Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer

by Ray F. Badness

(Percussion). This is your complete guide to programming and thinking like a drummer - not a drum machine user. Instead of merely providing instructions for you to program into your machine, this book is a direct, mathematical approach to learning how to drum and how to best emulate a drum kit on a pre-recorded track. By following this book, you will gain an understanding of the drum kit that takes many drummers years to learn - and that will lead to more realistic programming and better results!

Genres: Music

64 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1991

Reviews

[Ill D · Rating 5 out of 5]

My memories of overseas journeys are riddled with flecks of nostalgia for uncaring days. Whether it was beer laden schleps through urban trails or smoke laden readings beside quiet streams there is much to reminisce over. Yet it was truly my forays into sampled music that will remain my crowning joy from that period. While nothing I created then is particularly excellent, I reveled in my daily excursions in sonic creativity via a decidedly unorthodox approach - Audacity’s criminally underused loop function.

Years later and a career change as well my interest in sampled music was piqued yet again and taken to the next level with my first purchase of a keyboard MIDI and it’s corresponding DAW, Ableton. While my capacity to program drums in live mode has still much to be desired, Ableton’s draw mode turned out to be just the trick I needed to make improve my capacity to program digital percussion.

A hop, skip and a jump away from previous discoveries in the world of digital music, the next step in my musical education continued by way of discovery of this largely forgotten mini tome from the earliest of 90’s. Bequeathed to us percussive novices by Mr. Badness himself (really!) this mini-tutorial proved quite useful to yours truly. Although riddled with instances that easily betray its not-so-occluded dating the patterns provided and its explanations for each part and parcel of the drum set proved useful for my needs. Sure, its funny to read about purchasing an (at the time) expensive floppy disk drive to expand memory, to provide one example of its datedness, what holds up here remains impressively relevant for the here and now.

As long as drums will remain the cornerstone of pretty much all forms of contemporaneous music, the drum machine whether as a physical construct or a digital one (or both) will remain relevant as prevalent in an era that favors loops above all. Providing a solid foundation for beginners to learn the basics, as well as providing continual inspiration for future patterns for more intermediate percussive programmers, Drum Programming will prove a stupendous resource to be mined again and again for its technical know-how and proven patterns.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been learning to make music as a hobby computer musician for the last two and a half years, and while I've picked things up here and there from different instructional videos, this is the first book I've read specifically about drumming and drum programming.

I may be saying this prematurely, since I only just finished reading it (and of coursing, following along by programming the patterns in my DAW), but I think this has been really helpful for:

- Understanding how to "think" like a drummer... I don't think it goes into detail, but it covers the basics, and provides a structure for how to build a drum parts for various parts of a song

- Understanding the pieces of a drum kit, and how to apply them

For a short book, it provides good value if you find yourself in a similar situation.

[Aaron Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I impulsively bought a drum machine a while back and it's mostly just been collecting dust. I fool around with it every now and then, but I never manage to get anything interesting out of it. Then I read this book and went through the exercises. It's an excellent introduction not only to programming a drum machine, but to basic drum theory as well. There are some pretty basic tricks to putting together a beat that I never really picked up on until reading this. And the exercises, which build upon each other, are well thought-out, well sequenced, and very helpful.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have messed around with drum machines for years. I think you can learn alot from trial and error, and listening to other peoples programmed drum tracks, but it is nice to have the basic ideas laid out in a clear and concise way. The exercises in this book are interesting and I especially appreciated the "Drum fill" theory section. If you are looking to brush up on your drum programming skills then I would recommend this book.