The problem is you need to get real drummers and drum recorders in there, otherwise it's just the blind leading the blind.
The New Tone Thread
- Thread starter Telegram Sam
- Start date
The problem is you need to get real drummers and drum recorders in there, otherwise it's just the blind leading the blind.
JDOD
therecordingrebels.com
Yup, that would certainly help! Although people who have plenty of experience of building fake beats will also be able to help - provided they do actually know how to play drums in the first place. Fake drumming is obviously more about how to splice your beats together to make them sound realistic or adding effects to them to give them a live feel rather than how to mic a kit up. I agree though - people with regular experience of recording a live kit will be better at dishing out advice.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
The things is...this whole "fake" notion ONLY applies when people DON'T give a shit how their drum tracks sound.
IOW...I've heard both live drummer recorded tracks and sequenced sample tracks that sound like shit or that sound good.
If they sound good...then honestly...DOES it really matter whether you recorded a live drummer playing or used samples that were recorded from a live drummer playing...?
Anyway...since your new thread is about "FAKE" drums...I see no point in posting...
...'cuz my drums don't sound fake...regardless whether my drummer buddy played them, or if I sequenced them.If you want posts...change the title and the focus of the thread...to talking about sampled & sequenced drum tones...
...but to tell the truth, you don't really get much info out of just "tone" sound clips if what you are really after is to know how something sounds in the mix. Alone...it's just that...singular tone.
Singular guitar tone can have a lot of appeal. You can enjoy playing and listening to just the guitar tones....but drums...man, they can sound like shit alone, but great in the mix...or vice versa!
This is just my opinion, and it's not directed at anyone, but to me a big part of the problem with drum programmers, besides knowing nothing about drums, is that quantized and sampled drums have been the "norm" for so long, people don't know any other way, so the ridiculousness continues. Take some 20 yr old just getting started. His main frame of reference is probably gonna be modern shit that's been faked all along. To him, that is the norm. He doesn't know that real drums don't sound like a typewriter. Nor does he care, because he's probably gonna make music that reflects the sterilized, quantized crap he's been listening to all along. And the cycle of suck continues. The art and skill of recording actual sounds with actual microphones keeps getting pushed to the wayside because any idiot can fire up a sim and sample pack and pollute the cosmos with his home "recordings". And what's worse is the appreciation of actual instruments making actual sounds, and the art and skill it takes to record them, keeps getting marginalized. Not only do people embrace and celebrate the mindless ease of sims and drum programs, they laugh in the face of traditional recording because they don't have to actually know or do anything anymore. That bugs me. Technology is great, but it's also really fucked things up.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
Absolutely.
Just the other day in the Analog forum, some guy was going on and on about bouncing tracks from tape to DAW, and I was saying there was always concern for synchronizing all the bounces, otherwise you could lose the feel, even if everything looked to be generally "on time"...
...and he replies, "Modern DAWs have auto-quantize that can fix that"...and I said he should stop talking right there, 'cuz he and I have nothing more to talk about with recording....and that he should just go and make some beats.
Technology has made a LOT of people LAZY!!!
God forbid someone should spend some time on the finer points of a track. It's all about letting the computer do the thinking and the work for you. Just add another "sounds great" plugin and move on......
I know, I get that, and I'm not knocking the people that have no choice but to use drum programming. I really do get it. I take issue with the growing sentiment that fake drums are somehow better, and the absolute ignorance and laziness displayed by some people.
Bubba po
Tiny Stonehenge Moment
That ought to be a capital offence.
JDOD
therecordingrebels.com
Well, obviously they're not better. In fact, they're frequently shite!
Miro, I do care how they sound though, I want the tracks to be at least listenable as I right them!
---------- Update ----------
Miro, I do care how they sound though, I want the tracks to be at least listenable as I right them!
---------- Update ----------
LOL, if I'd have had 2 or 3 more beers it would have been.
liv_rong
Knows very little
Including, but not limited to, quantizing and drum triggering of real drums.
miroslav
Cosmic Cowboy
Oh I didn't mean to imply that the tone of drums was any less important than any other tracks.
Just saying that drum tone, unlike guitar tone, or the tone of piano, etc...doesn't always translate into a likable thing on its own, where you could enjoy guitar or piano tone for itself.
You could also with drums...I only meant that sometimes drums alone may sound uninteresting...then you put them in the mix, and they sound perfect.
Just like any other tracks, I'll spend a good deal of time on sampled/sequenced drum tracks. I rarely use the samples OTB as they are. I treat the sampled kit like a real drum kit. I'll re-tune the drums to taste and for what I'm after...same thing with the cymbals...and often I'll pull some pieces out of different kits if I don't like what came with the default...
...and that's before and in conjunction with getting the right feel to the sequenced grooves I'm going to use.
Sometimes I think I'm nuts...'cuz I'm sitting there listening to and looking at a drum fill...and I'm considering shit like, if the "drummer" is hitting the snare on a beat with his left hand, and the fill starts on the far-right rack tom and then the next hit is on the floor tom...it may not work (depends on the tempo/groove, of course) ...because the "drummer" would have to hit the far right rack tom and the floor tom both with his right hand...huh?...so I'll change the fill to a different tom, so that there is a more natural right/left/right thing...always considering how a live drummer would actually play it, and not just how it sounds in the sequenced groove.
Same thing with cymbals, as they are setup as left/left-center/right-center/right...so like you can't have 5 hits on drums and cymbals, all on the far right...since a drummer uses both hands and he will naturally play what is mechanically and comfortably possible.
TBH...I've always had a desire to play drums...but I just never put the time into it to get really good at it. I've had drum kits in my studio going way back, and I've even played drums on a few tracks back in the day...you know Ringo Starr kind of stuff, but it worked.
So...I try very hard to think in terms of how a drummer would play, and I know how I want the grooves to be.
I have different degrees of distaste for that stuff. I think quantizing is lame as fuck. Triggering is pretty lame, but at least it's an actual performance. An e-kit would fall under this umbrella, and they aint so bad. If you're quantizing AND triggering, then why even bother? Just draw that shit with a mouse.
minerman
Tonetard
Yep, I can say for a fact, that with Greg & Rami's help, my programmed drums sound much, much better. You've gotta approach it like you're actually playing the damn drums though. I even took the subject so seriously that I bought a little Yamaha e-kit last winter. Like Miro said, most drummers will hit the drum (in a fill) that's closest to 'em, just because that's how our bodies work. I feel kinda guilty about my fake drum shit popping up in other threads, but if I don't ask, I'll never find out the truth, ya know???
Both Greg & Rami have helped me quite a bit, mostly in pm's, but they do know what the fuck they're talking about. Whenever I sit down to work on my fake drums, the very first thing I ask myself is "what & how would Greg/Rami play here"...
There's a sticky here at the top of the forum that has a bunch of good tips for drum programming, but just trying to think how a drummer would actually hit something (roll, fill, whatever) is the basis for it all....I could go on & on, but I'll just leave it there...
Amen Bob, that's it, 110%, period...I saw a band at the beach summer before last. The guitar player had nice gear: PRS something-a-nother, nice little Fender combo, quite a few pedals, & his tones were quite good. But, the guy couldn't play for shit, seriously, he was just another mindless "clone" who thought good gear would make him a good player. That ain't the case. Sure, good gear will help you sound better, no doubt about it, but that cannot compensate for lack of talent to begin with. The guy just plain sucked, period. In my opinion, if he'd worked on his chops half as much as he'd worried about what gear to use, he'd been a killer, but, he didin't, so he sucked...
I think it's a great idea for you guys who actually mic & record real drums, but it'd be awful hard to keep people like me outta there. I mean, sure, I wouldn't purposely do anything to hi-jack the thread, but it would be hard to keep folks out of the thread who really have no business there to begin with...It's a double-edged blade man...
Edit: Oh yeah, the goosenecks just don't work for me guys. I have a couple of 'em, maybe they're cheap because they will not stay put, they always end up moving. I like little short mic stands with little short booms on 'em myself...
Really, man? Somebody proposes a thread for programmed drums and you've already decided that the only people who have any business posting there are ones who don't program drums?
minerman
Tonetard
Not exactly what I meant dude, I meant the proposed thread (Greg's idea, which was supposed to be about recording actual drums) would be hard to do, as lots of folks who don't record real drums (like me) would be kinda "in the way"...I think you've taken my reply the wrong way man....
minerman
Tonetard
It's cool man...I saw JDOD's fake drum thread, but to me, it's kinda hard to make any progress, because of the "it depends on the song/mix" thing...Still a good idea to help guys like me though...lol