What is the effect of "Conglomerising" your percussion?

Question

When writing music, I use a program called Fruity Loops. Of the music that I write that has percussion, some of them are written with all the percussion instruments being grouped into one pattern. This has the advantage that you can see where all the beats are in relation to the beats of the other instruments. The rest of my music involves writing separate patterns for each instrument. This has the advantage that I can move the combinations about to do things like breifly offset the hi-hats to make it feel "disjointed" or something. My question is this. When writing music, in what ways could it conceivably affect the way you compose, having all the drums on one pattern versus having them on many? For bonus points, suggest a compromise with a reason.

Answer 1

When composing music, you have an ideal and a concept. When you record, you want to hear what you feel. Having drums on a single track or in one pattern is not recommended for many reasons. One of the main reasons is the results you would get from adding EQ or an effect to a pattern/track that contains multiple instruments. Say you have a drum beat, i.e. Kick, Hi Hat, Snare and Crash Cymbal. The pattern/track is working but you want to add some low end to the kick. When you EQ the pattern/track it will affect ALL of the instruments within that pattern/track. The results are usually not ideal.

By having each part isolated in their own pattern/track, you can effectively apply EQ and effects like reverb, etc. and not have it affect the other parts. An example is adding low end to kick, mid EQ and reverb to the snare and brighten the Hi Hat and Cymbals with a touch of highs. If your DAW allows, you can group the individual drum tracks into a sub group. This will allow you to control the entire drum mix from one fader while the individual parts remain on their own track. This will make it easier to remove parts for breakdowns whenever required. Once the drums are "dialed in", you could create a sub mix and bounce them back in if resources are a factor.