Stop Cussin' and start Percussing...

Q  "...I'm wondering if you use any special tricks to put down your groove ideas before you start working on the arrangement. I might have lots of rhythmic ideas spinning in my head, but when I sit down and start entering the snares/claps/hits/crashes and other bits one by one in Cubase, I tend to loose the groove feeling.

Could you share your thoughts on what your preferred method is? I'm talking about the various off-beat snares (often reverbed), hits and other percussion sounds that form the groove of your tracks. Best example in one of your tracks is "Find your own divinity"..."

 The Classic Roland TR 909

A I don't really have any special tricks that I am aware of. I usually just loop one or two bars of kick drum in the sequencer and play some percussion in, then shift it around and tune it until it feels right and starts to sound like the groove that I wanted to create.

But having said that, here's some tips for ya to get your beats groovin' :

1. The basic pattern for snares (or claps etc.) would be on beats 2 + 4 (the backbeats) Combined with a fat dance "four on the floor" kick, this will give you a cross between a dance and rock groove; very driving.

2. Choice of sounds are really important to the finshed result. Put your beats in a sampler mapped chromatically up and down the keyboard, let's say snares on midi channel 1, claps on channel 2 , closed and open hats on channel 3 etc. Once you have your hat pattern, your snare pattern etc. you can change your sounds just by transposing the MIDI part by semitones up and down to see which sound works best.

3. If you have your beats in a sampler you can also tune them up and down to fit the groove. You can tune them by small or even huge amounts to get them to sit right or for special effects.

4. Length of notes (hits) is a big factor in determining groove. I always prefer to have my hats, claps etc. on an amp envelope with a rapid release (almost immediate) rather than the "one shot" mode that drum samplers/programs default to. We are making electronic grooves here, so no need for the drums to to sound realistic. With a fast release you can tweak the note lengths on your hits and hats inside the sequencer - it makes a big difference to how things groove.

5. A couple of tips for adding the Funk: The last sixteenth before every beat tickles the funk nerve. (in 16th note subdivisions that would be beats: 4, 8 , 12 and 16 ) Placing a hit on 16 is a particular favourite of mine. Displacing one or other of the snare backbeats a sixteenth beat forward in time to one of these ( onto 3 or 11) can funk things up. To start growing a serious afro, try a two bar pattern with the second backbeat in the second bar displaced forward a sixteenth onto beat 11 (in 16th note subdivisions)

Enjoy your tweakage,

Billy Cosmosis

Cosmosis Music Webshop: http://cosmosis.bandcamp.com/