My beats are off - lack movement and energy

[Music Fiend]

I was an avid reason user for years and although my sound selection lacked, and I needed help with music theory, I was able to use the regroove mixer to swing/shuffle my beats.

Now that ive switched to FL studio, I can't seem to get proper movement in my drum programming. It's been a year now since ive been on FL and still cant get my drum timing down to make modern trap/rap beats.

Doesn't matter whether I play by hand/pads and dont quanitize, or if I use the piano roll, my drums and 808s just lack movement and energy. Everything sounds so "sterile" and a bit off but no amount of shifting or swing seems to do anything for the beat it just throws it off.

Are my drums supposed to be on the grid in terms of snap and quanitizing or am i supposed to shift certain drums to create a swing with bangers?

 

[92_Bricks]

usually trap is quantized and the high hats are in triplets

 

[Be@t Bangerz Fan]

Just humanize your drums.

 

[DJ Mart-Kos]

It can't be cause of FL's piano roll though.
It's about using the right effects in your mixer to i think.

 

[Music Fiend]

usually trap is quantized and the high hats are in triplets

Just humanize your drums.

It can't be cause of FL's piano roll though.
It's about using the right effects in your mixer to i think.

Ita not th' effects and I completely understand the timing for everything. Certainly not a beginner by amy means.

I also get humaizing drums but 95% of any movements I make completely throw off the timing. Makes everything aoumd really slow.

Its not mixing either or effects, the drums just will not hit right. Completely on the grid sounds computerized and lacks movement into my beats, but if I use the slightest nudge or swing or shift. It actually sounds worse. Particularly since I cant shift backwards or swing backworks.

Idk its because all individual intstuments alrrady have swing applied and turn all the way up BY default. If not that maybe its the samples I use have weird timing issues within the actual sample. May cause a samplebto hit sooner or later.

 

[GPBear]

^just random piff

just gotta embrace the slow vibes and work around the timing.

But fuqq it, if you want a real secrets, for samples:

Let's say you grab a 4 bar chunk of a 80 bpm soul beat, add channel > FL Slicer. I'll put FL's bpm up to 160 (roughly double the sample). Click and drag the sample audio into FL Slicer. Now the BPM in FL slicer is gonna be like 160 with 16 beats to slice. Bring that down to the sample's BPM (80), right click "Slice to beat". Then drag FL Slicer's BPM up to 160 again. And now, if you time the loop right, you'll have basically chops per beat. What I do now, is have like 4 FL Slicers going with 4 sample sections, and play them out.

For drums, which I think is your main concern. There's two ways I go about it, but it's basically the same.

Let's say you have separate hits: kick, snare, hi hat. Make your beat in the sequencer, then send each hit to a separate mixer track. In that mixer track, add "Gross Beat". Use the 'pattern' preset to draw around different stutters to it, eventually you'll figure out a few that give you a nice extra kick hit, or it'll push the hi hats forward. The second way is with a drum break, more or less the same, except you just put the drum loop into a mixer track and fuqqs around with gross beat.

I hope that helps, because I'm only really holding back one trick with a vocoder that makes your drums snap like a mother.

 

[nineteeneightysix]

Dude, if you are trying to make modern trap, then Fl studio is DEFINETELY not the problem....You need to post a beat you made with Reason and one you made with FL to give us an idea of what you mean....

 

[Propaganda]

I was an avid reason user for years and although my sound selection lacked, and I needed help with music theory, I was able to use the regroove mixer to swing/shuffle my beats.

Now that ive switched to FL studio, I can't seem to get proper movement in my drum programming. It's been a year now since ive been on FL and still cant get my drum timing down to make modern trap/rap beats.

Doesn't matter whether I play by hand/pads and dont quanitize, or if I use the piano roll, my drums and 808s just lack movement and energy. Everything sounds so "sterile" and a bit off but no amount of shifting or swing seems to do anything for the beat it just throws it off.

Are my drums supposed to be on the grid in terms of snap and quanitizing or am i supposed to shift certain drums to create a swing with bangers?

as far as trap goes, maybe if you're layering claps or something...otherwise you don't even really have to go off grid for that shyt. work in 32s or 64s and play with triplets if you wanna mess around with the hats, change velocities on stuff...but other than that.

maybe you just need to switch things up and have more variety in your drums. add or take away a kick in your loop at different points, throw a different snare/clap in there for some bars, change up your hat pattern a bit here and there, add a ride or something...i dunno. it's hard to tell what the problem is from what you're saying.

maybe you should just post something so we know what we're dealing with...cuz i don't see how your drum timing/programming apparently falling off a cliff could have anything to do with what daw you're using.

 

[Be@t Bangerz Fan]

i dunno. it's hard to tell what the problem is from what you're saying.

maybe you should just post something so we know what we're dealing with...cuz i don't see how your drum timing/programming apparently falling off a cliff could have anything to do with what daw you're using.

Exactly!

 

[Myrical Lyfe]

Post something. We're all chill here and will help you learn. But we can't help without hearing.