How to “really” work with MIDI grooves

[bvaughn]

Can anyone point me to a great reference for how...

Can anyone point me to a great reference for how to use MIDI grooves in the best way to create a song?

Let’s say I have one of Superior 2’s MIDI files that I think would work great for a verse in a song.

Now, I can add fills here and there to liven that up and make it sound even more real.

But, is it “enough” to just copy this MIDI file for the majority of the verse? Is that really authentic for what a real drummer would do? I guess in most songs, drummers do try to maintain the same groove (with various fills), right?

The problem is that I’m not a drummer, so I’ve never really studied drums. So, I’m not really sure if I hear a Foo Fighters song (for example) if the drummer is really playing basically the same thing on each verse (again, with various fills and velocity differences).

One thing I have thought of playing around with is this: http://www.midi-plugins.de/

There is a “humanize” MIDI plugin that might make a repeated groove sound better since each time it is played it wouldn’t be the same thing.

I could probably also look more into Jamstix. I have version 2, but have never learned it properly (I’ve tried, but it doesn’t seem very intuitive to me).

It would seem the fastest way would be to work with existing MIDI grooves. So I was curious if anyone had some tips for what you do if you use the same MIDI groove for each verse or chorus (including if it is something to not really worry about).

Thanks for any advice!
Brandon

Can anyone point me to a great reference for how to use MIDI grooves in the best way to create a song?

Let’s say I have one of Superior 2’s MIDI files that I think would work great for a verse in a song.

Now, I can add fills here and there to liven that up and make it sound even more real.

But, is it “enough” to just copy this MIDI file for the majority of the verse? Is that really authentic for what a real drummer would do? I guess in most songs, drummers do try to maintain the same groove (with various fills), right?

The problem is that I’m not a drummer, so I’ve never really studied drums. So, I’m not really sure if I hear a Foo Fighters song (for example) if the drummer is really playing basically the same thing on each verse (again, with various fills and velocity differences).

One thing I have thought of playing around with is this: http://www.midi-plugins.de/

There is a “humanize” MIDI plugin that might make a repeated groove sound better since each time it is played it wouldn’t be the same thing.

I could probably also look more into Jamstix. I have version 2, but have never learned it properly (I’ve tried, but it doesn’t seem very intuitive to me).

It would seem the fastest way would be to work with existing MIDI grooves. So I was curious if anyone had some tips for what you do if you use the same MIDI groove for each verse or chorus (including if it is something to not really worry about).

Thanks for any advice!
Brandon

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