Sonar, N.I. Battery, and making real sounding drumtracks... questions...

[tubedude]

Ok, I am going to look into battery unless someone here gives me a better idea. I think I will buy Battery and the Drumkit From Hell CD. Smartloops just isnt flexible enough for me anymore.
Anyway, is this the best way to go, barring a real drummer and a good room, for writing and getting ideas down in a realistic manner?
Is it fairly easy?
Can I load midi drum tracks via Sonar and run it through Battery to trigger the Drumkit From Hell sounds? Or is that overkill? Some other way to do it via midi that is easier and cheaper and less stressful?
I think I'll buy a little cheap midi controller keyboard, too, if I really need it or could use it. Thoughts on that?
Can Sonar take a pre-made midi loop, and apply a sampled drum sound to each hit? How do I do it? Is this covered extensively in the manual without tons of techie crap cluttering it up?
I want simple, and I want good, and I want believable. I want people to say, "damn, great drummer, good sound"
Help me make this happen, I need to get some tracks done and I am at a standstill. Smartloops isnt cutting it anymore, just loading audio loops and putting them together.
I need better, faster, nicer.
Can I get a lot of different midi drum loops that will fire my samples through Sonar? Where do I look? Free, cost lotsa money?
The whole midi thing is new to me except using it to change parameters on old rack shit. I doubt I can even do that anymore.
Help me out. I need it. And quick.
Peace.

[tubedude]

By the way, if I have some midi drum loops on a disk (I do, smartloops), how can I sample them to hear what they sound like with my sounds/samples without taking an hour to go through 3 frigging loops?

[tubedude]

ALSO...

Anyone have any samples of stuff they have done with Battery or Drumkit from Hell... particulary that exact combo, or maybe the purrrfect drums...

[ljc]

Have you even looked at cyclone in Sonar ? This is a pretty involved subject. My guess is that it'll take some time to get yourself on the track with drums. I haven't really explored cyclone, but all of this stuff is subjective. Some people think Dance grooves are believable right out of the can. Others want an orchestrated piece with fills etc.. My own experiments have been with loops, hand midi crafted, general midi, and even live drummer producing wave file from electronic drums. My experience is that with anything, it takes a decent amount of time and effort, but there are plenty of grooves for jamming. Try cyclone.

[erichenryus]

i don't think cyclone is the right tool for what you want, unless it can do multisample layers. you're on the right track tubedude. i do all of my drums routing the midi through samples loaded into Kontakt right now, but i'll probably switch to battery soon cause Kontakt doesn't really handle hihat samples very well.

A cheaper option if you have Sonar 2XL is to upgrade the dr008 drum sampler that comes with it.

Anyway, yeah it takes a lot of work to get it right but you're using the best available tools with DFH and Battery from what I can tell.

So here's how you do it:
1. Load your midi track
2. Make an audio track where Battery is the FX
3. Route the midi output of track in step one to the 'Battery' option which will show up in your midi track once you've enabled Battery on an audio track.

Dig?

[tubedude]

Dig. Do I need a keyboard to make my own drum beats though?

Hmmm... I guess thats my plan then.
Each track can be sent to a seperate mixer channels for mixing later, right?
Anyone have Battery or DFH for sale?
What about Purrfect drums? Anyone have that? Anyone wanna sell it?
You should hear the cymbals in Purrrfect drums... they are fantastic. Recorded with C12's into I think a Neve console.

Anyone else have suggestions? I will check out Cyclone by the way.

Peace!

[erichenryus]

Originally posted by tubedude

Each track can be sent to a seperate mixer channels for mixing later, right?

oh that's one really cool feature in sonar. just mute all the drums except the one you want to isolate. then select the midi and battery tracks. then 'bounce to tracks'.....and voila, your drum/cymbal is totally isolated in it's own audio track.

i think dfh goes for about 85 bucks now and battery is like 150. i've been considering dfh for a while now. but i'm also considering going totally acoustic. i change my mind every day.

[tubedude]

The coolest thing about the Drumkit from Hell is the ambient miced sound that comes with each hit. Much more versatility.

I guess I'm going to mess with this Cyclone some, and if it doesnt cut it, I'll go after Battery.

[tubedude]

I have Drumkit from Hell now.
Waiting on it to arrive.

[bamboo]

You may want to try 2 handy drum track creation tools from MusicLab - Slicy Drummer and Fill-in Drummer. With DKFH, Battery (or DR008) and these two you'll be all set to go.

[schwa]

Why not use DR008? Its been very well reviwed, the full version (I think is $79 for SONAR users) has a bunch of kits, and will work with the drum kit from hell. I think its integration with SONAR may be a shade better than Battery.

[tubedude]

Whats the deal with the DR008? Is it an add on option for Sonar now? I remember seeing something about it coming with XL, maybe?
I'll look into that too, right now.

My important concern is that I can have varying patterns and fills throughout the song and not have them sound TOO clinical and perfect, to where they sound like a damn drum machine.
Will The DR008 do that for me? Which is cheaper/better?

Thanks, keep it coming...

[moskus]

Originally posted by tubedude
Whats the deal with the DR008? Is it an add on option for Sonar now? I remember seeing something about it coming with XL, maybe?
I'll look into that too, right now.

My important concern is that I can have varying patterns and fills throughout the song and not have them sound TOO clinical and perfect, to where they sound like a damn drum machine.
Will The DR008 do that for me? Which is cheaper/better?

Thanks, keep it coming...

DR-008 is bundled with Sonar 2 XL.

And DR-008 just works as a drum-machine. You need to program the groove in MIDI. It's a lot of work sometimes, but it's fun and the results can be very convincing (if you know what you're doing).

[tubedude]

Does the DR008 have the multi sampled deal like Battery? Where, say you can have a couple of different snare hits on the same pad depending on the velocity of the hit? I want subtle variation just like a real drummer. If this works as well as Battery, this would be the way to go, cause I would get that AND the Sonic Timeworks plugs for $129... not too bad of a deal I guess.

[moskus]

Originally posted by tubedude
Does the DR008 have the multi sampled deal like Battery? Where, say you can have a couple of different snare hits on the same pad depending on the velocity of the hit?

Yes, but I don't know how...

[schwa]

I'm still getting it together myself when it comes to DR008, but I have used it, it does work, and there are a lot of kits. There is a lot more sophisication (sp?) than I have been able to figure out yet. I read a shootout among software drum machines, and Battery placed second behind DR008. It was in one of the British magazines, but I don't remember which.

There are a good number of discussions about the DR008 in the SONAR newsgroup, as well as a number of experienced users. You might want to check them out.

[bamboo]

Originally posted by tubedude
My important concern is that I can have varying patterns and fills throughout the song and not have them sound TOO clinical and perfect, to where they sound like a damn drum machine.
Will The DR008 do that for me?

Like I said, these 2 MIDI plugins from MusicLab - Slicy Drummer and Fill-in Drummer - will provide you with endless variations of grooves and fills. You may then "humanize" them even further to make them sound even more like a real drummer.

As for DR008 vs. Battery, they are pretty close sound-wise, and each has its strong and weak points. Both can have velocity-sensitive instruments. Historically, Sonar users prefer DR008 since it comes bundelled with Sonar XL. Early versions of DR008 had problems with sample rate conversion as acknowledged by the developer on the Sonar newsgroup, but now he claims that everything's fine. The kits that come with DR008 are obviously inferior to the Drum Kit from Hell.

just my $.02