Simple Drum Sequencing Tip! (Works on ANY Groovebox)
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- Опубликовано: 24 апр 2022
- Simple Drum Sequencing Tip! (Works on ANY Groovebox)
Today I've got a simple drum sequencing tip to help change up your workflow! I don't know a single electronic musician who hasn't fallen into the monotony of starting a session with a "4 on the floor" kick drum. It's fast, easy, and familiar. However, it can also immediately limit your directions, at least initially, when starting to work. So instead of starting with drums at all, I recommend starting with a bass or lead line BEFORE figuring out your drum sequence. This will force you to think more about what you actually want your drums to be, rather than just resorting to your go-to patterns! Enjoy the video :)
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Another fantastic video, FB! Thanks! I once worked in a music store where Billy Joel's drummer, Liberty DeVito gave a seminar for drummers. One of the students asked what method he used to come up with the right drum part for the songs and he said, "I just listen to whatever the bass is doing and work from there," So this tutorial is in agreement with one of the all- time greats! You are so very generous with your time and talent! Thanks for being a GIVER in a world full of takers. I love your work!!!
That's an awesome story! My favorite band of all time is Rush, and listening to how they composed their parts around each other was a HUGE influence on how I work, even on electronic music. Thanks for watching!
Neat trick!
I was recently inspired to try something similar while listening to an EBM DJ on Twitch, but haven't made the time to tinker with it yet.
Thanks for watching!
Yeaaah. Very nice tip. Thank you.
great idea with reason and the result
Thanks so much for watching!
This is a great method for laying in a groove, this is something I’ve struggled with and this will help tremendously.
Glad to help, thanks for watching!
This! I've been trying this for awhile and it leads to much more realistic and syncopated rhythms.
Absolutely, thanks for watching!
Great tip mate to get more variety. You may also start with snare on 2 and 4 only, then put some other stuff in, leave out the kick completely and fill the gap with some crazy cowbell and other percussion.
Leaving out the kick is another wonderful tip, I'll have to do a video on that one. Thanks!
What a great tutorial and tip. This will be fun to try.
Thanks for watching!
I love these drum tips
Glad to hear it! Thanks for watching :)
Love it! Off to get my Deluge and practice this!
Have fun!
Love to see content on the deluge!
Thanks for watching!
great vid!
Thanks so much!
Marvellous, thanks.
Thanks for watching!
yessirr bass comes first! playing live it's also useful to start with a 4xfloor to use as a metronome and then change the pattern after picking an idea, then you can think of more variations after
Definitely, just don't accidently lock yourself in to the 4 on the floor, it's so easy to do haha. Thanks for watching!
Nice! Great way of explaining it!
An oddball approach I've used (that I still get sucked into, unfortunately) was to get to "drums" (well, just tempo, really) by way of long drones. Take a slow metronome beep bpm of something like 42, hold a drone for 21 beeps and then key change (maybe up a fourth?) for the next 21 beeps, then go back and add three different (occasionally harmonic?) long chord pads of 7 beeps each on top of each 21-beep drone... and keep going, dividing up each new layer (bass, strings, woodwinds, etc) with another layer of tones until the beats start to "fall out"... and when they fall out I frame them with tunable drums like congas. The most interesting things seem to happen when I purposely avoid kick, snare and hihat.
Thanks for sharing!
very good video
Thank you so much!
Nice groove hehe 😎
Thank you!
Good tips
Thank you!
typically I use a one bar loop of a single closed hi hat on every step of 1 bar (16 steps). That, I feel, allows me to really be more selective, experimental, and explorative.
That's definitely a great way to do it, thanks for watching!
I actually never start like that ☀️😃🎶 Love how you came to a totally different more alive beat. I always play the drums on my pads though, maybe I should try the sequencer more ..
Maybe you should switch it around and try starting with four on the floor then! Who know what might happen haha. Thanks for watching :)
@@FreeBeat All different ways of working helps you to look at things differently and learn a bit more and get new results I guess. I just need to learn how to play chords now I think
Good idea! I find that when I start with something besides drums, it influences not only the drum beat but what sounds I use, too (maybe the melody suggests I use no snare, for example, or maybe use hand drums).
Absolutely!
This is a great tip and one I use a lot. I would also suggest that if you are working with traditional song structures a lot of the evolution of the beat you created could be used to give variation to the song. The sparser beat could be for an intro, fuller for the verse and then with more of a lift going into the chorus. I think a good follow up video for this would be strategies for working in more varied tempos.
Absolutely, thanks for watching!
I take it a step further and resample that bar and use it as a loop so I can humanize get it off the grid some more
Great idea, thanks for watching!
I almost always start with the bassline, must be my (jazz/bluess/boogie) piano background 😅
Yet still mostly do 4 on the floor, must be my non-drum musical background haha
Challenge yourself to keep one of the downbeats empty of a kick drum, it's a really easy way to try something new!
Excellent as always. Most informative channel on RUclips. Can I ask for advice. If you had the the choice of the digitakt and digitone together or the new syntakt; which would you choose? Regards to the channel
Depends if you'd rather have a sample based drum machine or a full-fledged 4-part 8 voice synthesizer. Since the syntakt with its 12 voices is already very capable of being used as a drum machine (its even in the name - synTAKT), I'd go for the Digitone. More sonic capabilities also and you get polyphony.
But do keep in mind the Digitone might be difficult to get into at first because its FM based.
If you want to explore the world of samples though to complement the SYNTHtakt, get the Digitakt.
edit: nevermind I read the qurstion wrong... but still:
Syntakt will most likely be easier to get into because its not sample based AND FM based but a synth box made accessible.
If its your first gear get the Syntakt, if you like playing chords on your keyboard the Digitone moght be a better bet though.
I would definitely go for the Digitakt and Digitone together, but the Digitone has been on my list for a long time now. Thanks for watching!
Interesting technique. How would you go about applying it to a stylistically rigid genre like techno, which is very much based on a 4 on the floor? There are exceptions, but in general how would you do it?
Take off the genre hat and play what you feel, as long as you have a something for your listeners to latch on to and the tempo they'll keep dancing
I simply never label my tracks with a genre haha. Even in my non electronic music I've found that trying to fit into genres feels super limiting haha. Thanks for watching!
@@FreeBeat I use genre as a structure mechanism for pieces within my musics, genre specific music is boring because it's supposed to sound like what this artist/band did at this time, very isoteric. Use genre as a color otherwise your music will sound very paint by numbers and contrived.
@@shuasaladbar The only reason I mention a genre in uploads on my music channel is for visibility and searchability. I usually just call it whatever I please anyhow.
I'm guessing it's different for everyone, but for me, this is how I've always done it (melody first). Whenever I start with the drums, I end up feeling constrained just like you describe it, and I'm going nowhere. I simply can't finish a song that starts with drums.
Do you start with a particular part first? (Bass, lead, chords, etc) Or is it just melody in general. Thanks for watching!
@@FreeBeat Good question! I think it's typically some form of melody, either a chord, an arp or a lead line. Typically I enjoy playing on a full keyboard so in that early sketching phase I don't necessarily distinguish between bass and melody, since I can play both. But it usually starts with an inspiring sound and it evolves from there. I've come to really appreciate arps for this process and really appreciate the arp and pads on the MPC One, which can be played in a fixed scale across several octaves. I hardly need a proper keyboard anymore, but I still enjoy that tactile feeling of playing on real keys the most.
This isn't to say that drums aren't important to me, quite the contrary! I just struggle to move past the drums if I start with them. Thanks for all your hard work in front of the camera and have a great rest of your week!
👊🏻👽
Thanks for watching!
Ace
Thanks for watching!
I'm new to drum machines, and just got a TR8s.
When you said two bar phrase, it confused me, but I think it's because you can zoom in on the resolution with the deluge?
When you show the 4 on the floor, it looks like the TR8s, with 16 steps equaling 1 bar?
The deluge lets you set different tracks to different lengths. When I said two bar phrase, I was referring to the bass line, I should have clarified that. While the entire phrase as a whole was two bars long, the drum part was just looping the same one bar over and over. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for teaching us!
oh! hello!
Hi!
@Free Beat - "How many of you start your jams like this?"
Me - I'm in this video and I don't like it. :D
We're ALL in this video lol
Ironic that drums are usually the last thing I do if they are included at all in my jams.
Oh wow, that's pretty interesting!