I’m writing to ask for help on the best way to transcribe a drum loop like the example below.
What methods do you recommend? Some people slow down the loop, while others break it down completely using specialized websites. I get especially lost when there are ghost notes or things like that. Any advice?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-bNK0G3DJrf4TpFWtmbxerwEmgVXE2oI/view?usp=share_link
Since you tagged ear training and transcription, I will not give you technology based suggestions.
The first thing you want to do is figure out the meter and time signature. Is it 4/4? 3/4? 12/8? How many beats do you hear before the pattern repeats itself? That’s a good clue. Is there a snare drum backbeat? That’s a good indication that it’s in a 4 meter, such as 4/4 or 12/8 and that the snare falls on beats 2 and 4. Next try and establish what the pulse and feel is. Is it an eighth note pulse or 16th note pulse? Is it a straight feel, triplets or swing/shuffle 8th notes or 16th notes?
Next, see if you can train your ear to independently hear the different timbres of the parts that are being played. Your example is pretty easy, it’s basically bass, snare and high hat. Make your ear isolate one of those at a time. Try and listen for which of these is providing the steadiest pulse and try to write that one first then add the others. If it’s easier for you, write it onto a grid instead of using music notation. That makes it very easy to visualize where the notes line up and also where they oppose each other. Once you have it written out, sight read it slowly and see if it resembles what you are trying to transcribe and make adjustments as necessary.
John Belzaguy's suggestions are great. Another thing that may help is being able to identify common patterns. If you have a book you've learned from, you may find it in there. You can look at the examples in the book as you listen (I'm 98.67% sure this exact pattern is represented in the book I have). If you find a match, great. Or maybe you find a match that is missing the ghost notes; if so, the ghost notes don't get added to the counted time, so that's no big deal, you'll notate them as grace notes.
Next you'll need to decide whether to use the same time signature as the match you've found, or choose a different one. This choice should take into account what other instruments are doing. For example, structurally there's no difference between 4/4 time with four beats of triplets and 12/8 time with twelve eighth notes, but depending on what the other voices are doing, it can make a huge difference as to which one is easier to notate or read.
