Free 1960s Motown Drum Grooves

Free 1960s Motown Drum Grooves

Here’s a whole song’s worth of 1960’s Motown drum grooves, ready for download. It’s a short song (around 2 minutes) in 4/4 120BPM, just as a lot of the classics were back in the day. This one was inspired by groups such as the Temptations, Four...
How to Produce and Mix MIDI Drums

How to Produce and Mix MIDI Drums

Making MIDI drums sound like they belong in the track Once your MIDI drum performance feels good, it’s time to make it sound like a record. This is where production and mixing come in. But before we get excited and start adding compressors, EQs, saturation, transient...
How to Arrange Realistic MIDI Drum Tracks

How to Arrange Realistic MIDI Drum Tracks

From drum loop to drum performance A drum loop is not a drum track. A loop can be a great starting point. It gives you a groove, a feel, and something to write against. But if you copy the same two bars across an entire song, the listener will eventually notice. Or...
MIDI Drum Basics for Non-Drummers

MIDI Drum Basics for Non-Drummers

How to start making better MIDI drum tracks Programming MIDI drums can feel strange if you’re not a drummer. You know what a kick, snare, and hi-hat are. You also know where they go in a basic rock groove. But after 20 minutes in the piano roll, your drum track still...

A tribute to Billy Cobham: Stratus Drumming

Back in the day when OddGrooves was an active gigging band, we used to play our version of Stratus. Our keyboard player had unexpectedly quit the band which meant we had to do it as a 3-piece, with pre-recorded keyboard parts. Which in turn meant we needed to play to...