Advice - Looking for help with drums

[Hot Rats]

Hi,

I am a very non-serious bedroom musician but I am getting frustrated with one aspect of recording - drums.

Here is my current setup
Cubase 5 on Win98
Yamaha SY22 (very old, but the sounds do for me)
Alesis SR16 drums
Alesis Quadraverb
Tascam 8 Track

The fact is, I hate creating my own drum patterns and I'm not very good at it. I've tried getting hold of midi drum patterns but even then I can never seem to get them into a shape I like. I have been toying with the idea of a sampler for some time for using loops and doing it that way, but I am looking for ideas really.

The sounds in my SR16 are not fantastic but they would probably do. I'm more interested in the patterns themselves, but if there's something that helps me do both at the same time, that's great.

Obviously, cost is an issue because getting something that's too expensive would be pointless, because I would be unable to play due to 2 broken arms, courtesy of the missus.

There you go then. Sick of writing crap drum patterns and need something with a bit more class.

Can you suggest anything? What do you lot out there use?

[Turnip]

Howdy.

I actually had the same problem for a time. However, rather than continue to upgrade my drum machines, I finally opted to purchase a set of Roland V-Drums.

This might not be the solution for you, but it was just what the doctor ordered for me. There was (and still is) a substantial learning curve with regard to playing the drums...but in my opinion, you won't find a more legitimate sound with a less offensive footprint.

Perhaps the real question is, how long do you think it would take for your arms to heal? I imagine that by the time they healed, you'd have read the manuals front to back, seventeen times, and read every tip out there at least once...

[DAFFYDRUNK]

That's harsh, she run over you with a car or something?

I've been using ACID pro 4 to make drums. People use it for loops by I swear you can "program" drums totally with "one-shots" that fully smoke a drum machine. There's also tons of one-shots you can download off the net. Kinda neat. Nothing will perfectly sound like real drums but I've gotten closer than I did messing with SR16s, Dr Ryhthms, ect. The drawback is programming step time. I'm horrible at that stuff but since I figured it out, I figure anyone can. The cool thing about doing drums that way is the length of the wav. Some snares, for example, are a few seconds long and it adds to the realism. You can easily do all sorts of envelopes for volume/pan on separate tracks. If you want to do double shots or fast hits on a drum, you can use multiple tracks so there's more of a polyphony to the drum hits. It can do effects ect. Once you get used to it I think it's easier to create drums that way than using a drum machine. I always had to write down the patterns and timings ect. Now I just sit there a piss around ill I have something that sounds sorda cool.

[Stealthtech]

I would suggest loops for non-drummers.
They include fill-ins and little things you can do to make it more interesting. Their are several CD's out there with excellent well recorded real drums to fit a genre.
Using midi and programming takes some drum experience to create a less stressful experience.

[Toker41]

I'm not really a drummer, but I finally got feed up with drum machines and little buttons and pads and bought a set of Roland V-sessons. World of difference in the way I record drums now. So much easier. I'm not saying go out and buy the flagship roland set, but I would think even the lower end v-drums would help make your life easier.