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Title says it all

You mean like quite drum hits?
Just lower the velocity on the hit that you want to be a "ghost".

Velocity is volume, right?

velocity is more like how hard its triggering... at least thats how i try to think of it, bc ur going to get a different sound, not just a different volume per-se and also a lot of time things are triggered velocity sensitive, what you are talking about w ghost hits ( i think) are silent hits that are in some way muted (theres diff ways to do this) but are used as a guide for something like sidechaining for example

ex; say you have a 4x4 kick kick kick kick pattern you can make it ghost and sidechain a bass or sub to it so that it pulses as if it was sidechained but you dont hear the drums that make it happen

Take a standard jungle or drum'n'bass breakbeat, the ghost hits are these snares being played in between 2 hi-hats that makes it groovier.
You can easily make ghost snares out of the main snare of your drum kit by shortening the decay.

Velocity is how hard you hit your MIDI keyboard keys. Think of a piano : depending on how hard you hit the keys, the notes will be louder or quieter but they'll also sound brighter or smoother because of the way the hammer hits the string.
Now on a synth you can assign velocity as you'd assign an lfo. You can assign it to volume but also to filter cutoff for instance which is useful for making your melodies more "humanized".

Take your Snare sample. To make it a ghost note, there's a few things you can do. For best results use a mixture.

-Turn down the gain, make it quieter.
-Shorten the hit, trim of the tail or shape it with the ADSR.
-Pitch it up slightly.

Watch and enjoy

Anne Droid wrote:velocity is more like how hard its triggering... at least thats how i try to think of it, bc ur going to get a different sound, not just a different volume per-se and also a lot of time things are triggered velocity sensitive, what you are talking about w ghost hits ( i think) are silent hits that are in some way muted (theres diff ways to do this) but are used as a guide for something like sidechaining for example

ex; say you have a 4x4 kick kick kick kick pattern you can make it ghost and sidechain a bass or sub to it so that it pulses as if it was sidechained but you dont hear the drums that make it happen

I get what your saying but your not quite right! Filthzilla hit the nail on the head, they are notes that can still be heard but they are either very quiet, filtered, quick. They dont contribute the kick and snare beat, they are more for the groove of the beat with snare.

I used to think the same thing for guitars.

Its like when you play open strings, or palm MUTED them, when they are "muted" it sounds filtered, and doesnt sustain on, as if you were to hit a snare really hard, or barly tap it.

Depone wrote:Watch and enjoy

Depone wrote:Watch and enjoy

I love how much he's enjoying that!

RandoRando wrote:

Anne Droid wrote:velocity is more like how hard its triggering... at least thats how i try to think of it, bc ur going to get a different sound, not just a different volume per-se and also a lot of time things are triggered velocity sensitive, what you are talking about w ghost hits ( i think) are silent hits that are in some way muted (theres diff ways to do this) but are used as a guide for something like sidechaining for example

ex; say you have a 4x4 kick kick kick kick pattern you can make it ghost and sidechain a bass or sub to it so that it pulses as if it was sidechained but you dont hear the drums that make it happen

I get what your saying but your not quite right! Filthzilla hit the nail on the head, they are notes that can still be heard but they are either very quiet, filtered, quick. They dont contribute the kick and snare beat, they are more for the groove of the beat with snare.

I used to think the same thing for guitars.

Its like when you play open strings, or palm MUTED them, when they are "muted" it sounds filtered, and doesnt sustain on, as if you were to hit a snare really hard, or barly tap it.

ok so what is it called what I was talking about? I always called these ghost hits... but i guess i kinda just came up with that on my own lol

Just muted tracks with a prefader send i guess

If you use Ableton and are talking about drum velocity, here's the way I go about it:

Go to Velocity of one of the samples in Drums rack and turn velocity up to your desired need.
Then right-click said velocity bar and click copy value to siblings so now all pieces are ready to have velocity assigned.

Example of Velocity Assigning:


Then go to your loop and assign notes where you please.
Below you can see the velocity points that go up and down depending how you want them.
Mess with these and where you want the notes to be and all should go well.

Example of Ghost Notes:

Hope that helps you or anyone reading!

Filthzilla wrote:Take your Snare sample. To make it a ghost note, there's a few things you can do. For best results use a mixture.

-Turn down the gain, make it quieter.
-Shorten the hit, trim of the tail or shape it with the ADSR.
-Pitch it up slightly.

as above with a some of the lows taken out and softening of the transient.

Since depone posted that Purdie video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t0VlzJeNvA > Purdies halftime shuffle.

Sample this record:



I have both volumes on vinyl.

You really should listen good drummers if you want to learn about ghost hits.

You guys should also know about this guy:



Herbie Hancock's drummer with the Headhunters.