bangin breaks

im new to the world of mpc and my breaks sound robotic can some one out there help me get past this hurdle

I'd recommend studying some old funk records and trying to mimic them by playing the pads at the same time with the record. Actually you can try that with any of your favorite records with dope beats. Just a suggestion.

Play with the swing and turn full velocity off to get more naturual sounding drums.

word. also try and look at it like "mathematics" cuz when you simplify (over simplify I guess) music, that is all it really is, mathematically driven arrangement of patterns of notes.

so maybe think of it like that for a while. It will help you start to picture variations in your head. I'm not trying to say that you should do all your beats like this, but I find that when I'm trying to put together a song that ahas a logical progression of drums this helps, then for a breakdown, I look at the logical patterns, and create an "illogical one" (as compared to the logical ones) what happens is, that all the patterns start to have the same "feel" despite variatoin and the breakdown, also has this same feel since its all being made with the same "logical" progression, even the "illogical" one is still fitting in since its a "inverse" (bad word, but I cant think of another now) of the logical pattern, its "illogical" in the sense that it turns away from the theme of the drums you spent 10 bars building up, but its logical in the sense that if you look at it as a whole, it fits into the pattern.

note placement, velocities, gate times, responsive samples, eq, compression.........all are essential for that groove.....

greg

Dam, u guys didn't save any for me. U got everything wrapped.

i put my snares on the 2,4 for 8 bars then i layer the kick over that its sound all robotic the timings set to 1/16 ,the tsig is set to 4/4 i watch all my folks and they dont have problems help me i tryed everything posted i just can't make a good break on it yet pass me some more tips i'm going to keep practicing

If you don't want it "robotic", then turn the FULL LEVEL button to 'off'
.....and turn the TIMING (quantise) to 'off'





I actually like the robotic sound of a drum machine.

yo check out this post that bricks put up it helped me out a lot ,it was on basic druming,

i cant remeber but it changed my beats 110%


look in the productions or the studio enviorment can 't remeber

Try listening to old funk records as previously said. Check out some funk drummers ala Dennis Cambers (the baddest drummer in the world). Funk actually swings in 4/4 if you listen really close. Check out how a rock drummer plays 4/4 and a funk drummer plays 4/4. The trick is, well let me explain first. Human drummers have a particular feel that they develope. This is known as a pocket or a groove. They can drive a song with their pocket or feel. The best way I can explain this is to listen to Steeley Dan and then listen to Steeley Dan Live with Dennis Chambers playing drums. His drumming changes the songs they play because he really drives the band with his pocket or feel. Now back to my point, the trick is to set your swing on the bass drum, the high hats and the snare to different percentages. Like bass drum 58 percent swing, high hat 62 percent swing, snare 50 percent swing. This will make your patterns sound more natural because no drummer hits all their instruments in the same 4/4 swing if that makes sense. In other words they hit each drum in a different swing. This is why drummers have different pockets or feels and sequencers sound like sequencers (not to mention velocity and timbre but thats another point). If you listen to Dennis Chambers you will notice that his snare is a little behind the beat. He drives the bass drum and drags the snare. Drummers will know what I am talking about. Just have fun experimenting with the swing on your hi hats, bass drum, and snares until you find values and a groove that you like. Remember that the instruments have to be on different tracks so that you can change their swing value. Have fun.

I read an article on midi drum and computer drum pattern mimicing of real drummers. Rock music has the cymbals pushed back behind the kick and snare slightly to give a dragging feel. While blues or jazz may have the cymbals pushed slightly forward to give a shuffle feel. Use your quantize or not correct and push the cymbals 1 (tick or millisecond?) forward. hard for me to explain. Try moving the kick back and the snare forward or vise versa. Check out drummer mags to. They explain a lot about the theories and so on.

I agree with Waxdatass, (except that the instruments DON'T have to be on different tracks to apply the swing effect to different sounds). That's exactly what I do( use different swing percentages for all my drums). Try using different timing values. For example, take a straight forward 8th note hi hat track with a 56% swing, instead of applying a 1/16 swing try a 1/8 swing, you'll notice the latter swings more even though the percentage is the same. If your kick doesn't have any 1/16 timing hits in it then don't apply the 1/16 swing, use 1/8 unless you're going for a less noticeable swing. I hardly ever record my tracks with swing on, I just apply the swing afterwards and just keep undoing and redoing til' it sounds how I want. Like everyone else here has said, just keep experimenting and you'll get the hang of it.

gettin the hang of it ,it just takes time i guess made a nice little some thing the other day but i could not save the sounds i made tell me how to save samples to disk please