How do you guys prefer to handle your drums in logic?

[Eat Bass]

For some reason the way I tackle drums is always changing and I can't seem to find a method that totally suits me. I have Battery 3, but it takes me too long to get everything all set up so each hit has its own channel, unless I just use a whole battery for each hit. How are you guys working with battery?

Most recently, I have been using an instance of esx24 for each drum hit this way I can tune each drum hit if I want to and adjust the envelope and esx24 is pretty good on the cpu so its not a problem if I run a single instance for each hit. Do you guys think that this method is feasible? Or maybe should I try doing the same thing but with battery? Let me know what you guys do or what you think. Thanks.

[skimpi]

I do what you do, but then sometimes i may have more than one drum on a channel. I'll load up a kit and then start jamming out and recording things, then i might overdub summat else. If I feel it needs its own track ill split up the different hits then, but somethings like if its two different bongo hits or summat, that operate a similar space ill leave it on one track.

[Add9]

This is kind of time consuming, but I put like all my hi-hats into one (or more) exs24 units and save them... that way if I want hi-hats, just load the exs24 and I have like 100 hi-hats already in the sampler to choose from. If I want to change the hi-hat sample, just move the midi note up and down, it couldn't be easier.

The same thing for kicks, cymbals, percussion (especially useful here), etc... then you can easily audition each sample as well by playing them on the midi keyboard. No lie, I probably have like 500 exs24 instruments saved as presets, very time consuming but if you have a boring job then loading samples into a sampler is a great productive way to waste time, lol. Plus if your boss comes by, it looks like you're actually doing work too!

[p12]

I have a modified preset of drag & drop in ultrabeat wich i usually do all my kicks and snares in. Sometimes the hats to.
Then i use the logic browser to get to my samples and baisicly just drop them right into ultrabeat. Multi-output them and layer if needed. The nice thing with ultrabeat is that you easily modulate the sound with the first osc and the white noise osc. Also nice to have 'nuff control with all them envelopes and lfo's.
The I have beat bus wich i arrange so i can seperate all the drums in the mixer window from the rest of the tracks.

Percussion i usually do in the esx24. The reason for that is that a bit of variation (filter, pitch and and glide) really does it for the perc. Dun really have anything prepared in the exs, but it works i guess.

[SubLime]

Cant you make blank templates with the pads pre mapped to different channels? Thats what i do in cubase then just drop in samples so i then have volume,eq,fx for each drum hit. Im sure you can do it that way. I dunno.

im about to grab a Mac mini in a few weeks and i hope the UB or the EXS can do this.

[p12]

Shudn't be impossible. Though i think u'd have to implent that into ur start-up template if u'd like that for a start-up in every project.

I allways assign the multi-outputs afterwards, because I'm never sure what I'm going to put in and layer.
It's possible to do this as well in the exs24, though you will have to ''reaveal'' that option. It's automaticly hidden for some strange reason...

[alz]

Yeah I used to use ultrabeat but it was such a pain in the arse, so now I use esx24, recently got konakt though, so i might try and use that, although I'm quite liking just jamming them in with esx, you can get a nice groove and I'm familiar with how to adjust things.

[LilWUB]

I've found that using EXS24 for individual drums is easiest for me. You can layer in one instance of EXS24 - as you can adjust the volumes of each individual element in the edit window.

[Milaflore]

Hey up,

I personally find handling anything drum/precussion wise is easiest when using audio directly. Just dropping your hits/samples etc in the sequencer and then shifting them around to suit, also Audio is much nicer on your CPU, so if you do like it this way there are advantages, of course if you do use midi you can always "bounce in place" when your happy with what you got.

The only hits I have in midi form are hi hats as I find they are easier to mess around with in midi form. for this I just load the samples into ultrabeat, program them into the sequencer, then mess around with them.

[Sharmaji]

Audio

if things are in midi form-- usually layers from stylus, etc-- they get bounced down to audio ASAP.

[LilWUB]

Audio

if things are in midi form-- usually layers from stylus, etc-- they get bounced down to audio ASAP.

May I ask why?

[Sharmaji]

Audio

if things are in midi form-- usually layers from stylus, etc-- they get bounced down to audio ASAP.

May I ask why?

couple of things-- commitment to the song, first and foremost. Get the part, get it as grooving as possible, move on.

for programmed drums (rather than recorded live), i'd rather have separate lanes in my arrange window for each element, rather than deal with multi-out instruments, etc. I've got a very specific way that i like my auxes set up, and have a bunch of "hat2" or "snare4" things in the middle of my sends and groups is just a layer of disorganization.

pretty much every production's got varying sources of drums-- samples, synths, stuff programmed in plugs, stuff recorded in-- i'd rather have everything in the same format at mix time. Lets me work faster. I can drag an element up or down to various treatments, rather than have to re-assign outputs, etc.

same thing with sidechaning-- If i want to sidechain something off of, say, a syncopated kick pattern, it's far easier to just key the compressor off of that kick's lane, rather than create a send to a bus and use that....

i may keep the midi muted and drag that channel down to the bottom of the project, but i do that more w/ melodic material than drums.

[lloydy]

Yeah i agree with sharm,it is just far easier to bounce all drums to audio and work from there.
For me i just feel i have better control,can group easier,sidechain easier.......
Normally i'll use battery if i do use a sampler for drums and just bounce once i've written enough patterns.Always just bounce individual drums to their own lanes and group together.Stack tracks has made this heaps easier as i used to use folders a lot in 9.
I tend to solo the cells in battery and bounce in place rather than set up a multi instrument as i don't really like to slow my workflow down once working a track because i just find it mundane and would much rather do things quick to keep my brain in gear.
Also building drum patterns with single hits in audio is simple easy and efficient,normally battery i use for percs and other fodder and use single hits for most other things.Just auditioning from the finder then dragging into my arrange,simple!

[lloydy]

Also i like to work with breaks a lot,probably too much so audio is the way forward.Dicing them with the cutting tool and then just mucking about changing the break up.Pretty much got most of my best jungle/dnb beats this way.
Using the flex function along with the cutting tool is superb for mangling breaks.
Saying that i have started to use sugar bytes turnado for really hammering breaks and it is quick when used with logic's automation.Still all done with audio though.

[Eat Bass]

thanks for all of that input guys...

so you guys dont think its overkill using an esx24 for each sample? would doing this in battery be overkill? really the only thing i need to do is adjust pitch and volume envelope which can be done in esx24 so im not sure i need battery, right?

[outbound]

The amount of times I've gone back and forth between battery and just using audio.

I'm in my audio stage atm, gives me more flexibility.

[Eat Bass]

The amount of times I've gone back and forth between battery and just using audio.

I'm in my audio stage atm, gives me more flexibility.

I don't like audio because its too much of a pain to change the pitch and I prefer using an envelope rather than like fade ins and outs

[Eat Bass]

I have a question for those of you with ni kontakt 4. is there a way to create a kit with a bunch of snares to chose from on one channel a bunch of kicks, hats, etc all in one instance and then have each type of drum hit have its own out? Not sure if you can understand what I'm saying, I know about multi outs but I was reading something about multitimbral or something? Basically I want to have kontakt setup so I can choose from a bunch of different drum hits each type of hit on its own channel with its own key layout.

[Fakawi]

Open an EXS24 multi out, in the edit window you can designate the output of each sample and keyrange etc. On the mixer window click the little '+' on the bottom of the EXS channel to open mixer channels for each of the EXS multi outputs.
Makes arrangement easier having all the midi in one object and able to treat all sounds exclusively or grouped on the aux channels

[Eat Bass]

Open an EXS24 multi out, in the edit window you can designate the output of each sample and keyrange etc. On the mixer window click the little '+' on the bottom of the EXS channel to open mixer channels for each of the EXS multi outputs.
Makes arrangement easier having all the midi in one object and able to treat all sounds exclusively or grouped on the aux channels

thats not what im asking. i know how to do that in esx and kontakt. im asking, is there a way to use kontakt with the mixer and stuff to have 1 keybed for snares with 1 output and you can just select whatever note for whatever snare, then 1 keybed for kicks with many kicks across the note on a different output, then a keybed for hats, etc all in one instance of kontakt? this way i could chose across many different hits and change them in context of the song. is it possible to have more than one keyboard mapped out in 1 instance of kontakt?