Producing realistic drum tracks

[Modelman5]

Hi. I'd like some advice relating to producing realistic drum tracks. I'm a guitarist and I like to use LMMS to produce backing tracks to play along to. Here's what you need to know:

I'm running LMMS 1.3 on Windows 10. I've used LMMS for quite some time and I'm very comfortable with it.
I understand how the Beat/Bassline Editor works.
I have an Akai MPD218 MIDI pad controller which works fine with LMMS.
I find the Black Pearl drumkit downloaded from the Hydrogen website really works for me.
I use, understand and like Poise drum sampler by One Small Clue.
My genres include rock/blues/pop/jazz/folk - but not EDM (no offence - just not my thing).
I understand about introducing "humanisation" into a drum part by sequencing drum hits slightly off the beat and varying the velocity.
I'm a guitarist, not a drummer!

So, the basic question is, given all the above, what is the best approach to producing drum parts using LMMS?

Using BBE is great but in order to replicate the many, many variations a human drummer would use (including occasional ghost notes, fills, voice leading, passing notes, drum rolls etc), I would need a great many BBE tracks. That sounds really complicated - and I'd have to come up with some kind of foolproof naming convention to remember what all the tracks are for. However, BBE gives me the ability to use multi-sampled components (e.g. Kick Medium, Kick Harder, Kick Hardest, Snare Soft, Snare Softest, Snare Medium) to provide greater realism - a hard snare beat (with all its aggression and power) doesn't turn into a soft beat (with all its subtlety, finesse and nuance) just because you decrease the velocity!

Maybe I should just connect my MIDI pad controller and record the drum part "live" into Song Editor. This would be fine apart from:

Remember I said I'm not a drummer, so recording a "live" performance would be a mess. Even more so because I have a tremor in my hands. I can tidy things up afterwards though in LMMS so that's okay.
I could add hi-hats and other components in afterwards so that's good too.
If I want a separate track for each component (for mixing/applying effects etc) I'd have to clone the track I've recorded to split out each item of the drumset.
Even though I can use Poise which supports multiple outputs, LMMS doesn't so that's a drawback.
Also, having drum tracks in the Song Editor, without the ability to group them just makes the Song Editor more cluttered. To be fair, so does writing them in BBE and then having lots of BBE tracks in the Song Editor so maybe that's a moot point.

So, how do you all do it? What's the most efficient way?

Thanks for your help and advice

Modelman5

[musikbear]

Hi. I'd like some advice relating to producing realistic drum tracks. I'm a guitarist and I like to use LMMS to produce backing tracks to play along to. Here's what you need to know:

I'm running LMMS 1.3 on Windows 10. I've used LMMS for quite some time and I'm very comfortable with it.
I understand how the Beat/Bassline Editor works.
I have an Akai MPD218 MIDI pad controller which works fine with LMMS.
I find the Black Pearl drumkit downloaded from the Hydrogen website really works for me.
I use, understand and like Poise drum sampler by One Small Clue.
My genres include rock/blues/pop/jazz/folk - but not EDM (no offence - just not my thing).
I understand about introducing "humanisation" into a drum part by sequencing drum hits slightly off the beat and varying the velocity.
I'm a guitarist, not a drummer!

So, the basic question is, given all the above, what is the best approach to producing drum parts using LMMS?

Using BBE is great but in order to replicate the many, many variations a human drummer would use (including occasional ghost notes, fills, voice leading, passing notes, drum rolls etc), I would need a great many BBE tracks. That sounds really complicated - and I'd have to come up with some kind of foolproof naming convention to remember what all the tracks are for. However, BBE gives me the ability to use multi-sampled components (e.g. Kick Medium, Kick Harder, Kick Hardest, Snare Soft, Snare Softest, Snare Medium) to provide greater realism - a hard snare beat (with all its aggression and power) doesn't turn into a soft beat (with all its subtlety, finesse and nuance) just because you decrease the velocity!

Maybe I should just connect my MIDI pad controller and record the drum part "live" into Song Editor. This would be fine apart from:

Remember I said I'm not a drummer, so recording a "live" performance would be a mess. Even more so because I have a tremor in my hands. I can tidy things up afterwards though in LMMS so that's okay.
I could add hi-hats and other components in afterwards so that's good too.
If I want a separate track for each component (for mixing/applying effects etc) I'd have to clone the track I've recorded to split out each item of the drumset.
Even though I can use Poise which supports multiple outputs, LMMS doesn't so that's a drawback.
Also, having drum tracks in the Song Editor, without the ability to group them just makes the Song Editor more cluttered. To be fair, so does writing them in BBE and then having lots of BBE tracks in the Song Editor so maybe that's a moot point.

So, how do you all do it? What's the most efficient way?

Thanks for your help and advice

Modelman5

I believe the important parts are:

" Using BBE is great but in order to replicate the many, many variations a human drummer would use (including occasional ghost notes, fills, voice leading, passing notes, drum rolls etc), I would need a great many BBE tracks. That sounds really complicated - and I'd have to come up with some kind of foolproof naming convention to remember what all the tracks are for. "

-And yes, that is complicated, and maybe just outside a DAWs capability. Using a sequencer can never replace an artist!
Thats why guys like Charlie Watt, Ginger Baker and of cause Jazz monuments like Gene Krupa are legends! A DAW just cant emulate all the finess and artistic brilliance that you find in the art of a fine drummer. Sequencers has their limits!
B&BE is also limited in as much that we do not have a random input on individual hits.
This can be seen as a limitating restriction, but it can also be argued that the notes that is played must be absolutely identical next time you play the project!
I lean towards the second of these, even though i can see the usecase for a random touch on the notes
My approach to building percussion is the LEGO principle.
I like to have a lot of really small blocks, because then i van combine these in a multiple of different ways, but not random! I may have like 6 hat variations, but i manually choose one of these for a specific variation in the track.
LEGO-principle do result in a lot of B&B-tracks! -And ofcause it is very important to keep ..track of all of them.
Imo there are sufficient options for naming both tracks instrument and individual blocks i LMMS, but i also use LMMS' Notes and i add a track i call 'structure' where coloured blocks makes it easier to keep track of the process.
Long ago i made a loooong video on how to
Its a slowpaced un-edited 'live' recording of my making a project
Perhaps speed up with youTube tools for that : p
Link to 1.part:

there are 3 parts more..

[Modelman5]

Hi Musikbear.

Thanks for the reply. I pretty much agree with everything you've said! You're quite right about the limitations of a DAW in replicating the genius of the great drummers. Your video (I've only watched the first one so far) is really helpful. I've also used what you've called a "Structure" track myself in order to mark Intro, Verse 1, Chorus etc. Other DAWS like Waveform and Cakewalk have dedicated marker tracks for that but your "Structure" track works equally as well. Also, the Project Notes facility is an absolute godsend. Such a simple facility but so useful. I've downloaded several projects this evening from the LSP just to have a look at how other people approach things and I think I only found one project which used the BBE for sequencing percussion. Also, virtually none of them used the mixer to mix individual instruments! I guess there are no hard and fast rules here and no single "right way" of doing things. It's all down to the individual's creativity and what works for each one. I just wondered what the "best practice" for this is and how the professionals handle it. Anyone else have any input/comments?

Kind regards

Modelman5