# Midi Blast Beats



## Handbanana (Jan 23, 2012)

Hey guys I'm currently working on some tracks that have some blast beats and I'm trying to get them to sound as natural as possible using SD 2.0. Any Tips? Im using like a ride bell for the hat section and its not sounding too great. How do most people get em to sound legit?


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## xCaptainx (Jan 23, 2012)

Get Library of the Extreme 1 and 2 for Superior Drummer. HUGE bank of blast beats and lots of variations. That's what I use, it's certainly easier than trying to programme it myself haha.


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## Handbanana (Jan 23, 2012)

Thanks man, Ill give em a shot.


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## drgamble (Jan 23, 2012)

I'll second the libraries of the extreme, I think they are $29 a piece and sound very good. The packs also come with drum fills. A lot of times I use these and just tweak them to get what I need.


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## brootalboo (Jan 24, 2012)

For blast beats I always have to set the velocity of the snare/kick/ride lower than the rest of the drums cause if you think about it, no real drummer would hit the snare as loud as s/he would in a blast beat as in a regular beat. Dunno if that helps lol


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## WhiteWalls (Jan 24, 2012)

It also depends what kind of blast it is, if the snare is upbeat compared to the kick, i tend to use a lower velocity because it would become disorienting, otherwise if the snare is played at the same time as the kick/cymbal the velocity can be set a bit higher because the snare doesn't stand out so much.

It's not hard to program them manually btw, just mess around with the velocities until you get the desired effect


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## theo (Jan 24, 2012)

are those libraries available from the toontrack site? or somewhere else?


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## drmosh (Jan 24, 2012)

theo said:


> are those libraries available from the toontrack site? or somewhere else?



yup, all on the toontrack site for download


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## Cyanide Assassin (Jan 25, 2012)

velocity is the key!!!!! there are a few different ways to do blasts. you can do it like kick and cymbal then snare in a down up fashion. snare first then kick and cymbal in an up down fashion. all together at the same time, and another way to do it is mess with the velocity to give it the feeling of being in thirds and also with the cymbal hand harder on the down stroke rather than the upstroke. example below.

V=harder hit
^=light hit
o=bass drum
x=snare

|V ^ V ^ V ^ V ^
| x x x x x x x x
|o o o o o o o o

see the down up fashion? here is the thirds i mentioned. once again just alter the velocities of each hit. i generally go about 12 lower than the harder hits but they all vary velocity.

|V ^ ^ V ^ ^ V ^ ^
| x x x x x x x x x
|o o o o o o o o o


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## Cyanide Assassin (Jan 25, 2012)

if you want send me a pm and i can email you some screen shots of my midi map and a few blasts.


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## Kurkkuviipale (Jan 25, 2012)

One thing to remember is that the blast will sound a lot better if you bring the snare velocity a little down so it won't be a headroom hog. Also, no drummer can really play the snare at full velocity all the time when blasting.


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## DrewsifStalin (Jan 25, 2012)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4188409/All Kindsa Blasts.MID i made this for a guy trying to do the ride bell alternating blast, this should be pretty velocity correct, though every toontrack snare reacts to midi velocity differently, especially between sdx's


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## Handbanana (Jan 26, 2012)

Yeah I actually picked up the midi pack from the site and found what I was looking for, totally helped out, not it doesnt sound so fake. You can hear it here at around the 1:19 mark

Blood Upon Your Hands (Edit) Demo by Brandon Robertson on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free


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## beyondtheepilogue (Jan 26, 2012)

Cyanide Assassin said:


> velocity is the key!!!!!



TRUTH! You don't want all your drums to be at the same dynamic all the time, else you'll get that industrial machine gun type sound. The best way I have learned to program blasts (or any type of beat for that matter) is watching my favorite drummers on Youtube and paying special attention to the dynamics they use. 

The Library of the Extreme is AWESOME. Dirk Verburen an important drummer to learn from if you want to emulate blasts and other extreme drumming techniques correctly. Watch this video and notice how lightly he hits the snare versus the kicks and hats during the opening blast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpHu0amH90shttp://youtu.be/lpHu0amH90s


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## TGN (Jan 27, 2012)

The song is cool. Was just listening through my computer speakers so I can't tell exactly what is going on, but the volume seems to drop a little bit from time to time in the section around the 1 minute mark. Do you want it like that or is it maybe something to address in the mix?


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## Handbanana (Jan 27, 2012)

Yeah I dont know if the volumes dropping, it might be a compression thing? I cant really hear it, im gonna redo the guitars next week so ill address it then.


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