# Tips on the best way to make superior drummer sound like a human being?



## Metalus (Mar 13, 2013)

Thoughts?


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## jdinop (Mar 13, 2013)

Randomizing note velocites to make it sound less robotic.

Busing them through a reverb send to make it sound like they're actually being played in a real room and in the process gluing them together so to speak.

Then just mixing them well i guess...

EDIT: 
Sending each individual multi out of SD through a send with different levels of Reverb.


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## Rustee (Mar 13, 2013)

Velocity is key.


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## Kurkkuviipale (Mar 13, 2013)

Use an electric kit to track.

Also, as these two people mentioned, velocity controlling is so important. Tracking with an electric kit (or triggered acoustic kit) would come with that as well. If that's not a possibility to you, just check out drum solos of people like Gavin Harrisson or similar that have a good dynamic control in their playing, to see how they use each part of the kit. It will not only make your drum compositions sound more natural, but they will also start getting a "tasty"-factor to them.

Good starting points that most drummers do in their playing:
Cymbals: Not every hit is played at max velocity. 
Depending on the part and how you want it to groove, either add quiet notes to middle of what you have there

For example: If you have hi-hats going in 4/4, add quiet notes to 2nd 8th-note, 4th 8th-note, 6th 8th-note note and so on). If that starts to make the composition sound hasty, just lower the velocities of 2nd 4th-note and 4th 4th-note. That sound add a certain type of depth to the beat already.

Here's some playing by Gavin:


@ 0:00, the beat itself goes in 7/4 (or 6/8, 8/8) but he's still doing this simple dynamic control to add groove to the beat. On the chorus, he moves to ride and plays it following a simple pattern of: 1th 8th-note bell relatively hard, 2nd 8th-note regular hit played quieter... and so on; you get the point!

I'm using Gavin pretty shamelessly as an example, but trust me; this is regular stuff to drummers, Gavin just happens to do it quite well and exaggerated.

For snare, he's adding ghost notes to where ever he wants to. This is a great way to remove some machine-type of sound from the drum composition too. Ghost notes usually go in between cymbal hits, and rarely over bass drum hits. They can be used as fillers if you're feeling that the beat is sounding lonely AS WELL as to anticipate a high-velocity hit on snare. (As in, doing a ghost note an 8th, or 16th note before the actual hit)

Bass drum in metal is usually just head on max velocity, but don't be afraid of experimenting.

For toms beats and fills, if you have two consecutive hits on one tom, manipulate the other one not to be at max velocity. No drummer does that. Except Lars Ulrich.


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## shnizzle (Mar 13, 2013)

also try slight quantization mistakes. no human being can hit several drum pieces at the exact same time. the hits are always a few milliseconds apart or so. but with midi the hits are very deadly exact which makes it inhuman, too.


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## palebluedot (Mar 13, 2013)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> Use an electric kit to track.
> 
> Also, as these two people mentioned, velocity controlling is so important. Tracking with an electric kit (or triggered acoustic kit) would come with that as well. If that's not a possibility to you, just check out drum solos of people like Gavin Harrisson or similar that have a good dynamic control in their playing, to see how they use each part of the kit. It will not only make your drum compositions sound more natural, but they will also start getting a "tasty"-factor to them.
> 
> ...




spot on. this plus quantization = a long process that can be very tedious. especially across multiple songs. One thing I've noticed for blast beats is that slow dragging your mouse pointer across the selected snare velocities around 100 velocity or so tends to have a similar 'error algorithm' as if you were to be playing the blast. going back and slightly raising the prominent snare hits like the 1 and 3 (lower than the one) can give it a more human feel aswell.

Regardless I've been doing exactly this for a very long time now. since my DFH days.


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 13, 2013)

non quantization + velocity.

I can program drums to sound more human than when i track my drummer on the e kit.


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## Metalus (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks a bunch dudes. These are some good tips. Anyone got advice on randomizing velocities in pro tools? What's the usual range you would stay in between 0 and 127?


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## Kurkkuviipale (Mar 15, 2013)

Don't randomize, infer the velocities. Your second question is a good thing to discuss though.

It all depends on your compression rate. If you're doing ghost notes, the velocities are highly dependant on the overall compression rate. The more compression, the less velocity you need in order to maintain dynamics. I too often see people have way too loud ghost notes, just because they didn't change them after they smashed the shit out of their drum mix. So use your ears and the "solo" button on your DAW. Listen with full mix, soloed drums and soloed drum shell and don't be dumb, be tasty instead!

E: To finally have some answer to your question, from 1 to 127 is a good range. However, my average velocity range is from about 80 to 127.


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## Metalus (Mar 15, 2013)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> Don't randomize, infer the velocities. Your second question is a good thing to discuss though.
> 
> It all depends on your compression rate. If you're doing ghost notes, the velocities are highly dependant on the overall compression rate. The more compression, the less velocity you need in order to maintain dynamics. I too often see people have way too loud ghost notes, just because they didn't change them after they smashed the shit out of their drum mix. So use your ears and the "solo" button on your DAW. Listen with full mix, soloed drums and soloed drum shell and don't be dumb, be tasty instead!
> 
> E: To finally have some answer to your question, from 1 to 127 is a good range. However, my average velocity range is from about 80 to 127.



What do you mean infer?


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## Kurkkuviipale (Mar 15, 2013)

Like, if you have a certain situation->use certain type of velocities. If you don't have your own drum programming style to follow, look up for professional drummers and see how they work. It all sounds like some fundamental philosophy jibba jabba, but it's just something so that you don't randomize your velocities. Or yea, I can see if you want to, for example, randomize your cymbal velocities for around like 1 to 5 midi-velocities and that's all fine, but I don't see it would be a mandatory in order to make the playing sound human. It can help though.


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## Narrillnezzurh (Mar 15, 2013)

I'll usually apply some very light velocity randomization (usually +/- 2) after doing dynamics, though I ignore the kick.


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## axxessdenied (Mar 15, 2013)

I found the biggest different for making programmed drums sound more alive was adjusting the velocities. Even if you are snapping to a grid, velocity adjustments make a night and day difference!


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## Dr Guy Mann (Mar 15, 2013)

Use two bass drums.

One of my pals' recently recorded a quick snippet to showcase his guitar sound. The snippet had a fast bass drum (which would be played with double bass drums or double pedal in real life) and the sound was very robotic. I asked him how he wrote the drums and what he showed me was a steady flow of 36 36 36 36 .. etc.

I used to write my stuff like that, using only one bass too, but disliked for how it sounded, it was very robotic. One day I kinda tried using two different bass notes, 35 and 36. And that improved the sound and realsim a lot.

I think the case here is that when you use one note, it doesn't have time to ring/play out before its pressed again. Which is why I suggest using two bass drum notes (35 & 36). You don't need to pan these basses, you can leave them both in the middle, but the sound will improve. My 0.02c

Edit: kinda given but I'll say it just in case, you'll need to use 2 bass drums too. Metal Foundry has double bass by default but regular SD does not. So just add an additional bass via X-drum, dude


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## C2Aye (Mar 15, 2013)

A lot of people have mentioned velocity so I won't really add to that.

What I will say is listen to drummers. Not just metal drummers, listen to jazz drummers, funk drummers and a special mention to those insane gospel drummers. Don't think of your piano roll as just a bunch of drum samples. Genuinely consider how a drummer would play the part. Think of how your hands would have to move to play the part you've written (and let's not forget your feet. Like you can't hit three cymbals at once you can't be opening and closing a high hat while doing 32nd note kick patterns). Does it make sense to you and would it make sense to a drummer? Also, ghost notes can really help and not only on the snare. Often a 1-2-3-4 on a cymbal can be played as a 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and for instance.

That's my opinion anyway. Often velocity will do the trick but some thought as to how to part should be played can go a long way in influencing your programming.

PS: I'm awful at drums


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## CanniballistiX (Mar 15, 2013)

I use the 'Alternate' checkbox for kickdrums in Superior Drummer 2.0's Humanize box. Or you can use both kickdrums manually. They are a few cents off from each other so it sounds much more varied, like a two kick set, and much less robotic. Good example of that is the first track on my Soundcloud in my sig, 'Storms at Sea'. In the first 20 seconds I've already got them running and you can hear the difference between the two pretty clearly. The other tracks on that page are DFH, ranging from building my own samples from the Tomas Haake database (The Hunter) up to and including EZdrummer DFH (everything else except 'Storms'). My humanizing skills have gotten better over the years, but are far from perfect, ha.


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## Prime (Mar 17, 2013)

Kurkkuviipale said:


> Use an electric kit to track.



^This


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 17, 2013)

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/recording-studio/231252-humanizing-drums-cubase-5-a.html


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## Metalus (Mar 25, 2013)

Anybody got quantizing tips on how to add more of the human element?


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## Krullnar (Mar 26, 2013)

Using an electric kit is not a reasonable suggestion. Who has one of those, and not only that who would ask this question while also having the drumming skills to pull off what they want without programming.


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