Do you program or play the drums?

Taboosun

New member
Hi guys. This questioned just popped up not too long ago and I was curious to see the responses. The reason i ask is because just yesterday when I was making a beat I played my drums via the keys instead of programming and i must say, I loved it. It was a little sloppy the first couple times but that is expected, since i always program my drums.
 
Oh, and by play, I mean play an actual kit with sticks in hand and feet on teh pedals.....
 
Sometimes I play the kick and clap/snare on my m-audio keystation, I also used my roland drum machine a few times never liked it much though. But on hi hats I usually program them lol hi hats are hard to play for me... Never played a real drum set though.
 
if you are drummer, you can easily program drums with your mouse ;)
if not, good luck
it depends of genre you want to program...
 
I think that it's better to play them.Even if you decide to quantize them after,you still get more creative by playing them instead of just clicking the mouse.
 
how he can be creative when he plays on keybord? :P
How can he be creative when he fills some boxes with a mouse click ? When you make a melody do you agree with me that you have to play the keyboard for best results ? Well....in my opinion,it's the same with drums.A mpc/mpd is better but once you get used to playing drums on the keys it's the same thing.
 
Personally, ive been using fl studio step sequencer to program my drums. I recently experimented with the FPC plugin in fl studio for my drums. I recorded everything live one by one (kick, snare, hi hat, cymbals, open hi hat, percussion , and etc). In the beginning it was hard to get it too go smooth, but i kept practising till it sounded just right for me.

I believe that the drums sound way to robotic when you program them. You want your music to have a human touch as much as possible, it makes a big difference to record everything live as much as possible, instead of just clicking it in piano roll, and etc.
 
Last edited:
I'm too perfectionistic to not program my drums.
I program all my drums with the FPC inside the Piano Roll.
I want every Snare on 2th and 4th beat to be at Velocity 78 (standard velocity FL Studio). And i don't want different releases and everything.
And even though i just program my drums they still sound more human than any Trap beat you hear.
I always sequence my drums at 2 different velocities between every 1 step (78 velocity), 2 step (48 velocity), 3 step (78 velocity), 4 step (48 velocity) etc... which makes it sound more human.

check it, i made and processed the drumsounds myself from a drumbreak (velocity 78, velocity 48):

Smile by Mark-1988 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

---------- Post added at 09:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 PM ----------

it isn't same...
drumming is math... and feeling!
melody is something else...

melody is math and feeling to but you only use 1 sound in different pitch-tones.
While with drums you use different sounds all in 1 pitch-tone.
 
Last edited:
I think that playing your drums gives you more creativity and freedom. When you program them, it is very hard to express what you are looking for.
 
I play them on my Akai MPD16 most of the time. If there is a little part I'm not satisfied with, I just program it.
 
I program them, then use velocity and shift options in FL to give it a little swing, I find it faster for me this way. If I had the option I would just have a drummer come in and play.
 
Back
Top