Swing/Groove

[Iron Keys]

I agree, lot of good info.

Personally I find the hats don't sound so tasty when swung on time with my kick. Dunno, perhaps I need to work on my hat patterns.


On a note of 'live instruments', if your playing if off a noticable amount in some bits, use quantize but have the strength set to say 50% so it doesn't pull them fully onto the quantize, just tighten's them up a little... keeping that much desired 'realism'.

Personally, I tend not to quantize piano chords, 'cause I love the sound of the keys hitting at slightly different timing, if this is an effect you desire to achieve, quantizing would remove this.

love

~Iron Keys

 

[JDarmsMusic]

thing about swing. most ppl miss out on the fact that velocity is often more important than the time adjustment. The variations in velocity will make your drums sound more humanize than simply turning the swing/shuffle knob.

Couldnt agree with you more. Even just playing the hi hats at different velocities can give you that swing feel with very little effort.

 

[zeek]

Couldnt agree with you more. Even just playing the hi hats at different velocities can give you that swing feel with very little effort.

for sure. using an mpc, thats a good use of 16 levels. you select your hihat turn 16 levels velocity (as opposed to tuning) and at minimum alternate loud & quiet on the down and up beats. does wonders.

 

[FanRan]

This is one of my go to formulas on the MPC. Snares: 1/8 or 1/16 50% swing early. Kicks: 52-67% swing early (number depends on feel I'm going for). Hi hats and percussion: 1/16 triple time early. I always use 16 pad velocity for my drums to get that human feel. For my bass, strings ect. I turn the timing off. Seems to work for me.

 

[2GooD Productions]

When I use swing(which is probably every track) I try to use the same swing on everything, from strings to bass to kicks and snares and hats and everything else. When sampling I always try to get my swing to match the sample then go from there. Different tracks have different levels of swing, especially when sampling. I really like the funky drummer type of drum patterns that swing allows, and swing really did take my tracks from sounding robotic to having much more funk and swing.
If im feeling really adventurous I will change the swing for different parts of the track, but dont do this very often as its very time consuming getting it right. Hihats that are not in a 16 hits per bar configuration can sound very good, having the hats set in a 8 hit per bar with the occassional extra hat(with swing) is a great way of adding very subtle variation and is key to ALL my programmed drum patterns.
Overall IMO, swing is a must. And as already mentioned, variation in the velocity of the hits(hats/kicks/whatever else) is a great way of humanising drums. And when I say humanising I mean making them sound more like a drummer has played them. And not a computer.
Ghost kicks are great too, kicks at say half velocity. At the end of the day the trick is in LESS IS MORE. Being subtle is a great tool for stopping something thats repetetive from sounding repetitive, and doing it in a way which isnt blatantly obvious. Attention to detail, I know you already have that, so all is good there.

 

[dacalion]

I just let the flow of the project determine - if and how much - swing I use. Usually I swing everything together like 2G was saying but sometimes I throw something a little off just for added flavor but once again, with me it just depends on the flow.