Humanize Your Drums & Make Your Beats Groove | Tutorial
Hey there, I’m Joel Michael and in this video I talk about groove and how to humanize your beats. No more stiff, quantized beats, let’s inject your tracks with feeling and character to make them groove. I will be using FL Studio for the examples but any of these approaches can be used in any DAW. So let's dig in and humanize your drums & make your beats groove in this tutorial!
Kick Considerations - So most of the time we’re going to plug the notes in on the grid where we want them. Consider the push-pull effect I talk about in the video and place certain kicks ahead and/or behind the beat a bit. Also, consider velocity to create accent patterns that a human drummer would play.
Snare Considerations - I like to stack my snares with a tight attack snare and a more body or sustain snare (obviously each track differs). We will start by plugging in the snare on beats 2 and 4. For this example I want to create the pull now and put the snares ahead of the beat since the kick is a bit behind.
Hi-Hat Considerations - Now this is where the real gel of the groove happens and pulls it all together. I’ll start by pulling in straight 16th notes which sounds a bit stiff. So let's start with the accents and change the velocity to emphasize the down beats and de-emphasize the 8ths and 16ths a bit. Don’t want it to be perfect because it’s gotta be a bit human to groove. Then adjust the placement of the hi-hats ahead and/or behind the beat throughout the phrase. Consider making longer loops of 4 or 8 bars to prevent it from sounding like a sterile loop.
Other Considerations - Stack in claps (or similar percussion elements) and place ahead or behind the beat a bit to accentuate the push-pull more. You can also adjust the master swing amount to be less/more per each instrument.
-------Video Contents---------
0:00 - Intro
0:37 - Create what you hear 1st
1:10 - Kick drum
1:32 - Accent Patterns with velocity
1:54 - Push Pull Groove
2:28 - Swing
2:38 - Snare drum
3:44 - Shift behind beat
4:36 - Hi hat
5:35 - Hi hat accent patterns
6:40 - Change pitch of hi hats
7:02 - Humanize hi hat more
8:15 - Claps
9:05 - Humanize claps
10:05 - Like and subscribe
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