it comes with studio drummer and a lot more. Awesome synthesizers and samplers. And it's a much better price when you buy the pack. I think It was like $600 for the starter version and the pro version is like $1200 or something. But you can start with starter version and then upgrade later without losing any money. Both are totally worth it. I can't reccomend it enough tbh. No I'm not sponsored lol.

[@matteobirsa]

Great job Nathan! You're my hero! ✌️

[@fudly0]

I would like to learn how to make music. I'm prepared to watch a 30 video playlist, but you don't have any tutorial series aimed at beginners.

[@magicdrummer411]

I'm doing this with my electric kit. Makes super good sounding drums for tracks this way in MT power kit 2 and didn't have to spend any money on it

[@robmurrah3224]

9:31 those sound awesome. Sounds real enough to me.

[@callumfrew285]

playing drums on the midi keyboard: that was surprisingly good haha. my brain can't cope very well with the kick being on my left hand so i essentially cheat and record overheads separately

[@sammytheman8994]

Drums sound great man! When you quantized the MIDi drums, do you usually like quantize them 100% to the grid then like "humanize" or swing them to make them more realistic or did you only partially quantize them to the grid? Thanks!!

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

I do quantize 100% -- as long as the expression is good, then quantization will never make it feel "too good." Same goes for cut-and-splice editing. You can't edit "too perfectly." No such thing. As long as the performance is good, you want things to be "In the pocket" and that comes by editing and quantizing. If it sounds too robotic, then it's a problem with expression (or velocity in MIDI terms)

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Ah, I didn't answer the second part of your question -- I do not do anything other than Quantize at 100% unless I'm producing something that actually has swing, in which case you can actually quantize in swing (under note value, you've got 1/8th Swing A-F). There are multiple levels of swing that you can quantize at, so 1/8th Note Swing A is a really light swing, but Swing F is a hard swing.

[@redhorsereincarnated5040]

I was disappointed that the first thing you did was quantize. But that's the thing to do i guess.

[@DraftZJ]

so would you say you don’t want to have your kicks or snares for example have the same note velocity as the last hit of that same piece? i noticed you kind of just randomly ballparked them within a certain range of each other, and that would make them sound more realistic right?

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Great question - yes! If they're the same it'll sound less realistic

[@SeleckPlays]

Loving the vids man!

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Thanks!! 😎

[@01et69]

Is it finally two midi drums playing /using along with? Thanks a lot

[@VaishnavVivekPrabhu]

Hey, Can someone tell me what is the reason behind adding 2 drums?

[@sean_tristan31]

where'd you get your drum samples?

[@danks5950]

Nobody: Comments: good job, *MAN*

[@syachipeanut]

Good job bro

[@KiteFlyingRobot]

Auditioning the kick samples that come with Battery: "So obviously none of those are what we want". I LOLed so hard at that part, because isn't that Native Instruments in a nutshell?

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Lol. In terms of Battery stock stuff - yeah I'd agree but in terms of Native Instruments overall - I love NI.

[@TOZAntonioPiretti]

Hi Nathan, thanks for this video. A question.. what do you think about the role of the overhead mics to make the sound of a sample drum be more realistic..? don't you think that they are strategic in this..? thanks..

[@elziolima6918]

Can i improve any midi track using a PC??

[@JeffreyGFlegler]

Great job, man!

[@kingstring853]

i had your profile picture as my phone background once

[@mvricks90]

would it be possible to use battery all the way from the start? or is session drummer more aimed for acoustic real drums. I have battery but use it mostly for electronic drums and I want more real sounding samples

[@sebastianjuuldamgaard1119]

I have to ask: Sounds amazing, but: The output seems to be clipping quite a lot.. I find that, when i try to put drums in my track, either the whole track clips or the drums (or overall volume) have to be turned waaaaaay down. I have tried to identify the problematic freqs, but still find it lacking, and the track ends up either over compressed to not clip, or boring and flat... What to do?

[@huckwalton2307]

I would start level matching your Bass against your kick. Us an analogue VU meter plugin (not the stock digital) and get your kick to hit around -2 if it’s tuned to -18bfs, which most are. Then bring the bass in until the result is around 0. That should be a great starting point for your levels. Most people start too high, and then with build up (regardless of how aggressive you eq) start peaking on the master bus. Let me know if you have more questions.

[@huckwalton2307]

With a touch of tape saturation and inflation/limiter on the master bus, you should get some great energy.

[@sebastianjuuldamgaard1119]

@@huckwalton2307 never got to reply, but thank you very much, i'm trying to get it to work (i'm a new logic user, so everything comes at it's own pace). One thing: How to i tell if it's tuned -18bfs (and what is bfs?) Cheers

[@huckwalton2307]

@@sebastianjuuldamgaard1119 my bad. That was a typo. I meant dbfs. Stands for DB Full Scale. So basically what’s happening is on logics meter, you want -18 to be the same as 0 on you VU meter. Waves vu is a cheap meter that I happen to know I’d -18 set. Most are unless they give multiple options. There’s a good video on it if you search “low end trick, Recording Revolution”.

[@samuelfrench80]

I thought the same

[@diogocarneiro2016]

I passed here only for curiosity, but I stayed 'till the end for your song

[@gmc211]

9:44 mmm crispy

[@lukeaustin1201]

Loved the comparison man. Just had a thought about the results. Do you think that the results for this are genre based? in your opinion do you think that rock drums may be easier to program (to emulate a real sounding kit) then some other genre's that are more 'feel' based (Singer - Songwriter/Jazz)?

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Thanks! As far as genre - it depends on how good you are at programming and knowing what those drummers would actually do. If you have a good understanding of what a jazz drummer would do, it's definitely possible - especially if you've got good samples to work with. For jazz, you'd want a "jazz specific" plugin for the samples since those kits do often sound different. For "feel" you can quantize with swing feel and change the strength of the swing, so for those genres, you can definitely mess with aspects of the feel with that which will help. At the end of the day it comes down to how solid you are with programming that genre. I've done a couple film scores where there was jazz, and I used samples for the drums, and it turned out good. I wouldn't say it was "amazing" but passable. It would've been BETTER with a live drummer in terms of the performance, but, honestly, samples are really hard to be in terms of quality of sound. Mixing live drums is a huge task and mixing sampled kits is just WAY easier and less time consuming. That help?

[@yohangunawan3553]

Hi, if you see this comment, just wanna ask, what do you tell people who always said ‘MIDI drum is not realistic’ because in my experience, i create song with midi drum, and no one notice, BUT after I said drum is MIDI, the listener said ‘Ah, I can tell, it doesn’t have human feel, etc etc’ It’s irritating me how my friend is responding. Hope you have good argument to tell him. Thanks in advance :)

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Usually I don't tell em! Haha. I don't see why they need to know. If the music is good and people love it then they don't need to know. Otherwise, some people are just dumb and have their opinions. Same about vocal pitch correction, people get up in arms about it but I use it on every production and every producer I know who is actually successful does too. A lot of producers program drums and it's pretty well accepted that no one cares as long as it sounds good. My advice is just don't tell them and if they have a problem with it just shrug it off and focus on making great music. You'll always have people who don't like any number of things.

[@yohangunawan3553]

Nathan Larsen Music lol 😂 solid argument about pitch correction 👍🏻 I’ll take your advice Nathan. I will following you from now on 😆 thanks!

[@benirodriguez9516]

you could always tell those who says "MIDI drums is not realistic", that they are right... But the "real" factor is what makes the drums (played by real drummers) sound bad! You have of course amazing drummers out there, that I would love to have in a live band, but for recording, as their availability is close to none, pluss it cost money... MIDI drums are the best next thing. Then as Nathan says, your listeners don't need to know, and they will not notice either (if done correctly). If still, someone asked you, is that a real drummer or midi?... you could say, it is a real drummer AND midi!... huh?... the samples of each hit, where played by a real drummer, recorded by a great producer and all of this in a great sounding studio.. and then the midi is how you implement those recorded samples into the final drums. ;)

[@jannatinkarlen8702]

I can't unheard that robotic sounding midi

[@SuperRonnie65]

Great video man!

[@miguelabrilbravo4004]

Great job, man

[@meeramusic3453]

Good Job Nathan. I wonder if you have any idea how to make emulated room drum mice abd bleed tracks. Like using addictive drums

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Can you explain more what you're asking?

[@meeramusic3453]

@@NathanJamesLarsen .. I mean how make a track of kick with snare sound bleed. Or snare track but there is a kick bleed.. ?

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

@@meeramusic3453 And you are wanting to do this artificially with samples instead of live? I suppose the best thing would be to essentially use EQ, reverb, and then really lower the gain significantly to emulate that sound. So, record a kick and a snare - then whichever you want to be the "bleed" track you would use EQ, reverb, and gain to mix it in with the primary track. Why are you wanting to do that, if you don't mind me asking?

[@meeramusic3453]

@@NathanJamesLarsen Actually some idea coming on my mind.. First ..I Just want see how it will be the final drum mix if I emulate these bleed. Just I want see and feel the final result. Second.. another thing I am trying to research. Is the drum and room mic. Does mic types will affect the drum kit sound.. am not good at all in mic or recording.. Thank you nathan. I aporeciate ur replay.

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

@@meeramusic3453 Gotcha - my main advice would be this... Don't overthink it. It's better to push forward in making great music rather than getting hooked on details. Of course, if it's something you're really interested in and love doing it then go for it! Just don't let it hinder you from making more music :)

[@DopamineMVWM]

Nobody: Nathan Larsen: "Darn"

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Which do you like better - the real drums or MIDI?

[@izzy4el]

Def the midi. Noticeable improvement imo.

[@matildahalili8051]

Is it me or do the live drums sound brittle?

[@DrumzNotDrugz]

Real. If you have a trained ear, you can tell the difference between midi drums and real drums. Obviously the real drums feel real, and the midi drums feel robotic, no matter how great the sample. However, the average listener is not going to notice or care.

[@GreenDayIsOver9000]

the beat at 11:58 sounded like take on me

[@rajeshanaparti1968]

Please make the vedio how to create rhythm and how to mix it...For the beggeners...

[@VeressDani]

-100% at 9:55 sounds like drums in the powerpuff girls intro

[@maxtaylor3745]

Was like yeah sweet, then looked at the price tag on NI... 🙃

[@adamelfers9523]

is that a Schoeps mic in the back?

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Hey! No, it's an Avantone CV-12 :) fantastic mic

[@philipdent-composermusicpr9297]

Love your tutorials!

[@Zoologic21]

The tune reminds me of the end dance music in the episode where spongebob bought all the cuddly krab shit to alleviate Mr. Krabs of his debt from buying all of it.

[@dianshane]

I personally didnt like the initial mix....i like hard snares and in my opinion snare was lost in the mix initially

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

I actually agree. I'm not thrilled with this mix either. It's a few years old - I need to go in and remix it. I never released this - so not like it'd be a waste.

[@benirodriguez9516]

Definitely, if you have a pro drummer available, a good acoustically treated room, and a quality drum set mic'd up with good quality mics... then go for the real thing. For the rest, just put some time learning some basic drum patterms, know how to edit velocity on the midi (as we see Nathan doing in the video), get a good library sample, and KaBoom! The listener of our music, will never know! (and we save on paying a drummer for his work) ;D

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

100% accurate!

[@BadWinni]

oh dude how about timing?

[@saturatedneowax]

4:40 ow

[@faz1991]

My man loves beef.

[@lilacrain3283]

No shit your midi drums are going to sound like real drums when you’re using samples of a professionally recorded drum kit lol

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Not necessarily true - if you don't really program properly then it doesn't matter how good the samples are, but it is definitely true that bad samples that sound cheesy won't work.

[@lilacrain3283]

Nathan Larsen Well yeah, but the samples are doing pretty much all of the heavy lifting. As long as you’re not programming like complete shit those samples are going to sound good

[@noliebeats]

Surprisingly the MIDI drums sound better!

[@jul3249]

real drummer had more grooves. Would have been interesting if you had quantized the midi drum to the real drum track instead of the grid, to see if the midi drums could carry out the groove!

[@badjujuforever]

maybe try it without using amazing samples...

[@njkdrums6241]

I am a little worried about these drum machines it feels like they might put great drummers out of business.

[@metalheadblues]

Good drummers will never go out of business

[@LunaticTheCat]

It made me very uncomfortable when you quantized the midi drums 😬

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

... why? That is a standard practice lol

[@Boysermusic]

Nathan Larsen I think he means that the syncopation humanises it and gives it a more natural and raw feel. However, wanting to make the drums more robotic is still a valid stylistic choice and as you said, it’s a standard practice.

[@izziOnBass]

Thanks for the video. But still the drums don't sound perfect enough for a studio mix! your hihats are very rough may be.

[@muhdfaiz7637]

There is no need to make midi drums sounds realistic if one is Using an award winning vsts drums like SD3 and AD2 ...coz the sounds are already authentic realistic...

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

If someone sucks at programming drums it doesn't matter how good the samples are, though.

[@muhdfaiz7637]

Nathan Larsen Music nahhhh..i prefer playing the drums or call my frens over to play the drums....i don’t like programming samples..no human feel and touch

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

@@muhdfaiz7637 That's fine. Either way - point here is how to do it if you don't have that option.

[@justinnaramor6050]

@@muhdfaiz7637 "no human feel and touch"? umm... isn't that exactly why MIDI controllers exist? This sounded very human to me. recording MIDI drums with a MIDI keyboard isn't that much different from merely playing actual drums in a multitrack recording, just that you get all of the advantages of MIDI (you don't need hundreds of takes, and you can easily edit the MIDI notes if the timing is way off, for example). It's way easier to correct wrongly played notes when recording in MIDI than recording in audio. I'm beginning to wonder if you didn't even watch the entire video? Because, sorry, but the "no human feel and touch"... I simply do not and cannot agree with that.

[@justinnaramor6050]

Oh and also, Nathan's reply was correct; if you suck at recording/programming your drum parts in MIDI, very good drum samples won't magically make your MIDI drum parts sound better. Frankly I'm wondering if you even have much knowledge on MIDI... sure, in the early days of MIDI it used to sound like utter shit, but don't underestimate the advancements in technology, particularly with sampling drums and things like that; using MIDI notes to trigger high quality samples of real acoustic drums (provided those MIDI notes are programmed skillfully) really can sound indistinguishable from a highly trained professional drummer with years of experience under his belt. I know it probably seams like I'm ranting against your comments, but I've learned a lot about MIDI in only like 3 years (didn't have a lot of knowledge on MIDI beforehand). So I think I know what I'm talking about. Your comments frankly reminded me of someone who has practically zero knowledge about MIDI.

[@krowus3833]

Why you qantizite this MIDI drums?

[@NathanJamesLarsen]

Because that's how you get it to be rhythmically accurate.

[@benirodriguez9516]

as Nathan replied, to get each hit in it's accurate position. Of course if you could play 100% the midi from your keyboard or another midi controller, then kudos to you, but the rest of us are humans (meaning we have flaws, specially in precise timing, when we are talking about milliseconds.)