DRUMS AND RHYTHM THEORY BY FIBR (FL STUDIO, BUT TOTALLY APPLICABLE TO OTHER DAWS

)
*the creative process is completely subjective but i'm sure at least some of thi
s is useful
Drums are definitely one of the most important parts of any song. If it doesn't
groove, people won't dance. Obvs. What is groove, though? How do you make that s
tereotypical kick-hihat-snare-hihat pattern flow?
DRUM STABS, LOOPS
First, you gotta get the sound. Royalty free sample packs are a great start, but
the sample world can be overwhelming to new producers. First thing you gotta fi
gure out is what kinda packs you're looking for. Most of the drum samples I've w
orked with come in two types of formats: loops and drum stabs.
Loops are great if you wanna throw in a little hihat shuffle in some tracks, or
layering under other loops to help fill out the space in between the drum hits.
The times I find loops to be the most beneficial are when I throw them in a slic
er VST (FL Slicer works like a charm). Not only does it slice it up into hits fo
r you, they're tailored specifically for the loop, and you can glitch out the be
at in the piano roll with really short consecutive stabs, or you can just rearra
nge it into something that's much more fitting for your tastes. Pilchard's proje
ct file Tzachitx (I think that's how you spell it) comes with FL (not sure which
version it first appeared on tho) and demonstrates the strength of working with
loops in some of his breaks.
Drum stabs (or drum hits) are pretty great for actually getting your own thing g
oing on, kinda starting with an empty kit. They work the best in step secquencer
s, or sample based VSTs. I'll get more into arrangement later.
Here are a couple of sites with lots of free drum stuff worth checking out~
http://rhythm-lab.com/ (has lots of royalty free hits and loops from famous drum
machines, as well as actual organic drum sets. Definitely worth checking out, f
irst place I actually bought any samples from. I actually kinda owe Cyberworm my
entire existence for his delicious vinyl packs.)
http://looperman.com/ (Insane amount of royalty free loops unffff)
THE PULSE
Alright, cool. You got your drum samples and stuff. I'm gonna be using the break
from the Headhunters' God Made Me Funky as a loop, as well as assorted stabs fr
om Polyvox drumpack from that based Rhythm Lab website I linked not to far up. W
hen I'm selecting stabs for a drum kit, I like to start with the bare minimum of
one kick, one snare, one clap, two closed hi hats, and one open hihat or some o
ther form of miscellaneous percussion. Of course, this isn't standard. I deviate
wildly if I have something specific in mind, or I'll definitely add stabs if I
need them as I work. For now though, starting with these will be good.
http://gyazo.com/7a86a0b91bcb9dffa1fc4bd868815d28 (my setup; bassdrum09, hat02,
hat06, tom07, clap01, snare01 from top to bottom respectively. FL's step secquen
cer operates in sixteenth notes, so there's 16 steps in a measure)
To start, we're going to need the most important part of any drum part. The puls
e. There's an infinite amount of time signatures you can write in, but they're a
ll basically derivatives of two steps, or three steps. In either case, the drum
beat should be punctuated, usually by the kick or the snare. In 4/4, there are f
our beats. 1 2 3 4 repeat. The most common punctuation in this time signature oc
curs on the 3, where the snare hits. 1 2 SNARE 4 repeat.
http://gyazo.com/7e6e4e4eb0289c4f204475bf466717e0
Alternatively, instead of a snare on the 3, you can have a kick on the 1. KICK 2
3 4 repeat, or it even can be broken down to KICK 2 KICK 4.
http://gyazo.com/2c0e63f8a8127ba30f115bf4cb4eb41e
http://gyazo.com/a7a194939477801039421f8e418d777a
The pulse is one of the most important parts of the drum secquence, because it's

what sets the groove for the rest of the song. If the drum isn't pulsing, somet
hing in the song should be, or else it's going to be very disorienting for the a
udience, and it will lack groove!!
DRUM ARRANGEMENT
So, you've got your pulse. It's probably going to sound lame by itself on any tr
ack (unless you're doing some breakdown or something), so now we're gonna fill i
n those spaces in between the pulse to give the track movement.
Right off the bat, we can start our beat with a KICK 2 SNARE 4 pattern. One of t
he most basic drum beats known to man, this is often all you need to start a dan
ce or a pop track. Simple beats are flexible for lots of tracks, cause you can f
ocus on the melodic content rather than the rhythm, since it's a simple pulse. H
owever, without complicating the pulse, we can spice up the beat with some hihat
s to fill in the spaces in between.
http://gyazo.com/15b89aca2052f83634ed5bbd7e3b20ea
The beat is sounding more full, and if it fits your track, awesome. One of my ab
solute favorite tracks of all time uses this exact pattern during the main verse
, actually. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kinaKbJsUz4
ACCENTUATING THE PULSE
Since this is a tutorial, we're going to flesh it out even more. We're going to
accent it. A lot. Inbetween steps, you can fit as many hits as you want, but it'
s probably a good idea to keep it down to three additional beats inbetween steps
so we don't distract the listener from the rest of the song. It's totally okay
to throw in a hundred or something though if it fits the song, or it's a drum fi
ll or basically if you have a reason to.
http://gyazo.com/3c00f274ecb73ce2616440860d554275
So a step is made up of four sixteenth notes, which we're going to count as 1, E
, +, then A. The third one is a + (pronounced as 'and'), because if we were coun
ting them as eighth notes, it'd just be 1, +. You can call them whatever you wan
t also, but I'm used to the whole 1 e + a thing, so I'm gonna use it to explain
things in this.
The 1 is usually reserved for the pulse. The E functions as a kind of stutter ac
cent, and it works pretty well on any of the steps. The + is right in the middle
, so it keeps the beat consistent. The A functions kind of as a rolling accent,
leading into the pulse. Experimenting with all three really help bring together
a unique beat, try listening to it in other songs to see how they use it! An imp
ortant thing to keep in mind however, is accents affect the speed of the song wi
thout actually changing the tempo. More accents give a more rhythmically exhilir
ating feeling, speeding up the movement while the less accents keep it slower an
d more mellow.
Here's a pattern following a consistent accenting sorta thing, with a main hihat
pulsing all of the steps while the second hihat accents the whole thing.
http://gyazo.com/572c193bf9b00261dbaf1b65d1b35fc2
https://instaud.io/7Is
Here's a pattern with some stutter accenting.
http://gyazo.com/d956e2ba8e5aa65e3aa5d1556b9679ef
https://instaud.io/7It
Here's a pattern with some rolling accenting.
http://gyazo.com/a6efd875b048cce559620a5b01942926
https://instaud.io/7Iu
Alright, now you can make beats. It's pretty simple, but now we're gonna take it
even further and introduce the idea of syncopation. Syncopation is when the pul
se goes off beat, and this is absolutely great for coming up with unique rhythms
, changing up the track, breakdowns, fills, pretty much anything.
http://gyazo.com/0a8ee9c41b18b634775292f050a0297d
So, here's a pretty steady beat with an identifiable pulse. Except, now I want t

o accent it without actually throwing in anything new. You can move the pulse be
ats to any accent you want, as long as the one of the drum stabs is consistent w
ith the pulse of the rest of the song.
In this pattern, I accented the kick pulse while the snare pulse remained the sa
me.
http://gyazo.com/188ccc59d0b2428ecf7822de8c1e0cd4
https://instaud.io/7Iv
I did the same with this pattern, except I kept the kick pulse while the snare p
ulse was accented.
http://gyazo.com/489a41332a9aa51204975b9c3f054889
https://instaud.io/7Iw
These might not sound like much, but once you really start putting everything to
gether, you're going to get some real rhythms going on that're going to breathe
life into your tracks like none otherrr. Here are a couple of quick patterns uti
lizing all of the above techniques into some neat loops.
https://instaud.io/7IA