So I already posted this in the Workflow Thread, but I believe this is valuable information regarding creating drum patterns, and could be a post of its own. So here it is:

A tip I have for people struggling with drum patterning (which is not something I struggle with as I'm a drummer), is to lay down drum patterns in the playlist like this:



instead of laying drum patterns down in the piano roll like this:



and this:



Laying your drums down in the playlist, like I did in the first example, really pushes you to be creative. Force yourself not to copy and paste a loop of drums, but rather lay down the drums in the playlist separately for every part of the song. This allows you to fit every little drum hit exactly how you want it, without wasting a bunch of patterns.

The first example drum pattern sounds like this. The pattern doesn't get stale because it changes throughout the loop. That being said, it still has a consistent groove to it. Adding little percussion blips and bloops here and there really spices up this pattern.

The second drum loop sounds like this. Evidently, the first pattern is way better than this one. This pattern gets boring after a while, due to the lack of variation. I didn't force myself to be creative with this one, I didn't add any little sounds that could spice up the loop, and I didn't even bother to add fills, or any extra percussion for that matter.

Force yourself to be creative with your drum loops. It can really make or break a song.

Hope this helps!

What are some of the techniques you use when making drum patterns?

I've been so use to using piano rolls that I don't really need to do this to be "creative" sure it looks cool to the non trained eye but it just wastes time honestly.

I know a lot of producers lay out their drums in audio (Bro Safari, NGHTMRE, ETC!ETC!, and I think CRNKN), so it's not like it's incorrect to be working like this. You get a lot more control over the body and tail of each hit, you can nudge it along the grid easier than with FL's channel rack, for example. Helps with layering drum transients and stuff, helps with swing, etc.

I actually program all my drum sounds inside of Maschine, then record my audio into the project when I feel I have a "finished" drum arrangement. That way I am able to quickly sketch up my drum patterns, arrange out my track, and have a MIDI backup of the audio i'm going to be working with for further editing and post processing.

A benefit of having drums in a drum rack (ableton for my example) and then going to the piano roll is that you can apply interesting LFO shit to different drums.

I will go to drum, open its Simpler, change it to Sampler if I want to do something more complex, then I will add an LFO, turn off retrigger and set different LFOs on different hits to different speeds. Then I use this LFO to automate parameters, pan, filters etc.

This can add a lot of life to your patterns. Hope that was clear

I'm not a drummer and I'm rhythmically retarded. The way I develop drum patterns is as follows:

1. Rip off the drum pattern from part of somebody else's music with some aspect I want to imitate. I mean literally copy the beats, note for note.

2. Listen to it a zillion times.

3. Remove or add notes, or move notes around, until it sounds right.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 but just for the fills.

5. Make sure it's different enough that nobody could tell. If it isn't, repeat steps 3-4.

Well this is very good!