Discuss the various methods you use in music production, from compressor settings to equipment type.
By The Beat Conductor Sat Oct 15, 2005 10:57 pm
I'm tryin to get a bounce feel on my drums and I need some help (i.e. J Dilla style).

I want to know what are the best swing settings to use?

I've been experimenting but I can't get that feel.

Please help.

By Dos Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:02 am
Swing 53 baby!

No seriously, it depends.
There is no best, I use 53 a lot cause thats my style but it depends on how you like your drums.
Each beat is different too.
I'll only use swing on maybe one or two hits of a bar.

try quantizing your kik and snare to 16ths with no swing (ie. swing 50%)
then rock in your hats on top also with no swing and requantize the hats with various swing settings, you'll soon find the groove you're after.
Then go back and apply this only to the second kik and second snare of each bar.
This is a bit ridiculous, me telling you where to apply, you just got to experiment.

As for JDilla, give me the name of a song and I'll work out what he did for you.
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By cyrus Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:10 am
try this: interpolate one of his loops and analyze where the drums hit to figure out the quanitze settings.

Sample 2 bars of J Dilla. Loop his drums in the mpc-your probably gonna have to ignore vocals,etc. Copy the location of the snares. I.E. layer your snares over his loop. Do the same with the kick drums. and do the same with the hihat.........

if you cant get the hihat Then go to note repeat. If he is using 1/8th notes use 1/8ths on note repeat. Next, mess with the swing and earlier/later delays using note repeat until your hihats match his. I dont know if you know or not, but the note repeat works to whatever setting is set in the note repeat window. So, say you have 57% swing and earlier 3 thats what the note repeat will play.

another technique is this: loop his drums. Make sure your start point on the loop is on a 1:1:00 kick drum. Layer your snares over his using no quantize. Go into step edit. look at the exact location of your snares. I.E. it might be 1:2:14........not exactly hitting at 1:2:00. Go to quantize and set your "shift notes - earlier/later" , using the example.....shift your note "later 14" use this quantize setting for your hihats and snares.....

btw. that second technique is hard to explain, so i hope you get what im saying.

The biggest thing is to figure out where the snares and hihats are hitting. The kicks are usually easier to mimick or place. If you can find the snare and hihat your good to go.

Basically........if you can copy one of his drum loops without quanitze, you can go into step edit and see the locatioins everything is hitting. You can adjust your note repeat and quantize settings so that they hit the same for future tracks. If you can get your note repeat to groove the same, then you should be able to get the same feel.

By elmacaco Sun Oct 16, 2005 4:42 pm
This is the saddest shyt I've ever heard. I can understand being curious but going that far to work out what swing setting he used is a little too fix-o-dent to me.

By Dos Sun Oct 16, 2005 6:30 pm
elmacaco wrote:This is the saddest shyt I've ever heard. I can understand being curious but going that far to work out what swing setting he used is a little too fix-o-dent to me.


I disagree, I personally don't do it but I do analyse a lot of other areas of production from producers I respect.
I think its important to know how others work so you can stay ahead and push past them. I must stress, not to emulate them.
it's also part of the learning process and its the same in any field.
If you study economics, you'll study past economical structures to base new ones on.
The same is true for any professional, you have to understand what went before so that you can progress.

By elmacaco Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:05 pm
yeah but learning about swing settings and shifting drums by the numbers used by JayDee seems bacward to me. Rather than learning how swing and shifting notes affects a sequence, being all like swing 66 and shift snares back 4 is jayDee's sound, rather than depending on the context of the beat.

Studying producers is cool, but that's a little much. if that's what you're after tho then go do dilla.
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By DEEPDOWNINSIDE Sun Oct 16, 2005 9:16 pm
I had an instructor in class tell us rhe best way to learn about music production is to pick up your favorite CD and listen to it with headphones. When you have listened to it ask yourself what makes this soo good. "Why do I like this beat?" Realise what they are doing is not magic just know how. Take notes and apply the ideas you pick up to your own production. From the Beatles to Timbaland to Motzart, thats what they have all done using teqniques of ones before them and fine tunning them to thier own creation. Nothing extremely new just slightly different. 8)

By The Beat Conductor Sun Oct 16, 2005 11:52 pm
I don't want to copy any one's style. I just used J Dilla as an example.

All I want to do is try to create that bounce feel.
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By dj e.d.e Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:04 am
ok this may be a little off topic of where you guys are headed but ,i have heard a few paople say
Then go back and apply this only to the second kik and second snare of each bar.
how do you do this , i'm curious i've been hearing this on this forum for years i have tried to understand this ,but can't how do you throw a quantize on just those parts of a beat...

can some elabrate on this a bit thank you...
.
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By denzekiel Mon Oct 17, 2005 2:21 am
go to timing correct
set note value, shift timing, shift amount, etc.
Under move existing notes, set track#, Ticks and notes
Hit DO it
done
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By binger0 Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:46 am
The Beat Conductor wrote:I'm tryin to get a bounce feel on my drums and I need some help (i.e. J Dilla style).

I want to know what are the best swing settings to use?

I've been experimenting but I can't get that feel.

Please help.

jaydee dont use swing. In a bunch of interviews he does the drums with it off for the length of the whole track. Like he has 3 min song he plays the drum kit for 3 mins without pausing. That is how u get that "bounce" feel or whatever your talking about. But dont think that you will get these results. This takes years of practice and learning timing. Years. swing is cool, but you have to know how to use it and what it does. It basically throws the timing correct off time to give it a shuffled feel. Just trial and error and lots and lots of drum programming to learn how to get your drums right. I myslef never use swing, but theres a reason for that in how i chop my shit.l
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By cyrus Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:17 pm
^^this is true.

Alot of times i find my self redoing my drums anyways. If i start with a sample ill work the drums to the samples, sometimes Ill have to redo the samples, back and forth until i get it to sound good.

But if you start with drums, dont be afraid to redo the drums once you get the bulk of the track down. ANd when i mean "redo drums" you dont always have to redo everything. Maybe your snares are hitting in the most sensible spots, but you want more bounce to your kicks.........go to another track and redo the kicks without quantize; etc.

elmacoco, I agree it doesnt make sense to copy someone else, but for the record im not advocating biting. But I think its helpfull if you learn by example. Dilla probably doesnt do his drums like i do, or like any other producer for taht matter.

My poiont was to get the beat conductor in a right direction. If you can dig in and replicate some elses drums using the quantize/swing functions, youll be more opt to learning those functions; and apply them to what you want to accomplish.

Beat conductor, the biggest thing to remember is to experiment. If you try to replicate something, take what you learned and think about what was actually done. Experiment is key. We can tell you how to do something, what swing settings to use, but that goes only so far; the rest is up to you to experiment and learn what works for you. Every track is differant, and every producer does it differant. ****, like i said Dilla probably doesnt use swing or quantize at all, whereas dr.dre might use 57% every track, or whatever it might be, you wont really know unless you know them personally.

remember too, i think every situation is differant. On all my tracks the swing settings are differant. Alot of times I dont use quantize at all. Some tracks its straight 50% 16ths............the reason being is that each sample, each sound begs for something differant. The bottom line is that I use my ears to determine if I like the way things are swinging.

By elmacaco Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:27 pm
Now that's Advice ^^

I hear you cyrus.

By The Beat Conductor Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:06 pm
I understand everything except for one thing.

When you sequence bounce tracks, your supposed to sequence your kicks and snares early and your hi-hats normally. The problem with that is the kick won't start on the one, so when you play the sequence from the beginning your going to hear hi-hats first.

Thanks for all the help so far, I just to need to understand this and I'm good.