Changing Swing of Drum Samples
Music producers - veterans and newbies alike - mostly do not pay attention to two of music's topics that are vital to a great beat and great song - density as time goes on and the swing applied to drum samples and instruments. The second topic, swing, will be the focus of this article and hopefully we will all learn something on the topic.
The first question we often hear is: why should I care about adding swing to my drum samples and other tracks? This question actually appears on so many forums and blogs, it's not funny anymore. It is a very serious topic if you want to be a great beat maker and music producer, so let's start at the beginning. The human ear loves musical variance. It is simply science. We pay more attention to things that we see and hear that are not normal, things that have not happened before. Imagine if your favorite artist started and finished their concerts by simply playing their latest album in the same track order, with the same exact notes and more. It wouldn't be very pleasing to your ear!
When tapping out samples on hardware, the swing will act as some sloppy quantization. Not that sloppy, though, just enough to get you into the groove template. It's great for those not yet very accurate with tapping.
What exactly is the swing we're talking about, you ask? Swing, in music production, is a quantization level that can be adjusted and custom made. A lot of hardware devices have their own swing settings. It's nearly the same as snap-quantization except that the hits are a little off every time to give the beat a humanization factor. For a 50% swing, there is no variance at all, it lands on the grid. Going up one level to 51%, though, the swing would be one percent off either way. It can be random or hard-coded into a groove template. The famous MPC swing is hard-coded into the MPC, for example.
Swing templates are especially useful when using electronic instrument parts that are fully quantized. Using these synthesizer sounds and drums, everything being quantized, will lead to staleness. So in this case, many top producers will leave one quantized and swing the other, or swing certain instruments. Swinging the drums in this case will produce some nice ear candy as the drum parts interact with the electronic instrument sounds.
When beginning to use this type of technique in music production, you may want to start with template percentages of fifty one to sixty three percent. Try them out on drum samples first and just mute the other tracks. Un-mute and play the track back again. Getting to know the difference in your mind as well as in your ears is an important step, especially true when you're just starting to do this on your own. Move onto other instruments and try other percentages as you get more comfortable. - 18423
The first question we often hear is: why should I care about adding swing to my drum samples and other tracks? This question actually appears on so many forums and blogs, it's not funny anymore. It is a very serious topic if you want to be a great beat maker and music producer, so let's start at the beginning. The human ear loves musical variance. It is simply science. We pay more attention to things that we see and hear that are not normal, things that have not happened before. Imagine if your favorite artist started and finished their concerts by simply playing their latest album in the same track order, with the same exact notes and more. It wouldn't be very pleasing to your ear!
When tapping out samples on hardware, the swing will act as some sloppy quantization. Not that sloppy, though, just enough to get you into the groove template. It's great for those not yet very accurate with tapping.
What exactly is the swing we're talking about, you ask? Swing, in music production, is a quantization level that can be adjusted and custom made. A lot of hardware devices have their own swing settings. It's nearly the same as snap-quantization except that the hits are a little off every time to give the beat a humanization factor. For a 50% swing, there is no variance at all, it lands on the grid. Going up one level to 51%, though, the swing would be one percent off either way. It can be random or hard-coded into a groove template. The famous MPC swing is hard-coded into the MPC, for example.
Swing templates are especially useful when using electronic instrument parts that are fully quantized. Using these synthesizer sounds and drums, everything being quantized, will lead to staleness. So in this case, many top producers will leave one quantized and swing the other, or swing certain instruments. Swinging the drums in this case will produce some nice ear candy as the drum parts interact with the electronic instrument sounds.
When beginning to use this type of technique in music production, you may want to start with template percentages of fifty one to sixty three percent. Try them out on drum samples first and just mute the other tracks. Un-mute and play the track back again. Getting to know the difference in your mind as well as in your ears is an important step, especially true when you're just starting to do this on your own. Move onto other instruments and try other percentages as you get more comfortable. - 18423
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If you're a music producer and want the highest-quality drum samples to use, click on: http://www.mydrumsamples.com/.
posted by X - Men at
12:15 AM
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