How to elevate your techno with a paradiddle

If you've never drummed before, you may never have heard of the paradiddle, a drum rudiment that follows a simple pattern: RLRRLRLL - it's surprisingly potent once applied to rolling percussion in a techno context. Try it out!

Contents:
0:00 what is a paradiddle?
0:44 how to do it in techno?
1:17 let's do it on mid percussion
2:11 accents are important in techno
3:33 run it into a synth
4:13 it works on hihats too
4:32 it works on low toms
5:45 next steps

[carptackula]

As a drummer (who can play many types of paraddiddles), I think that it is simpler to teach people to 'think' and phrase using 2s and 3s MUSICALLY and not get stuck on the 'sticking', because the accented 1/16th note patterns you've demonstrated are simply THAT (eg the first 8 note length phrase consisted of several accented 2 and 3 note groupings, in this case its a 3 3 2 pattern...!).

It's the same sound without worrying about 'sticking'.

Dave Brubeck made use of this concept in many of his odd time compositions. Odd time Turkish and Greek music also makes use of this.

Vinnie Colaiuta (famous drummer who played with Zappa) also thinks this way: in groupings of 2s and 3s.

It opens up creative opportunities in ANY time signature or ANY length phrase.


People could also save midi files 📂 with all of the accented 2 and 3 note combinations and then just drag and drop that into a project file.

To a non-drummer, this is much easier concept and can lead to generating many more rhythmical ideas / options (including polyrhytms).

And to a drummer - the midi examples given in this video don't make much sense because a drummer would rarely accent the second note of a double stroke within a parradiddle, especially at faster speeds. Instead they would (and could) play it much more naturally and much faster by using 2 and 3 note groupings of 'stickings' eg RLL RLL RL (3 3 2) or they would simply use accented single strokes.

... Try it by tapping it out on a desk

If anyone wants to dive deeper, Gary chaffee (Patterns) and Rick Gratton (Rick's Licks) offer so much value in this way of subdividing beats with accents and applying them to a kit, which has a direct application to programming percussion creatively...! 🤗

[danielh]

Pro tip - get a ML-185 Sequencer in ableton and a drum rack and group them together. make the paradiddle pattern by setting the the pitch values to +1st, 0st, +1st, +1st, 0st, +1st, 0st, 0st and then switch to velocity mode and map each velocity knob to a macro knob. load up your samples in the drum rack at C3 and C#3 and now you can just hit the 'rand' button on the macro area to make endless new paradiddle variations, you can also automate the accents/ghosts changing position over time (perhaps using an m4l LFO) to make cool shifting grooves and other cool things.

[soulofwaves]

I've been a drummer waay long before than I started making EDM and never thought of integrating the paradiddle logic this way into EDM, thanks!

[eminatorstudios]

Just at the right time.
I've been chasing this sort of texturing eversince the Stone Techno festival.

[ronimacedo]

Fantastic! I made your Music producer course! Congratulations bro, your way to teach is another level !

[classfront]

i've been wondering how to do drum programming like this for a while so thank you oscar

[supafly]

This is useful man! I also added a slight shuffle. Instant Paula Temple.

[easytoassemble]

Love getting inspiration from Underdog videos. I tend to do more Electro than Techno, but this could work very well on those types of tracks, too.

[potsandjacks]

There are several different varieties of the paradittle they all have their distinct flavor and feel. I’ve definitely use this exact trick in several of my tracks

[yaroslavborodin]

Oh nice that’s exactly what I was looking for. Can’t wait to play with it on my Akai Force 🙌

[LeoFernandezInfante]

Hey Oscar! It's awesome to see you techno-paradiddling and making this amazing video!! Thank you for the comment highlight 😊

Now that you have the basic paradiddle feel, maybe you could try having a look at the rest of "diddle" rudiments (double paradiddle, triple paradiddle, paradiddle-diddle, etc) and the basic paradiddle inversions (RLLRLRRL, etc). These can make awesome grooves too!

[technojunkies]

This is absolutely bangin! You're the man Oscar!

[caseyrocksohard]

That was so useful and thank you for making it quick! There's a lot of great stuff to learn on YT but I always go for the short videos.

[HenningUhle]

As somebody who got trained on drums I enjoyed this video very much. Well done, Oscar.

[actorjohanmatsfredkarlsson]

The accented rhythm is a tresillo (first half of a son-clave)

[MrDCPatterson]

I probably sound like a noob (and truthfully when it comes to drum programming I am) but this video finally made sense of most things that confused me about creating my own drum tracks. How cool is that!! Oscar, thanks so much!

[АртемКошель-фл]

Thanks, Oscar! You inspired me and made me fall in love with techno! Now I have been study and practice it already half of a year)

[sampyannotti]

This video is absolutely INCREDIBLE; I wish I would've paid more attention in beginner drumming :(

[ErikPelyukhno]

0:53 I appreciate that motion tracking, I know that can be difficult!

[fairchild]

Oscar you are the best teacher out there! Awesome content as Always, thank you 😊