In small-project studios, recording drums live is the exception rather than the rule and is a luxury reserved for those people who have proper mics and rooms and a talented stick basher. Now you, too, can produce excellent-sounding (albeit artificial) drum tracks. In this article, I'll explain how to create the illusion of a live, grooving drummer using sampled drums and a digital audio sequencer.

FIG. 1: The red box indicates where to select the appropriate Battery output pairs for each aux object in the Logic''s environment window.

Anyone who has heard the raw tracks of a multimiked live drum kit knows that unprocessed drums sound very different from the polished, vibrant-sounding kits on commercial CDs. Extensive compression, EQ, and spatialization effects make all the difference, and that's what you want to replicate in the artificial-drum world. Here, I've used Apple Logic Pro 7 along with the Native Instruments Battery 2 drum sampler, but these ideas can easily be applied to any sequencer and sampler.

Be Discrete

Though drum loops are currently in fashion for creating drum tracks, a sampler with individual instrument hits gives you much more flexibility because you control every note. Furthermore, by assigning each instrument to its own audio output, you can compress, EQ, and reverb each drum individually.

Begin by inserting Battery in an Instrument track in Logic and opening up a stock Battery kit. (When you instantiate Battery in Logic, be sure to use the multichannel option.) In the Logic Environment window, create a stereo aux object for each Battery stereo output you intend to use, then select the Battery outputs in the aux objects' I/O boxes (see Fig. 1). You can now go back to Battery and select the desired output pair for each cell (see Fig. 2). You can assign outputs for multiple cells simultaneously by Shift-clicking on multiple cells, and then selecting an output pair.

FIG. 2: The red box indicates where to set individual output channels for each cell in Battery.

A Warm Compress

The next step is to apply separate processing to the individual outputs by inserting effects in the aux channels. Start by compressing the kick drum. Settings vary depending on the particular kick drum sample and song, but generally kicks should have a thick, solid low end and a present beater. For that, set the compression ratio to 3:1 with a gain setting of about -8 dB. Use an attack of at least 20 ms so the smack of the beater doesn't get squashed. Decay should be fairly quick for hard kicks and longer for softer kicks.

Follow the compressor with a parametric EQ. For kick drums, use a low-shelf EQ at around 100 Hz to boost or cut the lows; a spectrum analyzer can be really helpful for choosing the frequency. Think fat, but don't overwhelm the track. If it's a little honky, a gentle dip in the 400 to 600 Hz range will smooth it out. Finally, a gentle boost at 1 kHz will bring out the attack of the beater.

Ensnared

For the snare drum, again insert a compressor followed by a parametric EQ. Because snare tones vary greatly, you'll need to experiment. For a realistic snare sound, subtle compression and EQ work best — perhaps a 2:1 or 3:1 compression ratio with a -6 dB gain setting and an attack of about 30 ms. Use EQ to mildly exaggerate what's already there. You can adjust the ping of the snares with an EQ band in the 500 to 600 Hz range, and you can use a high-shelf EQ near 5 kHz to brighten things up. To achieve a more artificial snare sound like the Cars or Queen, use a higher compression ratio, more gain reduction, and a superquick attack (try 0 ms). That will crush the attack and take out all the ping.

Regardless of the tone you choose, send the channel to a bus to add reverb. You can use a reverb on the drum's own channel, but using a bus makes adjustment easier, and you can send multiple drums to the same reverb. That puts them in the same sonic space and saves processor power. Be sure to listen to the drums in the context of the mix for a reality check.

Tom Is of the Essence

You can often skip compression altogether on the toms, or to punch them up, compress them with settings similar to those used for the snare. Be sure to keep the attack time high to let the stick hits through.

Equalizing toms is usually a matter of finding the fundamental frequency of the tom and boosting or cutting it to taste, using your ears or a spectrum analyzer as your guide. Some high-shelf EQ boost above 5 kHz can help toms cut through the mix. Finally, make sure your toms are realistically panned. Visualize the drum kit and place the toms accordingly. Don't overdo it. Remember, the drummer doesn't have his kit spread across the entire room. You may want to send a bit of the toms to the reverb bus, but don't go too heavy, or they'll sound like a drum circle of doom.

Cymbals of Success

Hi-hats don't usually need compression, but they often need some of the low end knocked out. Use a highpass or low-shelf EQ in the 200 to 500 Hz range. Hi-hats might need a little high-end boost as well. And pan the hi-hat a little to the right.

Crashes and rides usually need EQ similar to the hi-hats. You can take some lows out with a low-shelf or highpass filter, and boost a little above 5 kHz for sheen. Pan those around the stereo field a bit, and send a little to the reverb bus.

Web Clips 1 and 2 are dry and processed versions of the Battery factory Rock kit. Web Clip 3 is a Logic Pro 7 file with the settings described here.

Bang the Drum

Now that you have a realistic kit, here are some sequencing tips. Go easy on the quantization. Most sequencers have a percentage-quantize feature that reels in the notes only to a percent of the quantize value. I find 70 to 80 percent works well. That way your playing sounds better, but it's not robot perfect.

It's also important to avoid playing superhumanly. If you play a tom fill before a change, mute the hi-hats and ongoing snare hits. Physically air drumming the fill can help you figure out what should hit where; you'll know exactly where to stop your hats and when to simplify the kick part.

When playing repeated-note fills, lower the Velocity on every odd hit to avoid the dreaded machine-gun syndrome. Most important, mix things up. Real drummers often throw in little cymbal hits, tom flourishes, or an extra snare hit. Subtle inconsistency is the name of the game.

Straighten Up and Groove Right

I've saved the most important point for last: program the drums first, and then track all the other instruments to the drums. I frequently receive songs in which all the instruments were tracked by playing to a click. Then the drums were programmed or played live to the already recorded instrumental tracks. This is groove suicide! At best the vibe will suffer, and at worst you'll have a musical train wreck on your hands. Musicians always play differently to a real drum track than to a click. The best approach is to throw down some quick-and-dirty instrumental and vocal reference tracks for drum tracking, and then replace them later with the keeper tracks.

All the tricks I've covered here work just as well for synthesized drum kits, such as the Roland TR-808 and TR-909, and for older digital drum machines, such as the vintage Linndrum and the Oberheim DMX. Use the same strategy as for the Battery kit: break out and process the individual sounds, and the kit will sound really great. Now start bangin' and mow down those wimpy drum-loop users.

Mitchell Sigman is keyboardist and music director for the seminal '80s synth band Berlin. He also makes his own synth rock with the L.A. band Celebutante.