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This is very true. I use to add a bunch of hi hat loops/ shakers to fill up space and while all my friends liked it and it sounded good. I could totally see people had a hard time dancing when I performed it live. The simpler groves where everything has its own space and purpose made people dance every time.
Love this concept and def got me thinking about when and when not to incorporate drum loops into my productions - that being said, as a former almost professional Greek dancer, I just get up and dance to my tracks to see if it works or not haha
It depends on the track, Piero Pirup used a shit ton of layered percussion and Hi Hat loops on his track „We don't need - Club Edit“ and it was a nr1 smash hit because it just woeked
very helpful stuff. i learned this a few years ago but realizing how important rythm is (not just for drums) improved my songwriting so much and it also helps everything else like mixing for example.
I wish i seen this when i first started, instead i was told that adding more loops was good because it fills up space and adds more interest but never told the downsides like competing rhythms.
It does fill space, this only works for genres like this (Tech house). But if you want to make Trance, Techno, House, EDM, your track can sound very empty if you don't fill the space you have. Sidechain and processing MAKE the track
As always concise and to the point. I'd love some deeper dives into rhythm building and how you can work with velocities, bc this tutorial doesn't talk about how ghost notes etc can be used to add subtle rhythm without necessarily making things messy.
There is a lot more to it, ghost notes, sound selection, layering, mixing, panning... but a nice tip lining up the groove elements to not make it too complicated for the genre.
Damn give the guy a break, he’s trying to provide some value and it all boils down to keeping the groove simple and not cluttering it up with too many competing rhythms. It doesn’t matter if you use loops or not. If you do use a loop just be mindful to not clutter the groove with a bunch of random drum loops that are going to overlap and sound like 💩
Absolutely great advice. It takes longer to build loops yourself but I've never done anything else. Without control of the swing, velocity and basic pattern for each sound, it's going to sound messy. oh, and knowing when to stop adding things is critical. Just keep working on it and it does start sounding better.
Great video! The part about simplifying each element into a simple hit in a separate pattern, so you can hear how it sounds with no frills and just get a handle on if the rhythmic health is brilliant!
Thanks so much for this video. Knew there had to be some level of logic at work in even the most complex of rhythms but hadn’t been able to find any info/tutorials on the subject. Will be cracking open the DAW later to experiment.
This is very important. You have made a similiar video for this tip and I have been implementing that to my Trance tracks. Clear improvement. And if I ever use something out of main groove, I use it in the most background so you dont basically hear, but feel. Amazing tip and totally recommend.
Dude I hope you're rich off RU-vid. This is the first time Ive watched your video. You have a nerd understanding of everything but your music is dope! You're not over the top analytical and your video quality is top notch. You gotta be spending a ton of time on making these vids. Great work bud
you can do that. But if you want to add those, you need to create space for them. He's oversimplifying for sure, but you can literally hear him using syncopation in the example he provides at the end. Stay smart, homie
I had the idea of trying to put a mini note for every drum hit to make sure complicated rhythms sounded good but it’s really cool to see somebody else recommends doing it.
Thats epic advice and a great tutorial. Really struggled with this concept for years but i love how you mentronomed the rhythm very easy to then keep it all in tune. What about things likes stabs and chord would you also add the same swing?
your style of explaination is exactly what i am looking for ... and damn i like your style of producing ..... i have the feeling that you really know what you are doing..... some other YT producers doesnt have that ..... greetings from vienna ps : i can imagine you have finished some music school or are you a self-taught guy like me.... ?
it is a interesting topic, I'm not sure if I fully agree with you. There is a lot of house music that got a LOT of different rhythm's layered on top of one another. also rhytms can make space for each other depending on frequency (band) and panorama
Yeah I think it's fine if you have extra percussion rhythms that are lower in the mix and fill out space. But all my favorite house songs have a main repeating rhythm using the main elements that I can pick up on
Agreed, this is nonsense, sometimes drum loops can totally transform and improve things, totally depends on the loop, its groove, how that interacts with programmed drum sounds etc. To make a blanket statement of "drum loops make your track worse" is pure clickbait dumbness
In Logic it’s very simple, use the Groove Track feature. Assign one of your tracks as the main Groove Track and assign all the other tracks to follow the main Groove Track simply by adding a ☑️ mark next to the track. This can be done in seconds and you never have to go into the Piano Roll.
In your opinion, which track should typically be the main groove track for best results? The percussion loop track, the vocal track, bassline track, piano/guitar chord track? Thanks.
@@PETSWORLD_ Generally I think the percussion loop makes the most sense to use as the Groove track, simply because it usually has the most subdivisions that all the other instruments can "latch" onto. You really have to use your discretion though, most importantly you have to choose drum loops that would best serve a role as the "Master" Groove track. A lot of what Big Z mentioned applies here, choose the percussion loop that sounds the cleanest and provides the strongest foundation of your song's overall groove.
Great advice! Honestly so true and not something I see people discussing much on RU-vid. Thank you for this video. Most of the time I feel simple is better. When it comes to layering, we must ask ourselves with each layer we add, is this supposed to blend with other layers, or contrast?
Great video, dude! What about elements that reinforce strong notes (1/4 or 1/8) in the rhythm vs weak notes (any 1/16 note not on the down or off-beat)? Think you could make a follow-up about that?
In ableton you can "extract groove" from one element and apply that quantization to other tracks. Great way to align the rhythm of a loop that you like the texture of with the groove of the track
Hi Big Z - I bought the serum presets pack modern synths 2 from your online shop and it only allowed 2x download attempts. Both failed me and stopped downloading and now I can't finish downloading. How can I get the product now?
Great video! Just one question: You've built a song around a given drum loop, but shouldn't it be the other way round? Can't you make up the rhythm first and use single-shot drum sounds to form the accompanying drum stem?
I´ve sort of noticed this is in my productions and not been able to pinpoint the reasons. This was kind of eye opening. Sure you can prob fit in some with different frequencies but overall I got what you said and this can really clean up tracks for beginners in particular. Curious how you would approach this on vocals and or leads vs the bassline
I typically accomplish a simple arrangement by starting from lots of overlapping grooves and then slowly taking out some slices of it until it is reduced enough. that way the groove doesn't form in the most obvious way but insteads finds a new path that I also haven't heard before sometimes. slightly different swings can be a good thing if 2 sounds are overlapping, but maybe not so much in tight genres like yours
I paid alot more attention to this after a friend of mine said that one of my tracks sounded like two songs playing together. Was easy to fix when someone just pointed it out like that.
I agree with the general idea of this video but I also having a whole bunch of different loops can add some interesting things. I do think that there is a best of both worlds solution for this: Start with layering all the loops you think sound cool. Then listen through it carefully and try to pick up on which loop is adding the most at every moment. Then it's just a matter of muting the other loops at that moment. You'll just get the bits of each loop whenever they add to the groove and get rid of the clutter too. It also manages to somehow sound more varied as each loop gets the time to shine.
It's a fun idea, but using the same sound for all of the beats is 100% going to make it sound messy. The first 3 minutes of this video is a service announcement for SideChain. Also depending on the genre, using loops is fine, if you process them correctly
At first I was thinking, “Hey, ableton’s groove feature kinda fixes these problems.” But nah, the whole point is about breaking down your overall rhythm to its key elements and not overcrowding them. Great process, gonna help me a lot.
Actually if you're on Logic simply enable time flex on the loops, quantize them to whatever quantization you'd like or you can even use a loop as master quantize and have the other loops follow that quantization .
good points, but (unnecessarily so) slightly manipulative to only "unleash" bass drum and main backbeat in the positive examples and keeping them turned off in the negative ones :-D
@@anndrew_gi Nowhere in the video does he say "all drum loops make your track worse" nor "programming drums automatically makes your track's rhythm better" nor "only my loops will give your track perfect rhythm". If anything he gives a few tips encouraging critical thought about a concept that can be applied broadly to all music production, as well as a technique for analyzing it. You can still screw up on giving your track a cohesive groove if you program the parts yourself, it's just this tends to be more of an issue with loops because inexperienced or lazy producers may throw a bunch of loops together without considering cohesion. With that said, I think a lot of complaints about the title could be solved if it was instead called something like "Drum Loops (Can) Make Your Track Worse". Titles in media are supposed to grab attention and give an idea of the subject matter. The current title is relevant but a bit too misleading.
He's more saying that you need to clean things up in order to achieve an effective groove. If you stack up *his* loops but don't pay attention to the sonic space you're creating, it'll still sound messy. @@anndrew_gi
I agree with the concept, but I don't think there's any issue using loops - just to use them sparingly and to be selective, and possibly just by following a philosophy of keeping things simple. I use loops just to start a session quickly, especially if I'm working with singers/songwriters and need something that they can write to quickly. Sometimes I'll edit the loop afterwards, but even then there are times I don't feel it's necessary.
what about Techno where you only have Kick / Bass pattern with bass note playing right after the kick? Just layer the drums on top of the bass note since there's not much rhythm there?
Your use of the word Techno here is a bit ambiguous, but it sounds like in your example the bass instrument is not the main rhythmic element of the track. In the video he says to build around the main rhythmic element of your track, and then he goes into his example track where the bass is that main element. In another track, such as whatever your example is, the main rhythmic element may be different instrument from the bass. A percussion part? Some other lead synth? It depends. But whatever that lead element is, build everything else around it. Even melodies have rhythms built into them and can be dissected in the same manner as in the video.
