Logic Pro 9 / Drum Roll

One simple way to get a drum roll is to draw it with the Hyper Editor. Here's a quick lesson in how to do that.

Create a Software Instrument track. On that track, load the Ultrabeat instrument. Close the UB window.

In Arrange, select the pencil tool (press escape to make the tool menu appear). Using the pencil tool, click once in the UB track to create a new, empty region. Press escape-escape to resume using the pointer tool.

Press ⌘5 to open the Hyper Editor window. At the left is the Hyper Editor Inspector. In the Inspector, look where it says MIDI Controls. Just to the right is a downward-pointing triangle. Use that menu to select GM Drum Kit.

In the main part of the Hyper Editor window, find the lane called "SD 1." Select it by clicking on the lane header. Hold down ⌃⌥↓ (Zoom Vertical In) to make that lane tall (along with all the lanes).

In the Inspector change Grid from 1/16-Note to 1/96-Note.

In the Inspector, double-click to the right of Length (where it says "1 0") and enter, say, 100 (this means you'll be creating notes that are 100 ticks in length; for reference, note that one beat contains 960 ticks).

Select the pencil tool again. Use the pencil tool to draw an ascending ramp, from left to right, in the SD 1 lane. You'll hear the notes as you draw them.

Make sure the playhead is to the left of your ramp, and press Play. You'll hear your drum roll. You'll notice that the ascending height means ascending velocity.

45rpm wrote:

This is described in the David Nahmani's book as "Creating Drum Rolls in Hyper Edit" as far as I remember or you have got it here from his forum I guess. It does not matter - in both cases the David's method is known for long time users unless that the name of the method must be changed to "Machine Gun Snare Roll Creation".

O.K lets try to fix some of the settings which may cause problems and add something new to that...

In the Inspector change Grid from 1/16-Note to 1/96-Note.

This setting is "tempo" dependent. For instance 1/96 is quite extreme for say tempos higher then 100 and may cause (phase shooting) of the snare roll. Let's say you can try 1/48 for tempos 120-130 for example to achieve more natural rolling. (Keep in mind such Q settings will cause "Machine Gun Issue" - see below how to prevent that).

In the Inspector, double-click to the right of Length (where it says "1 0") and enter, say, 100 (this means you'll be creating notes that are 100 ticks in length;

This setting is also too much (tempo dependent as well) and will cause note ends overlapping if you try to open the snare roll in the Piano Roll to make some further time editing (see below).
Here I can recommend settings 30- 40 tics for example.

_"The Machine Gun Issue"_

It is a result of the Hyper Edit SN grid (Q) drawing.
What I mean is that the SN roll need some "Groove" template to prevent the gun shooting (Q). As an example if you open some live performed snare roll recorded as midi via midi drum set you will note that in the most cases the starting notes time distance is higher then the end notes time distance (the ones before the last "Hit" note). I.e the drummer tends to play the roll as time crescendo groove - slow to fast. It can be seen in the Piano Roll very well using a proper zoom. There are different scenarios depending on the style etc but in any case a "Groove Template" is welcome.
My Tip is to use a roll "Groove Template" that I have made previously in the Piano Roll, or I have got it (drag&drop) from some Software Drum Instrument (which offers midi lib), or you can Import some existing etc.
The idea is instead choosing a grid settings of say 1/48 etc to choose a "Snare Roll Groove Template" from in the SN lane grid menu after that you can draw a line of note events (using some crescendo velocity) so the note events will be drawn according the groove template directly in the Hyper Edit which must solve the "Machine Gun" issue.

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What Vacheto is describing is how to get a more natural sounding snare roll, and the points are certainly valid - hard quantised fast rolls won't sound like a real drummer, so it's worth trying those things out.

However, it's not the traditional "Machine Gun" issue, which arises from using a single, static snare sample in a fill. If you are trying to achieve a naturalist effect, at least use a multisampled snare drum which has different snare samples for different velocity ranges (most of the Logic/GB kits do this), and ideally use an instrument that has a "round-robin" set of snare samples so that each time the same drum is hit in a given velocity range, a different sample is played.

This goes a long way into making a snare fill sound and feel more natural.

Given the preference, using multisampled snares with fairly rigid quantised timing will still sound better than using single static snare samples with human timing, although it's a bit dependent on the sample, really. A combination of both is best.

For an authentic effect, some timing variation and a good drum instrument is the best bet. Also note that "human" timing is not the same thing as randomising the timing - while drummers' timing may fluctuate, it doesn't really fluctuate randomly (above a very small factor) it tends to fluctuate in performance appropriate ways - the best way to get better at drum programming is to learn to play drums, but that's probably true of all instruments 🙂

In any case, you should have enough info to create something that's workable for your needs.

Bee Jay wrote:
the best way to get better at drum programming is to learn to play drums, but that's probably true of all instruments 🙂

Not actually, 15-20 years of fixing what the drummers are played is quite enough to come into such midi programing skills as well for example 😀

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Regarding plugs that do snare rolls, NI Battery does a pretty nice job of rolls, ruffs, etc. Battery's snares include left-hand and right-hand samples, and the roll speed can be MIDI controlled. MIDI snare rolls tend to work best with snare samples that have a little tail on them, which smoothes out the roll.

15-20 years of fixing what the drummers are played is quite enough to come into such midi programing skills

True enough 😀

I nearly forgot an old snare roll trick from the 'eighties that's a lot of fun: set up a snare sample to trigger from two adjacent keys on your 'board. Disable keyboard pitch tracking, so that each key triggers the same pitch. Set the sample to trigger on key up as well as on key down. Experiment with velocity settings to impart dynamics to your roll.

For example, if the notes C and D trigger your sample, play C-D-C-D-C-D and so forth until you get the feel of a snare roll. This way, you can vary the speed of the roll and throw in accented snare hits on another note, maybe E. You'll be playing marching band rudiments before you know it.