Recording - July 2010 - 35

few that work and place them where needed. Fills generally happen between sections and are followed by a cymbal crash. Even more so than in the main body of the song, not repeating the same fill each time one is needed is vital to making an authentic sounding track. If your library doesn’t include specific fills, all is not lost. Listen to your library’s loops, paying attention to the last bar of each pattern. You often find ones that will work as fills if you edit out all but the last bar, or even all but the last two beats. If you’re not hearing anything that will work as a fill, there are options. Sometimes simply dropping the last drum hit of your pattern followed by a crash on one of the next measure works fine. In this case you

well because the new pattern uses the sounds from the original pattern and it sounds like the drummer has just changed things up a bit. See Figure 3. A drum loop plays for two bars starting at bar 15. The two-bar loop begins to repeat again at bar 17 but does so only for the one measure. At bar 18 you can see I’ve chopped up the loop and rearranged it into a new pattern. The end and the mix Eventually, if you are not fading it out, you’ll need an ending to your song. That’s simple enough to build from scratch, using the “specific hit” technique described previously. One tip here: If you end the piece with a cymbal crash, just as with most any

By Michael Nickolas may need a touch of room reverb on the part for it to sound convincing. Another option is to build a fill by editing individual drum sounds out of the pattern (or using one-shots if provided with your product) and placing them as needed. See Figure 1. The main drum loop (top-most track) is playing from bar 35. At bar 37 the hi-hat only has been cut out of the pattern and placed on eighth notes. I’m using volume envelopes on each hi-hat to make it sound like the drummer is hitting the hat at a different volume each time. Little touches like that will give your track authenticity. Below that at bar 37 is a track containing only the kick drum of the main drum loop, placed on quarter notes. Beat one of bar 38 is a crash cymbal. This constructed fill works well given the style (Bossa) of the song. Use the same technique to catch the specific hits of your song. See Figure 2. The track on top is a guitar part accenting beats one and two of bar 17. Below that track the kick drum and hi-hat have been isolated from the drum loop. The kick is also placed on beats one and two, the high hat keeps time by hitting on beats three and four. The next track is the snare drum pulled from the loop and placed only on beat two. Beat two is also emphasized with a splash cymbal, which is the track directly below the snare. Catching the specific hits of a song makes for a very realistic sounding drum part. Slice and dice Another way to add some variety and get away from repeating the same pattern over and over is to slice up your drum loop by subdivisions of the beat, and rearrange them to make a new pattern. This works other time you have an isolated cymbal crash, it is usually best to augment it with a kick drum hit on the same beat. When you have your drum part finalized, it probably will be made up of numerous tracks. You have the option of mixing down to a single stereo track, which simplifies keeping track of which loops you’re using where, but after you’ve added all your other instruments and vocals and you’re ready to mix your song, you are pretty much stuck with the drum sounds as they stand, since they’re now a stereo track. If certain elements in the finalized stereo drum track need tweaks later, you do have some options. If the drum sounds aren’t balanced within the final mix, consider multiband compression and/or eq to tame frequencies that may be jumping out at you. There are also ways to get reverb on the snare only, even after mixing the drums; one involves making a copy of the track, using eq to isolate the snare frequencies, running that through a reverb, printing only the effect, and blending it in with your original track. Much of this may sound like a great deal of work to you. After a few times working this way, I promise you it gets easy. I can arrange loops and one-shots into a very suitable drum part much faster than I could ever program a convincing MIDI part. Loops may be just the thing needed to give new life to your productions! Michael Nickolas (nickolas@recording mag.com) continues his conquest of the airwaves with recent TV placements of his music in The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Biggest Loser. Visit Michael’s licensing site at www.studioninelicensing.com.
RECORDING JULY 2010

35


http://www.audientaudio.com http://www.studioninelicensing.com

Recording - July 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - July 2010

Recording - July 2010
Fade In
Contents
Talkback
Fast Forward
Earthworks SR40
A Drum Miking Primer
Mojave Audio MA-101fet
The Fine Art of Drum Replacement
FXpansion BFD Eco
DAW Details
Create Your Songs With Drum Loops
Grace Design m501 Preamp
MXL Drum Cube and A55-Kicker
Readers’ Tapes
Recording’s Showcase of Sounds
Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0— A Walking Tour
PreSonus FireStudio Mobile
It’s Your Music—Know Your Rights. Chapter 4: The Business End, Part 1
Once Over—Reviews in Brief
Advertiser Index
Fade Out
Recording - July 2010 - Recording - July 2010
Recording - July 2010 - Cover2
Recording - July 2010 - 1
Recording - July 2010 - Fade In
Recording - July 2010 - 3
Recording - July 2010 - Contents
Recording - July 2010 - 5
Recording - July 2010 - Talkback
Recording - July 2010 - 7
Recording - July 2010 - Fast Forward
Recording - July 2010 - 9
Recording - July 2010 - Earthworks SR40
Recording - July 2010 - 11
Recording - July 2010 - 12
Recording - July 2010 - 13
Recording - July 2010 - A Drum Miking Primer
Recording - July 2010 - 15
Recording - July 2010 - Mojave Audio MA-101fet
Recording - July 2010 - 17
Recording - July 2010 - The Fine Art of Drum Replacement
Recording - July 2010 - 19
Recording - July 2010 - 20
Recording - July 2010 - 21
Recording - July 2010 - 22
Recording - July 2010 - 23
Recording - July 2010 - 24
Recording - July 2010 - 25
Recording - July 2010 - 26
Recording - July 2010 - 27
Recording - July 2010 - 28
Recording - July 2010 - 29
Recording - July 2010 - FXpansion BFD Eco
Recording - July 2010 - 31
Recording - July 2010 - DAW Details
Recording - July 2010 - 33
Recording - July 2010 - Create Your Songs With Drum Loops
Recording - July 2010 - 35
Recording - July 2010 - Grace Design m501 Preamp
Recording - July 2010 - 37
Recording - July 2010 - MXL Drum Cube and A55-Kicker
Recording - July 2010 - 39
Recording - July 2010 - Readers’ Tapes
Recording - July 2010 - 41
Recording - July 2010 - 42
Recording - July 2010 - 43
Recording - July 2010 - 44
Recording - July 2010 - 45
Recording - July 2010 - Recording’s Showcase of Sounds
Recording - July 2010 - 47
Recording - July 2010 - 48
Recording - July 2010 - 49
Recording - July 2010 - Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0— A Walking Tour
Recording - July 2010 - 51
Recording - July 2010 - PreSonus FireStudio Mobile
Recording - July 2010 - 53
Recording - July 2010 - It’s Your Music—Know Your Rights. Chapter 4: The Business End, Part 1
Recording - July 2010 - 55
Recording - July 2010 - Once Over—Reviews in Brief
Recording - July 2010 - Advertiser Index
Recording - July 2010 - 58
Recording - July 2010 - 59
Recording - July 2010 - 60
Recording - July 2010 - 61
Recording - July 2010 - 62
Recording - July 2010 - 63
Recording - July 2010 - Fade Out
Recording - July 2010 - Cover3
Recording - July 2010 - Cover4
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