Oldskool Grandad Seeks Some "Nuskool" break chopping advice

[Macc]

i think it helps a lot if you have the break your chopping as tight to a bar as possiblle

This is true, but it can cause problems - drummers are human, and even within 2 bars the tempo can vary and fuck that right up. How many times have you seen a break where it starts bang on, and you know you cut it bang on, but the first kick of the middle bar is ahead/behind of where it 'should' be? Gently smoothing out that to sound natural but correct is the hardest thign in the game IMHO... see below.

then usually once your into the sequencer, hard quantizing your kicks and snares etc, then having little rolls in there that still retain the original groove

This works, but if you want it PROPER (sorry... but I am a snob) you have to be extremely careful how you approach this. Often when you hear people doing this it sounds like quantised kicks/snares and bits of rolls ie shit. Truly 'tight with feel' is a different thing, but it does take time and effort...

Cubase's 'sizing applies timestretch' used on correctly cut bits of midi (yes, timestretching midi) can preserve the relative timings between more significant hits, but you have to be extremely patient, careful, and have a lot of time on your hands! It means stretching the midi even within an 8th note, thereby keeping the precise feel of that 16th snare, which in turn is correct, relatively speaking, with a corrected snare etc etc. You then have to be very careful in how you move things around, because of context - that swung 16th will sound very different (wrong, 75% of the time) if you move back half a bar or something like that.

I think (it was a long time ago) that that tune Be Like Water I did has that licked. It's tight but it has feel, flows like a drummer without sounding edited etc etc. Still pleased with that, especially the main beat (as opposed to the edits)