Regarding editing audio, not midi, what's your suggestions to get correct groove(what you hear) for drums?
Most tutorials apply groove to midi or time-stretching on drums wave track but sometimes the groove we hear in our mind has different wave form(shape).
In addition, grooves have different pockets for their low, mid, and high end.
Is there any definitive formula to replicate any groove properly by editing audio?
Compressing drums blindly or even consciously does not necessarily replicate the groove that you are hearing.
I want to get the tight groove and my solution is just experimenting( I have no exact steps or formula )
Is there any formula or trick to save some time while editing?
I honestly don't know how else to ask my question. I am not a drummer. I hear some drums in my head but cannot replicate the groove properly and that's really annoying. You might suggest me to play it, but if your samples do not have proper pocket(envelope) even if you play them exactly on time it does not sound as you hear them in your head.
Y'all experienced producers who have awesome drum tracks, please, please, please help!

 

Hello @SomebodyIsHere: First of all, 2 book tips:
- Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer von Ray F. Badness
- Paterson, J: The Drum Programming Handbook: The Complete Guide to Creating Great Rhythm Tracks: With Online Resource

I use blank templates in which I draw my beats.A template is attached to the file to print out.
I then enter the values in a step sequencer (piano roll).

Spoiler: Blank Template

 

Last edited: Jun 29, 2021

"tight groove' is a total oxymoron. We groove to a click, pushing or pulling, and between individual instruments of the drum kit too.

As with most of the creative side of making music, no.
As I believe also with the mixing and production process too.
Wanting to manifest what you hear in your mind should compel you to carry on learning your instrument for however long it takes, imo.

"Pocket" means a pocket groove. It is not related to sample envelope of hits.

 

No, there is no shortcut and no trick.
I am obsessive when it comes to drum timing and shift individual midi notes by 1/128 until I am as close as possible to the desired timing. Then I print the stuff to audio. The rest is reverb, compression, transient designing, gating, expansion and sample delay.

 

First, decompose a groove you hear in your mind into parts. Kick, snare, hihat etc., etc. You may use unusual parts (fx, untypical sounds).

Then, find appropriate samples or synthesize drum' sounds you need. Use oneshot samples, make a collection of them.

At last, create a groove in a piano roll or a sequencer.

These three processes aren't strictly separated but in one moment of time you usually accomplish only one of these tasks.

P. S. If you use loops... Loops can be decomposed and changed drastically by slicing, editing and processing by effects/processors (compressors, eqs, saturators, delays etc). But source material restricts you. It's not possible to make from a loop something completely different or turn it into anything you want.

 

Last edited: Jun 29, 2021

Parallel Sans amp PSA-1 treatment for drums is OP. Try some parallel process, distortion, pedal etc.

 

The problem is, a good drummer grooves because of his micro-timing and velocity. And he feels or even knows when and which piece to play a bit before or after the beat. The latter should not be underestimated because a drummer hardly plays HHs and cyms with the exact same timing as kick and snare. Additionally, in a break every single hit can be out of the exact timing and even a whole (break) bar could be a bit longer or shorter.
As long as you don't know how a drummer is doing this exactly, it's just trial and error. At least there's no shortcut or formula I've ever heard of.

 

Practice and experiment, best you can do..

Also think about what you want to achieve in relation to the context/style and goal.

Do you want Lively/Dynamic drums/percs that Stand Out?
Drums that set the foundation/decorate but are generally more "distant"?
Maybe a Tight middle term?

Decide what you want/need, and then just try to get there,
read articles, watch turorials, rtfm.. etc

Also try to get good sounds/timbres, plugs, synths or libraries to begin with..
and better if you can adjust them in one way/another to fit the style, that's some possible experience right there..

 

Last edited: Jul 1, 2021

What are you using to produce your drum tracks? Finger pads? Drum kit pads? Midi keyboard keys? Mouse clicks? Are you just using loops?

 

Mouse clicks and Loops chopped most of the times.

 

Try applying swing and 'breaks'. Also use of compression can add to grooveyness of a beat.

Gregory from Kush Audio has a few tips regarding (drum)compression and how to add 'movement'..

 

Groove is more what happens between the instruments (down to the micros inbetween hits, like predelay, room reverberation, flam, slapback, ghostnotes, push&pull, etc). I try to tighten the drums (if they are untight). Not too much.
But I focus more on the groove, drag, offset etc with the other instruments. Even the vocals. I tend to put the bass and vocals later (right offset) so that they become more relaxed and let the drums be the drive/battery/motor.
No one wants a stressed vocalist, keyboardists/organist, bassplayer or guitarist.

/Drummer since age 4

 

Last edited: Jul 3, 2021

ahhh... the esoteric and ever elusive question of how do i get these drums to make this song pop?
funny (litteral) answer to all of your questions was conveniently answered by the cast of SNL april 8th, 2000. intended as a comedy, it actually addressed how to make some average guys from New York a million bucks.
its not hard to google the skit, or the sheet music for the cowbell part. and to see how dry a page full of quarter notes looks.

but how to make YOUR drums tight, and fit in the mix, and make you a million bucks is a simple answer. more cowbell. if theres something thats lacking, just find that spot and turn it up you could try posting audio of your project and let folks have a listen

 

Something to read: " The Ultimate Guide to Drum Programming " www.edmprod.com/drums-guide/

 

As a drummer a still have problems with translating a rhythm into a grid.
I don't quantize or rather purposely de-quantize parts of a rhythm but what feels natural when sitting behind a physical drumkit is certainly not that natural anymore when you try to understand what you are doing.
For modern-day music (I mean dance, EDM related music) the groove comes as far as I have analyzed it, from what they call the top loops.
Kick and Snare can be exactly on 1, 2, 3 & 4, but hi hats, etc and especially the dynamics (loud, soft and the amount of off-grid placement) in those parts determine the groove/feel of the rhythm.

By placing kick and snare on other notes than 1,2, etc you can create different types of beats (syncopation).

If you download drumkits on the sister side take a good look at the loops and top loops that are delivered.
Place them in for example Adobe Audition to analyze the waveforms to get an idea of the dynamics involved.

 

There is one decision you have to make with a real drummer. Do you want them to remain real or sound like a drum loop? No Avenger nailed most of it below. There are some minor things

@SomebodyIsHere what is said by No Avenger is pretty spot on with only semantics added.
If you have recorded a drummer in full there will be bleed. This makes editing more difficult. Fixing any phase issues with mics post-recording gives you a more solid sound as first priority. As for 'pocket', this is a feel placement thing, like a backbeat or middle of the beat, depending on the drummer. If they are really good you can look at the waveform and see they are putting the groove almost identically in the same place every time. The dynamics on a hi-hat as No Avenger indicated, even if they play a repeating identical pattern, is as close to resembling a looped hi-hat as cheese is to clay.

If you choose to dump a real drummer recording to a stereo drums track if looping is your thing (why if the drummer is real and the track is good?) then sure you can get 2,4,16,32 bar loop patterns perfectly in time and chop it up. The ONLY reasons I know to micro-edit any real drummer is if the timing is atrocious or there is a dead stop and there is unwanted noise when everyone else is dead silent, or an ensemble phrase, hit or stop is not on. Even then with the latter, unless the drum timing on the ensemble stops or hits is terrible, it's easier to move everyone else most of the time. when you start editing real drums you run into can of worms with overheads, room mics and close mics. So make your editing choices no more difficult than they need to be.

SIDE-NOTE: If getting a modern sound with a real drummer feel is what you are after - look at drum triggering.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 3, 2021

Why would you want to stick to audio-editing only, when it's so much easier to do with MIDI? Many famous hiphop producers for example like to MIDI record their drum patterns without quantization. This can give you a genuine groove / swing (of course depending on your own abilities). Another way: record a beat with quantization, but then apply Grooves or "swing". It's very easy to do in Ableton, other DAWs have similar function (various swing settings), but Ableton does it best! Another way: take a drum recording you like, loop it and extract the groove, then apply that same groove to your own drums (very easy to do in Ableton, Logic and Cubase can do it too afaik).

 

Seriously. This shit is very nice.

 

I still like to take sections of my programmed drums, bounce them to audio, then throw them into Logic's Drum Machine Designer. You get Midi data to retrigger each slice. You can then turn Quantization off and move things around to add a little inconsistency to "humanise" them a bit more. Changing note lengths can help a lot, even if done in very tiny increments.

In the Logic Track Header Components, you can add "Groove Track" status to one channel (with a *), and then link the others in the project to it. The idea is the "groove" of the other channels follows the one which you have added the * to, but you can get a little swing that way also.

there really is no answer other than actual editing work.

 

Last edited: Jul 24, 2021