Groove Tutorial

[Brian Bowman]

Hi,

I have some concerns regarding how to better understand and utilize the phenomenal capabilities of Superior 2 and MIDI Drum grooves for musicians who are not “pro-level” drummers/producers.

….first some background:

I’m a guitar player of 30+ years. I’ve studied Jazz and Classically “formally” for about 10 years total and also play some R&B/funk/blues, etc. I also play keyboards and Electric Bass very minimally and of course can read music decently and understand harmony, rhythm fundamentals, etc.

I have Superior 2 and several of the SDX/EZX add-ons as well as copious MIDI groove files in several styles from GrooveMonkee.

… not exactly sure what I’m asking for but here is my dilemma.

I’m working in a small Logic Pro-based home studio, shedding Jazz guitar and other groove-oriented forms of modern music. I want to record a variety of things in these genres. However, I’m not “pro-level” and I do not possess the depth of musical experience that many “producer-types” who use the Toontrack products have.

I’ve never been a drummer and don’t really want to become one. With Toontrack Superior samples plus 1000’s of non-quantized MIDI files/loops played by some of the best drummers in the world at my disposal, I don’t see the need for me to learn to actually play drums.

However, I do need to learn “how to think more like a drummer”. There are many great DVD’s and books available on modern drumming, yet most of these deal with stick control, technique, etc. What I really need is a set of Tutorials using real examples (ideally from MIDI files) that explain “why” a Drummer would use a certain feel within a style – like a Funky New Orleans Jazz Groove or a Mambo AND how this relates to what other instruments would play in this particular style.

It wold be great if someone could up with a set of such Tutorials, based around the Toontrack Drum Samples (EzDrummer/Superior) with an actual Bass Player, Guitarist, and Keyboard Player, demonstrating the fundamental musical conversation that various drum grooves function in. Ideally, this would include some musical history and discography of how these grooves have been utilized by great musicians.

All of this being said, it is a great “groove education” to simply bring up Toontrack Solo and listen to the MIDI files included with the various Superior /SDX/EZX products. I’m having a great time doing this!!

Brian

Topic

[godprobe]

One thing that’s helped me a bit, given some insight on what your talking about, is actually a podcast from Pandora (the internet radio site)…
http://blog.pandora.com/podcast/

Sometimes it’s *very* basic, but it may help for areas of music you may not yet have explored.

I haven’t kept up with it, but it looks like the latest episode actually focuses on jazz drumming. 🙂

WinXP | Fireface 800 | Variax | Axe-Fx | Toontrack | Komplete | Reaper http://www.godprobe.com/projects/notemaps/

[Brian Bowman]

Thanks ‘gp’. I really dug that pandora podcast. That’s definitely the vein I’d like to see in a set of “Groove Tutorials” -except using Superior 2 and the Toontrack (and possibly GrooveMonkee) MIDI loops for the examples.

In the meantime, I’m listening a lot to the ToonTrk/GrvMnkE MIDI Grooves (and also using EZPlayer to select various subsets of the kit pieces)- then comparing that with classic Jazz/Soul/R&B songs, etc. where I pretty much understand how the other instrument parts work.

I also plan to hook up with my former Jazz teacher who is a serious pro-level Guitarist of 30+ years for some lessons on how to craft guitar parts that fit some of the cooler funk and jazz grooves, odd-time signatures, etc.. He can cover just about any genre in the Jazz/Blues,R&B/Groove world and has played/recorded with many top players. Hopefully this will get me deeper into working with the Toontrack stuff in my own music.

Brian

[jordantphilp]

hey guysi recently just bought superior with the metal foundry expansion pack along with the library of extreme of extreme death and thrash how ever does sd and mf come with any other fills, or do u just have to buy them like the library packs? b/c the the death and thrash opened up just fine, but other then that my other midi files are empty. any help would be much appreciated. thanks guys cheers

[Scott]

Are you browsing the MIDI files using the MIDI groove browser in S2?

You should have 2 sections in the Groove browser in S2 under the LOTE II. One section named ‘Death/Thrash Grooves’ and the other named ‘Fills’.

BTW, you should also have MIDI groove libraries to download from your Toontrack account for the N.Y. Avatar library as well as TMF SDX. All have fills included.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[dthgtr]

You can also visit Groove Monkee http://www.groovemonkee.com/en/ and Odd Grooves http://www.oddgrooves.com/.
 
Both have free sample packs with lots of grooves in different styles.
 
Later

2004 Fender American Stratocaster Marshall MG 250 Digitech GNX4 Guitar Workstation Novation Impuse 49 Scarlett 8i6 Presonus Eris 5 monitors Sonar X3 Pro Win7 HP 64 Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Intel i5 3470(3rd gen) 3.2GHz 16GB RAM (2)1TBHDD

[jordantphilp]

awesome dude, thanks alot! thats exactly wut i was looking for thanks for the help again dude, cheers!

[Author]

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