Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[THERAKED1]

Hello everyone!

I have had JS for quite a while now and I absolutely love it. It only keeps getting better. For the most part, I understand how to use all of the functions. My problem is with building the tracks themselves, not the software. I was wondering if everyone could post how they go about building their drum tracks, and help to give me some ideas. It'd help me out and possibly some other noobs.

I'm really using the arranger exclusively, the freejams are nice, but the arranger is where it's at for me. Are most of you just picking one loop and then building the whole song around that loop by modifying it? How are you modifying it? Are there some steadfast rules that I should follow? I know that everything is subjective and each project will dictate it's own path, but in general, what should I be trying to do. For example, take the main loop as a verse, and then modify it for a 2nd verse, and then again for the chorus, and so on. How should they be modified? Does that make since?

My experience(very little)has been mainly with .wav loops, the best that I can tell is that the verse is suppossed to be a little quiter, and then a lot of cymbals for the chorus. I also almost always have a crash cymbal on the 1 of every four to eight measures. I know that this probably is really lame, but it's the best that I've been able to understand. I also seem to put fills at the end of every four to eight measures, again probably lame.

I really need some good tips or hints on using the cymbal box, I can't seem to figure it out at all. The same for the tom box, but I can leave that alone and just use fills for that. I know how to change the timing or the color of the boxes, but I don't understand how to effectively use them to sound anywhere near decent.

I guess what I'm saying is, I've figured out how to use the software, but now I have to learn how to play drums! I think that it might be nice if everyone would post how they go about it, maybe we could build a super thread that we can point the noobs, like me, to.
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T-bonesplace.com

[RichLum]

I pretty much exclusively use JS in manual mode to do drums for originals.

I start with the inbuilt rhythms and choose some that suit the different sections of the song (verse, chorus, bridge etc.).
There will usually be 2 or 3 patterns that I use for each section.

Then I map out the song roughly in the arranger based on those patterns.
Next I'll usually set the funkiness and complexity sliders pretty low and play through and see what JS comes up with.
Sometimes at this point I will edit the default patterns to change them a bit or copy one and make some changes for a variation. Sometimes this involves changing the kick, snare or hi hats or adjusting the accent probability etc.

Next I'll go through and add fills where I want them

By now JS should be playing a pretty solid drum track and I'll lock all bars and then go through and unlock and reset some bars that I may want some more variation on.
Then I'll go into the patterns and increase the accent probability or increase the complexity or funkiness and replay the song.
The locked bars won't change but the unlocked ones will play something different.
I just experiment a bit and if I like a bar I lock it and keep repeating until I'm happy.

Hope that helps.

Rich

[ProfRhino]

Good thread !
Normally I use Jamstix more as a generator for lively basic rhythms than as an arranger for the final drumtrack.
First I build a set of basic rhythms for the song and save them with the song title as keyword.
Next I load them into the arranger and build the structure of the song.
Again, no big fills or special accents needed now.
Then I record JS's MIDI out in SX, several takes, with varying complexity and funkiness settings, including one take with fill frequency set to max.
Each take gets named appropriately and copied to an archive folder as a backup in case I mess up.
Time to set JS to "brain dead".
Now it's cut, copy and paste time to assemble a "best of" track.
More often than not I change / add / delete some notes in the SX drum editor (with the correct drum map loaded) to change a snare to a rimshot, closed hats to open ones or the like, change some velocities and so on.
Looping small sections you work on definitely helps.
By now the drumtrack should be more than good enough to record the rest of the rhythm section, changing little bits in the drumtrack whenever needed.
At last, when all recording is more or less done, I might add some missing fills, accents, crashes, whatever either by hand or from the "fills track" recorded earlier.
For me this is the best of both worlds, I'm neither a drummer nor a composer who can plan a detailed drum track from beginning to end like I do with a guitar track or vocal.
Looking forward to more of your workflow suggestions,
Cheers, Rhino

[THERAKED1]

Excellent, this is exactly what I'm looking for! Great tips so far! I like the idea of locking and unlocking until you get what you like. I'll stay tuned for some more hints and tips. Great stuff!
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T-bonesplace.com

[alexis]

Bump, for more ideas. Keep 'em coming!

Thanks -
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Alexis
JS 3.6.1x64; Cubase 7.5.40 64 bit; i5-4570 3.2GHz, 16GB RAM; W7 SP1 64-bit on Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB; Seagate 1TB SATA 600 Audio Drive; UR28M; Motif8; UAD-2 Solo, BCF2K; TC Helicon VoiceOne; RevoicePro3

[ProfRhino]

Another thing I sometimes do is borrow some grooves from midifiles and convert them to JS grooves, especially if I have a relatively exact picture of the drumtrack in my head and only want JS to generate fills / accents / variations.
A batch conversion tool is something I'd absolutely love to see in JS2, either all files from a folder or "bar xx to yy" from a certain midifile.
The results could be saved as "name zz" in either case, with automatic numbering and keywoards of your choice.
Cheers, Rhino

[tim]

How do you convert the midi files to Jamstix grooves?

[ProfRhino]

By reading the manual, page 10.1 and then using the import button.
works quite well, but still, a real batch converter ...
But good things come to those who wait, Ralph keeps on proving this time and time again.
Have a nice day,
Rhino

[ECC83]

My first draft of a song will usually include a very simple midi drum arrangement programmed by me. Typically I'll have an idea in my head of how I want the track to sound. Over this simple midi drum track, I'll record guide parts for bass, guitar and vocal.

Before jamstix, I'd try programming my own variations, accents and fills. Now those days are over! What I do now is just have a *very* simple patterns for the verse, chorus, etc, then I'll import these using the learn function in the rhythm editor.

Then I'll setup the arrangement in JS, hopefully now I can mute my original drum track, and JS should be playing along in the right places.

Then I'll go through and add fills at the right bars. Typically I'll loop a section of a song and play it through until the fills sound right, and I'll just keep resetting the relevant bar until it does.

Finally I'll setup some automation in the sequencer - this could be velocity automation, switching to "always ride", muting cymbals, cymbal percentage, etc etc

Now I can go on to rerecording the other parts, after which I might go back to tweak the drums, and so on.

[ProfRhino]

[timmyo]

[ProfRhino]

All I can say is it works ok on single bar drum midis like that Groove Monkey pack I bought in a weak moment (don't tell Ralph ! ) and some similar files - I tried a complete song once with no luck - probably should have spent more time experimenting.
The way import is atm, it's only worth the trouble if you're after something really specific imho.

Cheers, Rhino