Lets talk about drums..

[NuEra]

[admin]

Groove templates...I've tried poking around in Logic and on google, and I am still a bit lost..

I see that I can create my own from an audio loop, or I can download third party template and import it (goldbaby had a free one). Does Logic not come with some stock groove templates? Where would one find some good groove templates online?

If I were you I'd just stick with the stock Logic ones and do the rest by hand. The 16b and 16c are famous and I used the 16b from Notator (predecessor to Logic on the atari) all the time. It's equal to 54% swing.

The rest I just move around by hand. I don't think you'll find too many of the live groove templates that will lock to your track that well, at least I never have too much luck.

[NuEra]

If I were you I'd just stick with the stock Logic ones and do the rest by hand. The 16b and 16c are famous and I used the 16b from Notator (predecessor to Logic on the atari) all the time. It's equal to 54% swing.

The rest I just move around by hand. I don't think you'll find too many of the live groove templates that will lock to your track that well, at least I never have too much luck.

i'm just reading about dna templates now..so those won't be much use to me?

in review, main things to consider with groove...
- Varied timing, swing
- Varied velocity
- Varied samples
- Varied note length (how does this relate to drums? will a shortened midi note shorten the length of the sample played from the sampler or do we have to adjust this in alternate way?)

[admin]

I found them too random and they are taken from analyzing drum hits so if the hits you assign to those notes don't have the same attack signature then they won't be in the same pocket rhythmically.

Yes those are good points. I'd start with a combination of a global swing along with manually moving some parts around, especially snares and claps.

Velocity plays a big part, even without swing quantize you can get a part to 'swing' by changing the velocity. Very low velocity notes or ghost notes are key to funkyness.

Using different variations of samples at different pitches and so on is good too. For instance two versions of your snare, one a bit higher in pitch or shorter.

It depends on the triggering mode of your sampler. Some will play the sample entirely even with short notes, you want it set to a 'gate' mode. Changing the length of open hihhats is a popular use of this technique.