I am mixing the new K-OS album - and you can too!

A new and exciting trend for home studios has arrived in music: Multi-track Fan remixes. Bands are giving away multi-track versions of their songs (also called stems) that the average home studio user can mix into something new. The first I had heard of this was Nine Inch Nails giving away their song "The Hand that Feeds" in a Garageband format back in 2005. Now at their site http://remix.nin.com they are allowing amatuer and professional engineers to remix their entire new album and upload the new creations for the world to hear. Radiohead had a similar contest going on with their song Reckoner earlier this year, although you had to purchase the stems through itunes. http://www.radioheadremix.com This is a great opportunity for any of us to get better at the art of mixing and producing. Now there is a site dedicated to the art. And right now until Feb 3 2009 you can download all the stems (mulitrack files) for the upcoming K-OS album for remixing. The cool part is, once you remix you can submit the final file for judging and for a potential place on the next K-OS album being distributed by Universal in the Spring of 2009. Click below for more info: http://www.indabamusic.com/studio_access/kos Here's how to do it: Once you sign up and enter the contest, you can then download all the stems for remixing. I would suggest looking for the "Advanced Audio Packs" which is a zip file containing all the tracks. Then load them into your software of choice (like Pro Tools, Cubase, Sonar, LIVE, etc.). Each package has a BPM number which you will want to set up as the tempo of your project for easy editing. The timing may not be perfectly on, so make sure you use your ears too. I did a test load into Pro Tools of one of the packages and it sounded almost dead on. Once in the new project, you can mix and remix until you have your finished product for uploading. I hope to have some fun remixing a couple of K-OS tunes in Pro Tools over the holidays. And, I have to say, I wouldn't mind a track credit on the next K-OS album. How about you?

2008 Canadian Keyboard Drumming Champion

The amazing 2008 Canadian Keyboard Drumming Champion Peter Natale competing live on Nov. 15th 2008 at Revolution Audio. Practice up for the 2009 Canadian Keyboard Drumming Championship coming Nov. 2009 at Revolution Audio.

Ten Tips for Killer MIDI Drum Beats

by Jason Johnston
Many of us couldn't fit a drum kit into our home studios, much less what the sound would do for any relationships in the house. Good news: MIDI Drum beats and sounds have come a long way. You can now produce realistic drum beats at home, with a little knowledge and select equipment, and even keep your marriage. (For a quick tutorial on how to play drum beats in through a MIDI keyboard, see our video tutorial at the bottom of this article.)
 

Top Ten Tips for Programming Killer MIDI Drum Beats
1. Never Quantize 100% unless it is dance or electronic music. Every recording application has an option for the strength of the of the quantize. In Cubase it is called "iterative strength." In Pro Tools it is called "Strength." Often you'll find a randomize feature. Play with the settings, quantize and undo until you get the feel.
2. After recording your beat, move your snare slightly forward or backward without a snap to grid. It's amazing what a slight adjustment of the snare can create. You can apply the same principal to other parts. Real drummers make mistakes even, and your MIDI drummer can too.
3. Real Cymbals never sound the same twice. Change the velocity for each one.
4. The pedal hi-hat is all that should be left of the hi-hats during a solo. It's impossible to do a tom roll and an open hi-hat hit at the same time.
5. In general, think about what is realistic for a human drummer. Even if your listeners are not drummers themselves, if they have listened to a lot of music they will probably sense when a beat is physically impossible for someone with only two hands and two feet.
6. Does a drummer do the exact same roll every 8 bars? Should your MIDI drummer? No. You can copy out the same 8 bars initially and then go in and make slight adjustments to drums being played, velocity or the number of hits. Often "less is more" when it comes to rolls and MIDI drums. Too much could be a dead give-away and make them question whether you really did have Neil Peart in your studio.
7. Can't keep up while playing the parts in real time? As long as everything is still MIDI, set your project tempo much lower than the target speed and do your recording. Then do a little edit/quantizing clean up and put the tempo faster again. You'll sound like a pro. If you can't slow down the project you're working in, record the drums in a separate session and then export the MIDI for importing into the original session.
8. Add a kick drum when you hit some of your crash cymbals. It's a typical thing to do for a drummer, it adds more punch and it might help hide the fact that it's not a real cymbal being playing.
9. Invest in a good quality, multi-sample drum sample library. We love Native Instrument's Battery 3 software drum sampler around the studio and use it all the time. The new Strike! for Pro Tools is amazing too and comes with 20 GB of samples. They help make the drums sound realistic by adding multiple samples, layer upon layer, for each drum part. For instance, the studio snares layer various samples that are triggered depending on the velocity of the note. You can hear the snap of the snare happen as the strength increases. Your original source sound will make a big difference to the realism and how long it takes you to mix in the end.
10. Load an MP3 or WAV file of your favourite music into your recording application and play along. You can experiment with different beats or mimic the beat on the song. You can always listen back and cut out the parts you want later. It might be good just for inspiration or to build up a MIDI drum library of basic beats you can use later. Hope these tips help you make more realistic MIDI Drum beats. The best part is you don't even need a van to do it.

Click below for our Basic Keyboard MIDI Drumming Tutorial

FREE Clinics at the Revolution Audio 4th Anniversary Nov.15th

Scheduled FREE Clinics: Nov. 15th 2008 12 noon - NEW Pro Tools 8 with Helen Georgopoulos from Digidesign 1:30 PM - NEW Sonar 8 with Peter Lafferty from Roland / Edirol Canada 3:00 PM- Melodyne and IK Multimedia Demos with Lyle Crilly from Music Marketing There will be free prizes and special sales as well! Hope to see you there. Revolution Audio 327 Lakeshore Rd. E Mississauga, ON L5G 1H3 905-278-5115