The Terrible Midi Drum Mistake People Make (and how to fix it!)

[@FrightboxRecording]

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[@AgentMeat]

I set mine to 110-115 (ish) then spend time creating additional realism. All drummers have a dominant hand and foot. For snare or kick rolls, I make every second hit a lower random velocity. I don't over think this process, I just pull the velocities down slightly for the "weak" side. I also listen to the track and see if there are other areas where a drummer might hit harder or softer and adjust the velocities accordingly. One other "trick" is to not create a midi pattern that is not possible to play without 3 arms. . .

[@FrightboxRecording]

"One other 'trick' is to not create a midi pattern that is not possible to play without 3 arms"...THIS!!!

[@mmaviator22]

Don't forget that most drummers when doing single foot doubles have a softer initial hit and a harder 2nd

[@robsco1249]

The opposite...first one is harder

[@leechick]

It’s quite interesting to hear the side by side comparisons. Something I noticed was that the snare had a lot more body and tone to it rather than just a snap.

[@FrightboxRecording]

Yes, exactly!

[@Mansardian]

Yeah, the velocity thing is something I've known all along. But there is another mistake some guys are making when programming drums: A drummer has two legs and two arms. As long as your drummer isn't an octopus keep that in mind when you are drawing your notes. Example? A floor tom/snare flame with both cymbals playing at the exact same time. Under normal conditions that's rather impossible.

[@FrightboxRecording]

Exactly! I see this all the time.

[@stevewills735]

Love it! I would even dare to say you could pull the velocity down to 100 and get better results. Remember your gonna be adding all that saturation and compression on your Parallel bus to make up for some of the oomph. cheers!

[@icaanul]

One thing I like about reaper is the easy "humanize" adjustment you can do in the midi editor. Highlight, humanize, adjust the variance. Since most things are written on the fly by home musicians anyways, it helps ease the workflow.

[@scamp7887]

It helps, but it's a bit too random. I find it's still best to think like a drummer and emphasize the down beats and think handedness. No drummer will be equally as strong with both feet on double bass, so reducing every other hit slightly helps a ton.

[@jeremyv3010]

EZDrummer 3 (which just came out), now has a grid editor. And within that grid editor they have SUPER cool humanization features. A few targeted at velocity and will really help this issue. You can easily “randomize” or add dynamics to each drum hit’s velocity so they are scattered across 100-115 (as an example). This is a game changer in my mind because I’d manually do this in Cubase with just about each MIDI hit and in EZDrummer 3, you can do this in about 5 seconds.

[@Spladoinkal]

Drummer here: I definitely agree and want to take it a step further. Back beats on the snare are going to be accented as much as possible (these are the hits that you see drummers on stage hitting with the stick all the way over their head as a wind up and are usually always rimshots for extra volume and fullness), so for THOSE hits you could do around 127, so maybe one will be 127, the next 124, etc. But rolls on the snare are typically done on the middle of the drum because it gives more rebound than a rimshot so maybe use 105-110 for those. Cymbals are actually usually played fairly lightly unless the person is in a stadium show where they can hit the crap out of them and just have the sound engineers back off the mics. So you can usually mix cymbals by velocity rather than gain and get a pretty accurate feel of what the drummer is actually doing. The kick drum usually has very little in terms of dynamics in most modern genres of music but again, mix it by using velocity and just keep the velocity fairly stable throughout the song. Toms are typically used for fills and your velocity should be conducive to how fast you're playing the fill. Slow fills on the toms can be nearly as loud as the snare backbeat, but if your playing super fast on the toms, consider backing off the velocity slightly (drummers spend years honing their chops so they CAN play fast with power so don't back off velocity TOO much). Also: Don't play something a single drummer couldn't easily play. For instance: There are certain grooves where the drummer may take their hand off of the hihat or ride in order to hit another drum. You want to be conscious of how a drummer would play that so you aren't making a hihat note AND a drum note on the same beat. Consider looking up a similar groove with the one you're writing and watching how the drummer plays it to be familiar. I know this sounds like a lot but remember as a producer using midi, once you get the groove dialed in, you can copy and paste so you're only having to do this stuff for small sections at a time. Long winded but I hope this helps! Edit: One more thing. if you're playing BLAST beats, remember that even though many times they are rim shots so they should still be accented, they are usually played with just the wrist of even fingers so the velocity won't be as high as a slower back beat.

[@jkilco1]

Thank you, great tips!!

[@petset77]

Agree. The problem is that a lot of these guys are living room players who haven't played with a drummer in rehearsal much less on stage, so you offer great points for them to consider. They think loud music is played hard on every beat on every instrument, without considering dynamics. Thanks for the insight.

[@jrfoster1980]

I have some defaults for each drum type - snare and toms at 110, kicks at 105, cymbals at 90-110 (depending on the cymbal) and then reduce snare/kicks for blast beats, reduce toms for fast fills etc. Nolly Getgood has done some youtube tutorials on midi drum velocities and it's pretty useful.

[@DivineZeroResin]

I do the same. Especially with Black Metal stuff I even reduce the Snare down to 80 when it comes to blasts.

[@leearmitage]

I'm definitely trying to up my game with midi getting there slowly

[@punkfreak1414]

The comparison is crazy. Usually what I did was I would keep it all at 127 and would pick random notes to bring down but even then I only brought a snare down to maybe 120. I knew velocities played a role but I never thought to highlight them all and bring them down to 110. Definitely doing this from now on!

[@shaunreiner7671]

This is great advice! I can definitely hear the difference when you were going back and forth between 127 and 110. Thank you for this!

[@FrightboxRecording]

My pleasure, Shaun!

[@brianperkins7997]

I really appreciate the information you have been dropping here man im on your mailing list too. So much great info man thanks, youve already help my mixing sooooooo much. But let me ask you, I play in a drop c tuning and use midi drums. Ive always had the idea that tuning my kick to the open top string was a good thing to do. Do you do anything like that?

[@FrightboxRecording]

Nope, I've never done anything like that.

[@Boblivion81]

Thank you for addressing this. I had 127 going nonstop and it doesn’t sound realistic. I was getting a lot of clipping with snare and floor toms. Appreciate you!

[@KaiDown]

Humanising drums became such an integral part of my workflow. I'm at the point where I'm miming along to all of the drum parts to see which hand and foot each hit is struck with, then mapping my velocities from there. Usually I'll do a quick pass to lower the velocities of the left hand and left foot to get a more flowing, pulsing feel, then go in and tweak the rest based on accented hits.

[@Banditman]

Velocity and timing are critical. I've been working with MIDI drums a long time now, long before it was cool. To me, the best sound you can get is when you have MIDI tracks that have been played by an actual drummer. If you can get your hands on that, you will be able to see what those differences are. You can see how sometimes the drummer is sitting slightly behind the grid, or ahead of the grid. You can see the subtle difference in velocity on the hits. A lot of folks will tell you velocity doesn't matter because you're going to compress it all anyway. Could not be more wrong. Modern drum plugins and hardware devices sound very different depending upon how hard a given drum is struck. While a compressor will level the volume, it won't remove those subtle differences. To me, it's most noticeable on snare. Often there are two, three and even four different voicings of snare drum. Hit it in the center, hit it off center, rimshot, etc. When building my MIDI drum tracks, I always base it on a package of MIDI beats I bought a long time ago. They are special because they are not programmed. They were played by a drummer, recorded as MIDI data and sold that way. It "feels" like a real drummer, because ultimately, it was a real drummer. Yes, if I need something unique, I go in and move things, remove things, add things. But because it was a real drummer in the beginning, I can base my changes on seeing and hearing what a real drummer would do.

[@sainphony]

I've been setting velocity manualy for about 15+ years (when i do midi drums parts) and that's the only way drums sound like real performmance.

[@RiffKing66]

How do you usually go about it?

[@firmans12]

Same usually the humanize velocity is no use if it's only move the velocity about 5-10. Cos most sampler didn't have that much velocity layer. Like GGD, even worst drumforge and mixwave one. Seems drumforge and mixwave approach to have all their playing at 127. Lower than that it's not the same velocity layer like superior drummer and GGD

[@greghillmusic]

@@RiffKing66 I do like one verse section manually. Copy that verse midi data to next verse. Do sections like that. Then tweak even more. Painstaking but necessary.

[@RiffKing66]

@@greghillmusic understandable , thanks for the info

[@diegogonzalezvenegas6702]

Same here, note by note, even if it takes the whole day

[@kingricket1581]

Iv gotten into the habit of doing this now, you don’t really notice at first because we always perceive louder is better. I usually add a 5-10% differential on timing and 15% on velocities after that which helps to keep it realistic. Even dead set at 110 all the velocities are the same and with fast sections especially kick and snare can get robotic really quick

[@FrightboxRecording]

True! That's why I start with 110 and change up blasts, fills and insanely fast double kick patterns in necessary. Going 110 is a great way to get you 80% of the way there instantly.

[@two2ixmusic]

You have already taught me this but i rewatched! Spot on!!!!

[@onionheadguy7094]

Super good advice! I like to change the velocity a little bit for what the right and left hand would be playing too

[@J50-q4p]

I’ve thought the quest for “real” sounding drums was a bit of a fools errand nowadays. Most heavy productions feature heavy drum replacement anyway. Many of which include one shots for consistency. I think the biggest improvement I made was learning how to mix midi drums properly to fit within the rest of the track and choosing the right sounds. Then it blends in much more realistically - even for things like one shots

[@FrightboxRecording]

You are right. When Djemt was all the rage, I never understood why people even bothered recording real drums when they wanted them to sound like a drum machine anyway. Luckily there are MANY subgenres of rock and metal that do call for natural-sounding drums. I'm a fan of natural-sounding drums, so that's the sound I usually go for and those are the clients I work with most these days.

[@BrimstoneButcher]

I keep my drum velocities between 95 & 110. Great video as always dude.

[@cmd_f5]

Good stuff. I generally have my velocities between 105 and 115, a little less for faster parts but still high enough to keep the snare from being buried/ghost notes. It also depends a bit on the sampler being used. Cheers

[@jasondidner]

I capture my drums on my electronic kit and mostly leave the velocities as they were captured. The natural fluctuations between about 100-125 are what I roll with. I’m still kind of new to drumming so I generally need some quantizing, but I don’t go above 70% quantize strength.

[@userdarkshadow3307]

Always helpful stuff on this channel thank you as always for the great content Bobby!

[@Admiral_Bongo]

I use Superior Drummer 3 and Reaper, so I just randomize velocities within a set range of about 20 when writing drum lines in the piano roll (for example, snare and cymbals get hit in the 85-105 range on blast beats, while the kick is in the 100-120 range, etc.). It became quite a big deal for me, since I write brutal death metal and with a lot of really fast drumming, everything at 127 just sounds laughable, so much it wouldn't even suite for an in-house demo, as it also hinders the ability to discern what would also sound good or bad with the real drummer.

[@jdestrada6281]

I've always found it sounds more natural when you set velocity as you go, groove by groove. It takes a little bit longer but it sounds so much better.

[@georgeabraham7256]

I messed around in a drum library for a plugin once and noticed something like 30 different intensity recordings for each drum, so yeah.. that makes perfect sense.. its not merely the same sample at different levels.. so the sample recorde at max would be impossible to keep up, and not only that, at every other drum in the set? This is a good reminder.. thanx..

[@michaelrichardson8343]

Excellent information, thanks Bobby!

[@mdmorris6193]

I’m a drummer working on everything from funk to dubstep to drum n bass. I play a TD50x kit because those I produce drums for want the midi so they can use their own sounds. Here’s the thing…many drum software instruments will allow you to switch to “Roland voicing”. The big tip? The D note will have a whole dynamic range for a snare. The E note will add the sound of a rim shot…hitting the middle of the snare at the same time as the rim. Much louder. Much more forceful. Place on backbeats in your chorus and during the middle/solo in the song. But nowhere else. Just that simple thing will inject huge amounts of power into your drum tracks.

[@TheMichaelvolz]

I've found that in the Reaper midi piano roll you can select all notes and then go under "view" and humanize all hits to fluctuate volume and timing to a percentage. I have used 30% volume fluctuation and 2-5% timing bias - sounds more human.

[@CrushingAxes]

When recording some demos I don't care much at all with the velocities, when I'm actually working o n something I use a lot of ghost notes and change velocities, I try humanize as much as I can. The Reaper is pretty cool do that, but I usually like to do all by hand.

[@heikkipt]

Yep. With Reaper (wohoo!) I usually take all of my drum midi notes and make some % of velocity humanizing and after that tweaking different sections and drum fills. With fills I even allow myself using some tweaking with timing.

[@MBBGun14]

Really cool and useful video. I usually use humanize option which affects both time accuracy and velocity a bit. Gotta try your approach.

[@AlexeySolovievMusic]

A stupid question here: Let's say my midi drums sound not real, but then i used Slate trigger and some drum metal samples on my midi drums, and finally i used volume automation for all of my drums, will it help me to make my midi drums sound more natural?

[@ferox965]

I'm new to midi drums. That was a massive difference.

[@blackpatflynn]

how did 127 as a max value come to be? why not 100?

[@EricPellegrini]

Great video. I program drums in Guitar Pro & when I export them they're usually around 80 velocity so that's what I always use.

[@johnguy8508]

I'[m interested to know, how come your bridge or breakdown sections are labeled "New Jersey" in your mixes? I've never seen that before! Love all of your videos, thank you for all of the tips and tricks

[@FrightboxRecording]

lol great question! It's an inside studio joke. A lot of meathead hardcore bands will scream "what's up NEW JERSEY...let's see a circle pit" etc., so I always call breakdowns "New Jerseys".

[@RogerSullivanNOLA]

I go a step further than that and program in dynamics. Fills will have a strong and weak hand that get more and less velocity, and within grooves and fills there will be accented notes that are hit harder etc. This makes fills sound much more natural. Along with also sliding the timing off the grid to create feel and groove.

[@watsonstudios]

This also depends on the velocity layers of a given sample pack or VST. Some vst drums don't sound very good at lower velocities or their velocity gradients aren't done well. Some sound good at 90-110 and some don't sound good unless you're st 120 or above. It depends on the drums you're using whether or not a certain range sounds natural.

[@maplefoxx6285]

Thanks for the tips. You would like my midi writing, I practice mapping out funk and stuff to get better at dynamics. The samples really make a difference as well and proper layering if needed for big hitting music. .i still don't have a lot of stuff online yet I am learning piano full time now before going forward with more music. , have you tried Get good drums yet? i will never go back to toontrack. I am also a big fan of the KJ Sawka drum packs. He is the drummer of Pendulum and a producer.

[@Al69BfR]

You can also hear the different samples in that round robin for the snare more easily than when all snare hits are rimshots.

[@sirius8ly]

Using Ardour, I set the velocity to a random range between 100- 110 and that seams to work pretty well

[@continuum288]

In GGD's i peg all the velocities at 127 in pre. Then adjust for the songs dynamics per part over time for the mix..

[@hilbertshotel]

Is there any way to randomize MIDI velocity levels within a certain range-say, 100-110?

[@jondavis8545]

I like to watch drummers grooving and actual drum lessons to try to understand what they’re actually doing…understanding things like ghost notes and where they go are huge for establishing an actual groove

[@zeclomal2265]

Great video! This is something I've learned from the amazing Jordan Valeriote: if everything hits hard, then nothing hits hard. We need contrast in music to make it interesting. Same happens with the verses vs chorus. If your verse is huge and your chorus is huge then nothing's gonna sound huge. It's better to create contrast between them so when the chorus hits it sounds massive compared to the verse.

[@FrightboxRecording]

Agreed!

[@goodheartmedia]

Only thing I've found that can sound decent pegged at close to 127 (NEVER all the way) are toms, at least with the stock kit in Superior Drummer 2, it helps the toms have some punch and life (especially in the room mic channels) without needing any additional compression or processing. In Reaper I use the "Humanize" option and vary the timing by no more than 3-4% and vary the velocities by around 5-10% to get a more organic feel. Finally I'll manually readjust occasional hits after doing the above, especially during parts in a song that build in intensity.

[@WokeUpScreaming]

Something else to try, make sure if a snare and kick hit at the same time, nudge the snare over ever so slightly and it makes the snare a lot beefier.

[@deafworldstudios8644]

Great tips Bobby! I do this as well. 2 quick questions! I use Reaper. 1. When doing double bass kick drumming and blast beats, what range is good? 100 - 110 for the velocity? 2. How do you avoid copying and pasting beats together to avoid it sounding artificial? Thanks man!

[@bribradt3450]

I'm relatively new to reaper and still learning as well. This doesn't answer your question but, To program drums, I make the full midi drum track in guitar pro 5 , then export the midi file, and import to reaper. (been using gp5 for 10+ years and for me it's the easiest/most efficient way to map drums) Once I add the drum plugin/sounds I want, I open the midi map in reaper and press H for humanize, and change the value for velocity. I just play around until it sounds as natural as possible to my ears. I think generally you want to have the drums fully mapped in midi, rather than copy and pasting the sounds together.

[@dr.pitmee_vocc2378]

I tend to keep my default velocity at around 95-97, keep ghost notes around 35-64 depending on how present I want them, and only crank it past 97 on the cymbals when they need to really cut, most often in the ride bell and china, or when I need a slower but consistent kick to really lock in with the guitars or have a snare hit in open space, usually in a breakdown or similar drum riff scenario.

[@OKFCPrez]

Great advice, thanks for this. I use the average of 100 velocity for my drums and vary the velocity on various hits as appropriate. However, I always peg the cowbell at 127. You gotta have more cowbell.

[@FrightboxRecording]

😂

[@jaredholton3145]

Trust me, fellas… you’re gonna want that cowbell on the track!

[@thet740]

EZDrummer 3 has a really convenient feature for MIDI drums. You can randomize the velocity to different beat styles like blast, double time, etc etc. I just keep it on 'Normal' which simulates an average drummer's play style in regard to the velocity of the hits. It is the main reason I upgraded from EZDrummer 2. This feature has made a huge difference with my drums. They don't sound as 'fake'. I'm a novice bedroom recording artist and it really simplified that process for me. Wish I knew the 110 trick though earlier when I was using EZD2 lol. I always wondered why my snares sounded so 'poppy' and harsh.

[@cyberspark4206]

I have certain parts that build and get harder and the majority of the song the drums are medium velocity. It definitely gives you a more natural feel to have some parts harder and some normal.

[@nykola331]

good one! i do the same and i use randomizer -5 + 5 (different for snare, toms, cymbals) for dynamics. I the fill i preferer use snare center and snare rimshot. In blast beat the best way is to try more dynamics and found the most "true" , under 80 normally and snare center . make sense ? On cymbals too, i use less dynamics on the impair hit (in reality many drummer hit harder on 1 and 3).. all things make the fake sound becoming true .. what you think about that ? thanksss

[@ericmarvel909]

I typically use as a percentage baseline, very rarely do I even go above 100, I like to use the 1-100 range for natural "full bodied" sound, and think of it in 10% increments. Then came analyzing how I actually play drums. Kick drum is usually in the 65-70 range for single strokes, doubles and rolling get rolled back to around 50-60. Snare ends up a bit higher, only on accents or power patterns am I coming close to the 90-100 range. Cymbals breathe when the velocity is around 50-60. As with everything YMMV.

[@DavePowell666]

I used to do always to the grid and always 127 velocity just for writing/demo purposes and I thought that's fine, it's doing the job for a demo concept. But as time goes on I've found paying more attention to realism actually helps with writing demos. There's something about the drums sounding believable that can make the difference as to whether an idea works or not. I'm sure i've thrown away some blastbeats riffs and fast rolls/fills in the past because at all 127 on the grid they sounded too silly. 😆

[@saxophonesunsetsmedia]

In addition to the MIDI settings changing from 127 to 110, do you also use subtractive/additive EQ, carving out a spot for each instrument, and adding additional variance to the drum velocity? Thanks.

[@johnwalter6410]

He doesnt answer comments.

[@whome806]

Should I make the velocity all the same at 110 or should I put them all and slightly different volumes like a Hight hat at 105 and 110

[@FrightboxRecording]

It depends on the style of production you're going for. For ultra organic-sounding drums, vary the velocities in a way that would mirror a real drummer's dynamics.

[@whome806]

@@FrightboxRecording Thank you! I just got your masterclass and learned more in the past 2 days than I have in over a year on metal mixing also watching all of your KZbin videos keep it up!

[@demoninkstudios7735]

I use to chart my drums by hand and set the velocities at a baseline velocity per kit piece, then further tweak from there. Now I have a midi controller so I'm playing the kit now on piano for better timing/velocity authenticity.

[@Fiveash-Art]

hyper quantized hits also make it sound like a machine ... The hard fast adhesion to the grid ... I know there are functions that 'humanize' the bits but I kind of like going in and manually moving them around by slight increments , .. midi drums is the knitting activity for computer musicians ... It can be therapeutic and sort of peaceful.

[@lucyferina]

How to remedy the mistakes: Play the drums yourself, don't program them, play the guitars yourself, don't copy tracks just play again on the double tracks it makes the guitar sound fatter. Use only minimal effects a lot of people over do it and it shows.

[@bilcifer666]

great tip. another thing to add to make it sound more real, is to use the humanize option on the same velocities. generally -3/+3 to -5/+5 depending on how you like it.

[@Kimblemusic206]

I also noticed you keep all the ez mix volumes at zero on this and turned the tracks volumes. Plus this is different than another video of yours where you've committed the drums into individual tracks. I'm seeing this all in a midi track. Just wondering if either is fine. I've been doing it wrong because I'm new and bringing all the ez mix volumes individually way down.

[@goguen101]

I use midi packs on some recordings, they're originally recorded kind of poop so I bring all velocity up to max then take it down to about 110-115, does that still give the same effect or should I just leave it natural and bring that down to appropriate velocity?

[@bribradt3450]

In the midi map in reaper, H for humanize, and play with the values until they sound right. That's what I do anyway. Great video, new sub

[@nmbr1ctrman]

It's hard to hear the fuller tone of the drum head with the highest velocity which has the opposite effect of making your drums big sounding. It also requires the drums to be pushed back in the mix to make it sound leveled and not annoying to the ear, taking the energy out of the guitars and bass.

[@lilian896]

Thanks for advice!🦋

[@666nevermore]

Altho i 100% relate to what you say, the midi drum feels wrong generally around the cymbals and especially on the trail, everytime you attack on a cymbal it feels the sound resets and so its previous tail is completely gone. It is very hard sto make an organic cymbal in my experience, probably I’m just too inexperienced

[@michaelbarker6460]

"In the real world drummers are not going to be slamming on their drums with 100% intensity 100% of the time." I see you haven't met my lovely upstairs neighbor.

[@mikebower2329]

I’ve noticed on snare rolls increasing each snare hits velocity slightly will give more of a roll sound as well.

[@FrightboxRecording]

True!

[@greghillmusic]

I've definitely been doing a ton of velocity work on my midi drums

[@grimnocturneband]

I'm very conscious of my velocities. I almost never have hits side by side with the same velocity.

[@OzOgre]

Luv the ancient CRT monitor in the background...

[@FrightboxRecording]

Can't live without them.

[@petset77]

Agree. Most of the guys who paste drum parts together for online metal presentation are living room guitar guys pegging drums to maximum impact without considering dynamics. There's a little more to music than that.

[@davejohnsonmusic]

I usually like my kick around 90-110. You get more bloom and bottom end out of it. Snares 110-123, cymbals 80-110 and toms 90-120. All depends on the drums being used. Leaving yourself some dynamics headroom will allow you to push some sections and fills a little harder throughout the track. That's the problem with using pre-made grooves... the kick especially will be too hard hit for the optimal tone. Don't forget to adjust the tuning on the kick as well. A lot of times, de-tuning the kick just a bit can give you a bigger sound.

[@planetside718]

I do this same thing. Not sure if it was mentioned but this doesn't mean you shouldn't ever use 127. But if your hits were sitting at 127 and you wanted to accent a part for impact... where can you go? nowhere really. If you're generally at 110 then you can still use 127 for those times, ya know? 127 is actually a thinner and shorter, more piercing attack. Not as full-bodied. And especially for any quick snare or kick parts it is immediately way too overbearing if your sample velocity is too high... gotta pull them back.. or do an EQ automation or some other "trick"

[@threepe0]

The overly-consistent cymbals are another jarring tell. I usually humanize/randomize velocities within a small range, and go back to punch up the hits I want on the one for example manually.

[@johnsnyder4949]

lot of times i use the midi files in ez drummer and just doctor the patterns a bit so i find it already has a good bit of variance in the velocities and it really helps with keeping it real sounding. also the new midi editor in ezd3 is a big improvement over using the pro tools editor and it can make doing velocity variances a lot easier and natural sounding

[@metalslinger]

I would take it further by varying the intensity based on what arm and foot would be doing the hit. In double kick, the left foot is usually a little weaker than the right, so lower the one of the double kick velocities by a little.

[@leongrinberg8758]

I almost don't use quantize , and yes the lower velocity the more natural it's sounds

[@austonsmith536]

If you take the time and study drum grooves... get a grasp of what the concept is behind the instrument and grab drum sheet music from a site like songsterr and transpose it to the DAW... you pick up a lot of things that stick with you. Like how you process the off beat hits compared to the on. Which snares should ghost... which should be the loudest. Changing the velocity at specific parts changes the genre, the beat, the song, the energy. You can accidentally create something more epic than the legends like Buddy Rich or Bonzo. Also modifying the transient, cropping out the sound you want. Dropping the appropriate comps, gates, and groove vsts will do all this... Ableton Live has a "groove pool" which does all of this. So the DAW plays a big part at how shitty you're going for.

[@KenDavis761]

Groove templates with velocity quantization + humanisation - easy peasy in FL Studio.

[@ariiincolur]

I’d like to push this just a bit further and say that you should add as much dynamic into the individual notes as well, because having everything just the same velocity can get really old really fast. As for tips and tricks on how to do this low level randomizer‘s should work but it’s preferable to just go in to your song in really decide what velocity want if you really want control over how dynamic your sounds are.

[@jamiemcparland]

I'm a drummer, so here's some tips. Every person has one hand stronger than another. You're left handed or right handed. So on say a drum roll, every other hit is going to not be as hard. Same with like double kick hits (not with a double pedal) but one hit will be much harder than the other. Same with hi hats. Usually the hardest hit is when you hit the snare. The hi hat hits between the snare hits aren't as hard. Hopefully that helps someone.

[@johnhynesproductionslimite7522]

I really scrutinize my midi drums by messing with velocities based on a left hand right hand type concept… any fill that’s done is always hyper conscientious of what hand is hitting it… For example when doing a parradittles… it would be left left right right left right left left right left right right… when messing with the velocities and have it where one hand seems a little stronger or another or just accents can really change up a mix… One thing I’ve always learn though as a rule of thumb as always start your kick and crash at a higher number than usual… I found when hitting a crash at the beginning of a bar or at the end of a fill sounded odd if you brought the number down to low so I always kept it really high sometimes at 127… it went by so quick but it really gave the song punch and was probably the only exception to the rule of keeping it under 127… if somebody wanted to get carried away with doing Phils that sounded a little more real you could do this…if you can record yourself tapping on a table to a the metronome in the track… simply sync up the midi to the transients you recorded

[@MrVyrtuoso]

The key is variation. The velocities, more so than the timing, need to be varied. Leaving them at 110 or any value produces the same problem of a monotonous sound. The programming within phrases need to also consider whether hits are going to be flammed or techniques like double stroke should be used. Flams and double strokes will yield wildly varying, inconsistent velocities. In a flam, the first hit will be softer and the second hit harder and the variation in velocities should reflect this, as well as the timing of the hit in which the second hit will be on the beat and the first hit on a 64th or 32nd note syncopation before depending upon tempo. On double strokes, gotta program different velocities for each note and figure out which note gets accented.

[@mikesmith1290]

I got so tired of humanizing midi drum timing and digging thru hundreds of midi packs, I went out and bought an e drum kit! What started an an Alesis command Mesh is now a 19 piece monster!

[@esmeraldabernardeli3366]

Great video as always! I've been thinking a lot about something you said about Impulse Responses in one of your older vids. You said that most of those that come in packs have phase alignment issues and usually when you combine two of them it sounds thin and weak. I was facing the same exact problem until I found out you had a free V30+SM57 IR and now I've been using that in all my mixes! Although I love to combine two different IR's, yours sound awesome by itself, but this got me wondering: have you ever thought of doing a IR Pack (with no phase issues) and selling it? I'm sure that there's a lot of people that would be willing to pay (myself included) for a few of your cabinet sounds :)

[@FrightboxRecording]

Stay tuned :)

[@justinennis5288]

It's still somewhat robotic if they're all 110 though. Try adding some variation, especially in the fills.

[@babalonsfinest6054]

Messing with the timing is a bad idea, I agree. I think whether you use 127, 110, 100, 80, etc, is all up to what sounds best, or what you want. Some people may want that 127 slammed sound. A real expert MIDI drum programmer will literally program in every hit and adjust every last note's velocity to taste -- as if they were really playing the drums. This can work wonders for hi-hat articulation. But if you want to do a really quick "humanization" of your MIDI drums, I would move them all to the velocity you want them to sound like, then go into Pro Tools, Logic, Reaper, etc, and randomize all notes at a very short range, from say 4-6... experiment as all drum softwares are different. Oh and most of all, how GOOD your drum samples sound in the first place. Anyhow I wanted to comment, just in general to almost ALL music I'm hearing on KZbin being released for years now -- it's NOTHING like the music I actually listen to. For example, I'm listening to DEICIDE, "Scars of the Crucifix" right now. The guitars are dark, thick, and nasty sounding, obviously from a tube amp with real microphones ... there is NO digital buzz, Just raw power, and I can feel the message the guitarists are trying to convey, like their emotions, minds and souls being expressed blatently. The guitars are loud as hell, almost OVERPOWERING the mix. The drums are a real drummer, Steve Asheim. When the entire band is playing, at times, you can barely even hear the kick, and even the snare and toms sound blurred out during the really fast speed parts. Literally NONE of these hits are ever the same velocity, because it's a real drummer. Also the cymbals are very transparent and somewhat in the background too. But it sounds FREAKING AWESOME. Now ask ourselves: how can this Mix or Master sound so good, when everything in it isn't even always clearly heard? Or there are competing frequencies, etc? Cuz that is how it's supposed to be. One thing I was thinking about earlier this morning is: some of my most favorite records have what would be thought of by "modern musicians" as weak drums. Just turned on King Diamond's "Spider's Lullabye." The snare is buried in the background. The toms can barely be heard as well. The kick is really clicky, but even somewhat buried. The cymbals sound like really high quality mics but even it is buried in the back. Again the guitars are overpowering, but unlike Deicide, they sound like they have more high end. Again, it's all very real, and is very "uncontrolled" by today's standards, yet I would rather listen to this than whatever is being released now. It's just better. They even used reverb on guitars, yes, rhythm guitars back then. Even King Diamond's "The Eye" has who, Snowy Shaw, I believe, playing on an Electronic drum kit. You can barely even hear the cymbals, hi hat and ride is almost inaudible. But why does it sound so awesome and catchy and memorable? Listening to King Diamond's "The Candle" -- I think they took the resonant heads off the toms and put mics inside them for this, and reverb is all over the place. Yet it sounds killer. I'm not sure but I think on some of these old recordings they put microphones on the hi hats, ride, and one underneath each cymbal. I've done it before, it works. The worst mistake people are doing is NOT using real Amps, Cabs, and Mics, and NOT using real Drumkits. Even Morbid Angel's "Blessed Are The Sick" is a real drum kit, it just sounds as such due to gates, and reverbs used to get a tight sound. Use SSL channel strip and turn the gate threshold on max, and set release time to really quick to get that sound, then add the old 80s reverb. Still sounds better than what is being made today. Oh man, did you ever see how Morbid Angel achieved killer reverb-like effects by putting the microphone in a special big glass bowl? You should do an episode on adding things like that to microphones. I remember seeing all these insider photos of a Morbid Angel recording session, and they even put action figures hanging off the mics, and other random trinkets on the equipment. It's like they weren't just recording music, but casting an entire spell on every aspect of it. Try putting your Mesa 4x12 cab in a pentagram circle with candles around it next time, and turn all the lights out, and see if your tone gets evil. Or ohhhh.. trying putting a FAN in between your guitar cab and microphone, check the effect out. See? it's this creativity and uniqueness that has been stripped from our music. Gotta love that tape hiss on Witchfinder General records. If we continue at the rate we are now, soon no human will be needed at all to make music, and it will all be created by AI Robots.

[@kramdellakram7247]

watch drum rudiment videos. So many people miss the principle of hitting cymbals, double/Triple stroke patterns in relation to the kit. A ride pegged at 127 doesn't sound cool at all

[@mikeyisdead]

Getting error when trying to download the checklist :/

[@FrightboxRecording]

Shoot me an email and I'll hook you up: [e-mail]

[@mikeyisdead]

Tried it today it works now thanks anyways! :)

[@Popskull_666]

I would reccomend the Captor by two notes to record guitar and bass, as a musician who made a splash in the early 2000's I can never get behind amp sims, they just sound horrible to me. The captor you record YOUR SOUND without miking any thing. Its the most organic thing I can do thats not super digital

[@duncansmith69]

This is something I've just recently been realizing was a problem. My drum tracks sound far better with a bit of variation in drum velocity.

[@miklodelahonda15]

Usually change velocity levels for every 4 bars varing between 80% to 100% do not change timing any more on drums. Its enough with guitars bass and vocals to make it soud real

[@firstname7566]

One better is to set your velocity variable..so the velocity changes throughout..example first hit 100 second 112 third 120 and then back and so on..

[@inversionofcontrol163]

It's worth to notice that what you said (127 vs 110 making difference) is only true when you are using software that are somehow process velocity value (i.e. drums VST like EZ drummer or superior drummer) - so changing velocity can effect not only in changing volume but also transient, tail lenght, even eq. If you would work on pure samples then changing velocity would only result in changing volume and your fix still won't help.

[@fireloks6362]

"Drummers don't play like that in real life!" Tommy Aldridge - Hold my beer!" lol

[@FrightboxRecording]

😂

[@HumanScourgeYT]

When I am writing, I don’t care about dynamics as much because I just want to get the idea out there, but always keeping dynamics in mind and I make another pass riff by riff eventually and adjust the dynamic range. I never try to max the velocity but I certainly have been very guilty of this in the past. P.s. I was the 666th like 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻