MIDI drum sequencing with PTLE

I am a drummer in New York(long island). Send me an Email and maybe we can get together

dans, I've been able to produce 'live' sounding drum tracks using midi. The first step is to have some good sounds/samples. I just take the time to tweek the notes - especially velocity and timing - and make sure it sounds real. Being a bass player for many years in bands, I was always close to the drummer, so I just try to visualize in my mind what he would do with a song, and feel the groove that way. Experiment with moving notes barely away from the grid line(especially Tom fills)and try to flam certain snare hits and toms at the right place. I like to try to incorporate triplets a lot also,for a not so programmed type of sound.

Anthem, thanks for the tips. But *how* do you do all of this? Right now I'm 100% audio when it comes to recording. I never use MIDI. Are you doing all this in PTLE or do you use something else for drum sequencing? My biggest concern is starting out with the right tool. Is PTLE's MIDI the right tool? Let me know, -DS

Check out the LE Bootcamp article on MIDI Specifically, the tip about the "randomize" feature of midi quantize (for giving drum tracks a more realistic feel) looks cool. I haven't yet tried that myself, just saw this recently, but it looks cool. in general this article is good (the whole LE bootcamp series is good). Mark

dans, Yes, I do all my sequencing in PT le. I think it works great, and you have the advantage of audio and midi all in the same mixer and editing window. I wouldn't suggest using another sequencer. As far as 'how' to sequence drums - well, every song is different. Having programmed drum machines and sequencers for many years, I usually know where I'm going by just running thru the chords on an acoustic and getting the feel first. From there, I can feel where I want my kick and snare to go, and possibly some toms. Then, I add high hat and/or ride cymbal, then crash. As the song construction progesses, I may have an acoustic or bass line added, and this causes me to want to add certain accents with drums. It seems I'm always tweeking the drum parts until the end until it feels right. Sometimes it's good to have a scratch guitar part layed first played to click, then build drums off of that. Some like to use a drum trigger pad of some kind, others just hit the notes on the keyboard.Either works for me since I do so much tweeking after the playing anyhow. Hope this answered some questions. Feel free to ask any other specific details you may want to know.

Do you have an MP3 of a tune that uses this whole process? You know, I don't have any MP3's. Maybe it's time I entered the 21st Century and got some together. I'll see what I can put together this weekend, and e-mail you a couple. You'll have to send me your e-mail address, I guess. Or can I just post them on the DUC somewhere? I'm really ignorant when it comes to this web stuff. Let me know.