Adding the Funkiness to Your Drums

Now there are a lot of ways that you can make your drums funky but would any of you cats care to share some things that help you get into that groove when you're making a beat. There are a few things I typically do to get my drums sitting right:

1) I make sure all my drums are chopped as close as possible to the first transient. This is VERY important because if you have silence in front of various drum samples it can mess with the quantization and/or timing when you're playing it into the MPC. I had a big issue recently with how the !llmind kits were chopped. There were various samples with a good length of silence in front of them so be weary.

2) I typically quantize my Kick and Snare but play my Hi Hats in typically trying to add a bit of that lateness and human feel. This was a trick I picked up from a Black Milk interview.

3) Even though this doesn't necessarily affect the timing I use Bit Crushers and Compressors on the regular to Gritty up my drums.

Looking forward to what you cats have to say.

ghost notes ghost notes ghost notes

Swing foo', swing!!! Bout 58% to be exact...

use no swing, play everything by feel. if they still don't sound funky enough, go into edit mode and adjust a few hits left or right a bit, so that you get 'ba-bump bah bump', lazy feel going. also, ghost notes can go along way to achieving a non-robotic feel. usually just before a few main kicks or a ghost kick just before a snare for that "bah-bap" sound.

a technique using with compression is to lower all of your hats by a % you feel is right by experimenting a few times to get the levels just right. keep your kicks and snares at the same level, lower your hats and run through a compressor. the compressor will add this 'pumping' effect and will bring your hats up depending on your compression settings. you can either keep the wet signal on its own, or layer back on top of the dry signal.

one last thing. if you sample from drum breaks, don't fade out the chops or noise gate them. just adjust start/end points and layer your own drums on top and the feel from the break will provide swing on their own.

I remember when this was a well guarded secret. Good to see people are open about their technique.

At first I quantized then I was in Ghost's studio and I watched him work and I learned a valuable lesson. A lesson that I saw others do but just didn't accept. The lesson was to turn the quantize off and feel it. Allow mistakes and just rock out. Then the MPC becomes an instrument.

I play guitar and keyboard and that is how it is with analog gear you just flow and go with the feel. Obviously dance music is not this way. It is heavy on the sync and perfection tip.

Quantizing the hihats is necessary for trap though cause you will never be able to play it in that fast.

Cheers,

Ian

PS let me know if you want to donate a 01:00 minute beat to my me. mp3 only less than 2mb. Thanks,

Something I like to do is play a track I like, and live drum over it adding my own variations and just get my body into that "swing" feel. I feel rhythm should come naturally, from your body, and you transfer that onto the pads. Sounds crazy, but those with natural or developed rhythm will know what I mean.

A bit of weed, and 30 minutes live finger drumming over some joints I like, and I'm then in the mood to lay down my own drums.

Preparation before you start work is key If you can't finger drum, practice. Playing your complete drum patterns live, in one take, is under rated.

Thats my two cents.

Ian Canefire wrote:The lesson was to turn the quantize off and feel it. Allow mistakes and just rock out. Then the MPC becomes an instrument.

Like Mr. Ian said, I usually set TC off. I'd use step edit a lot, and you can always apply quantize later on any MPC.
And, I often update start point of each drum samples; adjust "air" between starting point and drum sounds.

If your neck aint jerking and you aint looking like you got a seizure while banging drums then it aint gonna be funky.

Lampdog wrote:1/16(3) and 75% swang

swang for ya swag

Here are some methods or tips you can apply when drum sequencing on the MPC for a less robotic feel.

1. Think like a drummer. He or she can only play for four limbs to perform the drum pattern.

2. For natural sounding drum turn full velocity off to give the drum pattern dynamics.

3. Turn Time correction off.

4. Record your pattern for 8 or 16 bars.

5. Use Step edit to adjust notes that sound to out of place.


Groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic “feel” or sense of “swing” created by the interaction of the music played by a band’s rhythm section (drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and keyboards).

Swing in Jazz is normally 1/16 the 2nd note is delayed or early giving the ride cymbal a stumbling feel.

Hi hats are use in Blues are swing is translated as Shuffle.

For more info on Swing: http://www.attackmagazine.com/technique ... ine-swing/



Drum Factors:

Three Important factors are:

1. The Drum Pattern

2. The Drum Placement (in the pattern)

3. The sound of the percussions.

*if you put together a sequence and the groove doesn’t feel good then try moving some elements until it locks in the groove you are looking for.


Drumming with a feel or effect:

Drummers often hit some drums slightly ahead of, or behind the beat to give certain effects.

Jazz drummers hit the ride cymbal a bit ahead of the beat to “push” a song.

Rock drummers frequently hit the snare behind the beat (Jon Bonham of Led Zeppelin) to give a “Big” sound.

Acid Jazz move the shaker or tambourine a little bit ahead of the beat to give a “faster” feel.


MPC track shift or track offset method:

Keep the kick drum on the beat as reference and use track shifting to change the timing of the snare, toms, and percussion by a millisecond.

Shift individual notes rather than the entire track.


Tweaks of the Kick Drum in the MPC

The timbre and pitch of an acoustic drum changes as the strokes get stronger. A bass drum, for example, has a higher pitch and punchier attack when played with a lot of force.

You can use the tune feature on your MPC to slightly detune the loud sample by just a few cents (keep this is subtle)


16 Levels Filters technique:

*You can open up the filter slightly on the louder Kick notes. When opening up the filter on these louder notes the kick achieves a brighter attack.



Keep it Funky..Peace!

some good tips above there!

JBM basically just shut the whole thread down with those tips. *thumbs up*

A tip I think most people don't think about is that "funk" isnt all about the drums, its how they work the rest of the song.

To me funk is to keep the pocket, let the drums breathe and make sure they go along with the melody and most important - bass.

Even tho you have a favorite drum arrangement doesnt mean it works in every beat.
Thats my 5 cents tho.