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I was editing some drum parts yesterday that my friend Seth Rouch played (for an as-yet metaphysical, theoretical upcoming "album" of mine), and I came upon an interesting problem that I thought I would share with teh interwebs.
Drum flams: where's the beat? You all may call me crazy, but IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE, I swear.
For those of you that may not know what a drum flam is, you probably won't be interested in the rest of this post, actually, but I'll explain it anyway (and try to keep things interesting). Normally, a drummer only hits a drum once with one stick. (Okay, sometimes, the stick will bounce on the head, and sometimes this is intentional, sometimes it's sloppy. But that's not the point.) A flam occurs when the drummer hits the head of the drum with both sticks at nearly the same time, but not quite. It's a sort of accent. You'll hear it in the clips below, so don't worry.
So there's two hits in a flam. Which of the two falls directly on the beat? And which is a little before or after? (Or do you split the difference? I can't imagine this would sound good, so I didn't test it, but I suppose it's a possibility...) Well my friends, here's a quick rundown of how I tried to edit Seth's tom & snare flams in my song.
I need to first give you the setup for these sessions. We had VERY little time. I moved all of my recording gear (computer, rack, mics, and all) into his house while his roommate was out of town for a couple days. We ended up tracking like 5 songs or something in several hours. He also hadn't heard the songs much before hand. So, let's just say that any slight timing issues are not Seth's fault. Here's Seth's playing in this section, without any editing. Flams are on the toms and also some on the snare.
[Original]
(All mp3s in this post are encoded at 160kbps.)
The second hit of each flam is louder. I figured this would mean that the first is like a "pickup" to the second and that the 2nd should fall directly on the beat, with the first hit just a teeny-tiny bit before. After several people seemed to agree with this when asked on Twitter and Facebook, I gave it a go. So I edited it all together that way, and came up with this:
As I was listening back, I found that I was subconsciously holding my breath. Not a good sign. It sounds to me like the Tom hits are early, kindof like the drums are rushing. This is not good. Not at all. So I said what the heck and tried it so that the first hit of each flam fell directly on the beat, and the 2nd was ever so slightly late:
Ah-hah! Much better! There may still be some issues with it, but I was breathing normally, things grooved better, and I was much happier. Mmmkay... bit did the snare hits sound a little late now? I made another edit in which the 1st hit of the toms was on the beat, but the 2nd hit of the snares was on the beat. Here's that one:
Eh... hard to tell. I don't think I like it. I think I'm getting a little overzealous there. So What I think I will do is make minor edits to the "1st hit" drums. Just to make sure the feel is spot-on.
So... That's what I came up with. What do you think? Is there a rule here? Is there really a "right" way of doing it, or is it dependent on the music? Is it part of a drummer's style or groove? Do you like it the other way better? Am I some kind of recording mad scientist, bent on the destruction of all worlds through obsessively-edited drum tracks? Well, yes, but that is beside the point. I would really love to hear your comments, if only to hear that somebody else is just as crazy/obsessed as I am.
Posted by pedalboy at January 28, 2009 9:32 PM | TrackBackThe drum machine in Reason places the first hit on the beat when you add flam, BUT the first hit is louder in that case. I think the right way is dependent on the music. If you lower the level of the first snare hit it might seem more like a pickup.
Posted by: JARinteractive at January 28, 2009 10:30 PMEven though the second hit is louder, I think I like the "1st hit on beat" the best. I tend to get a bit OC about time issues, though, and I'm not sure the average listener even notices the difference!
Posted by: michael Johnson at January 29, 2009 8:36 AMI think it's most definitely more dependent on the feel of the song than it is on the style of the drummer. Regardless of how the drummer plays, it's more about the desired groove. Throwing certain beats here and there change the groove (which could be represented by a certain style of playing also. Bossa Nova is a style AND a certain feel/groove.)
In light of that, I like the take you like the most as well. Having the 2nd flam on the snare on the beat does sound early to my ears too
Doc J, I think anyone who is attempting to edit drums this closely to a grid needs to be assumed to be OC from the start... haha.
Just to clarify, I don't always edit drums this crazily, and I might even throw out all the work on this song if i listen back in a week and like the original better. I'm currently taking a bit o' flak on the tapeop forum where i posted this for that... But I just did it as a thought experiment, to question "the almighty grid" and how that compares to human rhythm and feel. Most human drummers don't sit down and think, "okay for this song, i'll flam a little before the beat, that will sound good." Maybe the really really good ones do. More likely than that I think they just "know" where to put it so that the feel of the track is where they want it. Since a lot of the time there is *some* drum editing going on in the first place, it's good to know if there are ways to make it sound more natural.
Posted by: matt g at January 29, 2009 12:24 PM