Double Bass Humanize

[Necrovore58]

When trying to lay down some double bass with the kick drum with humanize on, the results sound pretty bad. I’m not sure if I’m doing anything wrong, or if they’re “supposed” to sound this bad. Ironically, DKH kick drums sound the worst with humanize on. Double bass is supposed to give a nice uniform sound, which is at odds with the humanize option. A moderate amount of variation would be nice, but it is actually unrealistic sounding, or just sounds as bad as Mutiilation. Sonor plastic beater – extreme EQ sounds the worst. It sounds like it’s missing every other beat on top of random clicks.

To recreate exactly what I’m hearing: I’m using FL Studio 9, tempo 200, DFH, 22′ sonor plastic beater, extreme EQ, humanize, 8 hits per meter on piano roll (B2).

Now I know it is possible to put different drum parts in different channels and you could put the kick drum in a separate channel and make it not humanized. That’s inconvenient though. And why should the humanized kick drum sound so horrible? Is there really that much variation in how you can kick a kick drum?

PS Is there a way to replace the obscure piano roll keys with the names of the actual drum hits so you don’t have to play a guessing game each time?

PPS If you don’ believe it wounds horrible I could upload it on youtube…

Topic

[Rogue]

beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. If you are after a ‘triggered’ effect on the kick then you should disable the humanize. So either run a separate instance for the kick, or upgrade to Superior Drummer for refined control over this aspect (and many others).

Rogue Marechal - Toontrack
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[GORILLA]

Upload a audio sample! Kick drums are the easiest to sound ‘real’. It’s amazing how (Not saying this pertains to the O.P.) many people think they can just throw on humanize and all of a sudden their double bass drums will sound like Lombardo or Kollias. If it was that easy, everyone would have incredibly awesome sounding programmed drums.

http://www.metalmusicians.net/<- click here for GORILLA'S website!!!!!

[Butter Buns]

lol the extreme eq’d kick sounds weird. lots of smack and no body. im sure theres an appropriate mix for that of course. i use dfh if im going for more of a drum machine sound to be honest. it sounds awesome for agoraphobic nosebleed type midi grind. rather use metalheads or the metal foundry for a more realistic sound plus those dfh samples were originally released 10 years ago i believe. so compared to the new stuff released since then it may sound dated.

[David]

I don’t use FL but as best I can tell “humanize” just randomly shifts around the notes a bit (adds random error).  Sometimes it give a good sound sometimes it’s crap.  I’ve had some success with trial and error – humanize, if bad undo, humanize again until it sounds good.  Also, you might be able to change the amount of humanize, too much will always sound bad, IMHO.  Manually changing the volume of some of the notes to create accents will go a long way in humanizing your drums. 

You should be able to select (highlight) certain notes in the piano roll so that you can be selective about which you want humanized without creating separate tracks.  (for you, highlight all but kick then humanize)

Not sure you can assign note names to the piano roll in FL like you can in Reaper. 

[Necrovore58]

I found the solution! The velocity was at around 50 as the default in FL studio. Cranking it up to 100 gives the even sound I am looking for, even with humanize on. I am not sure why anyone would ever hit the kick drums not at full force in most metal contexts, especially with something like triggers, which are typical and sound great.

PS people seem confused about what humanize actually does. My understanding is that it randomly selects from a pool of samples/takes from the same instrument.

[GORILLA]

Glad you got it!!! Usually if you want your kicks to sound like triggers…. just leave every velocity at 127. But, for a more human feeling move them around. I’ve seen Famous drummers that are known for being hard hitters…. and their kicks were coming in around 110-117 velocities. None higher!!!

Good luck!! That’s strange FL Studio did that.

http://www.metalmusicians.net/<- click here for GORILLA'S website!!!!!

[Author]

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