So recently on bleep they had some posters that showed drum patterns for famous 808 songs. Seeing them laid out visually was really interesting. I’d certainly like to program my beats better and I was thinking that finding other 16 step constrained beat interpreted visually would be good fun. Anyone seen something similar?
I think the actual patterns in many classic house and techno tracks are fairly simple. The genius lies in the smaller details, like the swing, small velocity differences, the actual sounds used etc.
There’s SO much you can do with a basic pattern by varying things.
I’d love to be able to step program an amen like break. Never managed. But of course you’re right. Simple variation is key.
There are tons of tutorials online for programming drum patterns for most types of music. Most of them are for DAWs, but they translate to anything. It’s amazing how on point your drums can sound by sticking to a rock-solid 16-step foundation and then deviating from there. It isn’t all that dissimilar to actually playing the drums- drummers don’t start tracks by taking shots in the dark- they have foundational starting points and they improvise variations as the song comes together.
IMO, Elektron gear is particularly suited for drums, since the p-locks allow so many small variations with very little effort. Just play with the note lengths, envelopes and volumes and you’ll get tons of mileage out of an ordinary unts-claps beat.
Yes, exactly Barfunkel, I’d take Elektron gear over any software/DAW for programming drum patterns. The LFOs on the OT are great for this purpose.
Shouldn’t be hard to make a software that takes the MIDI out of a Machinedrum and displays the patterns in a graphical way…
It’s worth taking a look at this: http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544
It’s a bit old, but the concepts haven’t changed.
There’s also this SOS series: [font=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb98/articles/rythm.html
[font=.HelveticaNeueUI]Grab the PDF file as well.
you mean like this?
(3:16 >> )
yeah that’s easy. 
http://www.robricketts.co.uk/programyour808/
Anyway, beat tutorials aside, the visual aspect is fun. Visually seeing them in time is interesting.
