A Simple Drum Solution?

D

DesertRatt

Member
I've been making basic, two mic recordings of guitar and vocal and pretty happy with the results. It would be fun to add a beat - a minimal kind of drum set.

I've tried:
1. Just various tapping techniques on my acoustic guitars. Not bad, but not great variety of sound.
2. I have an Alesis 16 drum machine. The first trouble is that controlling it in the breaks is well, impossible. Secondly, programming it is for me hideously tedious and complicated. And, the canned rhythms are not interesting for me.

I am considering one of these simple all-in-one drum practice "toys" that sell for like $150, but was a bit turned off when I see two dozen buttons, LCD screens, and read about the zillions of menu items and blah blah blah. And, the outputs are pretty limited as far as plugging into my Tascam 424.

My latest thought is a DIY drum - made from ? - whatever - which would provide a simple, easy to play drum that I would mic into my mixer.

So, I'm wondering what any of YOU do to add drums?

P.S. I'm definitely NOT a drummer! But, I can follow a simple beat.
 
I've got an SR18 but never really mastered the programming aspect. I've used the included patterns for a few songs.

Look into MT PowerDrumkit. Its a plugin based system but it includes a bunch of different drum loops. You can cut and paste them together, and its really easy to edit them in a program like Reaper. I have a song that I've been working on, and the drum track is done in MT PDK. Everything is done as Midi but you don't need a midi device. The only downside is that it only have one drum kit. You can't change the sound. I tried running from MTPDK to the my SR18 but MT uses more channels than the Alesis. It was triggering bass notes and various other sounds.

It's free to use, and you can register it for a few bucks.
 
i've been using pcdrummer for a while. They have some drum sounds, but you can also load your own. The screen is big, and for me, it's easy to put a song together. You can export as a single file, or individual files (kick, snare, hihat, etc.) When you have the wave(s), import them to your recorder, so you can record on top of it. I usually just make a single file, import it to my tascam dp006, and add guitar, vocals, bass. Then i export all of that to my computer. I then export the individual files from pcdrummer. Now i have my parts, and the drum parts ready to load into Reaper for mixing. pcdrummer.jpg
 
TalismanRich said:
I've got an SR18 but never really mastered the programming aspect. I've used the included patterns for a few songs.

Look into MT PowerDrumkit. Its a plugin based system but it includes a bunch of different drum loops. You can cut and paste them together, and its really easy to edit them in a program like Reaper. I have a song that I've been working on, and the drum track is done in MT PDK. Everything is done as Midi but you don't need a midi device. The only downside is that it only have one drum kit. You can't change the sound. I tried running from MTPDK to the my SR18 but MT uses more channels than the Alesis. It was triggering bass notes and various other sounds.

It's free to use, and you can register it for a few bucks.
Click to expand...

MT Power kit is pretty great. Some really good basic rock drums.

I actually do use one of those toy table drum kits to sequence my copy of MT (and EZD), but I circuit bent it and have a complex FX chain for sequencing, so I can't really recommend you use my strategy.
 
According to their homepage video, MT Power Drum Kit 2 let's you draw on samples from other installed drum kits. Just a matter of a little routing and remapping through MT's Mixer section. I suppose you could also dig into MT's files and substitute your own WAV samples, not sure 'cause I don't usually go there.
 
IF you're willing to dive into a computer DAW, you can get Reaper for $60 (I think it's still the same price). Then you could try this: REAPER | Videos


Reaper's Drum Machine plug-in (ReaSamplOmatic5000) makes it easy to add any WAV sample from your PC or MAC into it's sample editor and then into the MIDI editor for sequencing and editing, then playback in the track screen. You can add a software keyboard to tap the notes into the drum machine.

Build your own drum kit from whatever WAV samples you can gather from anywhere you can. I have a bunch of random samples I've collected from around the web stuffed away in a music folder. All I had to do was add that folder to the Media Explorer in Reaper and they all became available to the ReaSamplOmatic5000 (Reaper's drum machine). Just drag-n-drop.
 
A very simple one. Make pattern, export wave. Everything is big, and on one screen. Free Virtual Drum Machine, Ultimate Drum Machine Online ... I remember searching for something, and there are many free options. Some are online, no software downloading required. You can search "free drum sequencer" "free online drum machine" "free drum machine software" , etc. I may post a couple of others i was playing around with, so others seeing this can try them.

---------- Update ----------

another one Drum Machine online

and another with instruments, check out their forum also. You will have to find a way to save this to your recorder. Speaker outs, I have done that before. >> Online Sequencer - Make music online
 
i heard that White Fence (tim presley) used to sample some simple drum tracks from songs and used them in his own.
when i didn't have an acoustic drum, i used the drum presets on my cheap casio keyboard and it sounded pretty good through an amp with effects. depends on what sound you want, but some times i would just plug the keyboard in my yamaha amp that had a spring reverb, the bass kick and snare sounded pretty awesome through it.
 
also, anything through some type of reverb can sound good
so using your guitar body, or hardcase if you have one, with reverb can give some interesting, minimalist results
 
assman said:
also, anything through some type of reverb can sound good
so using your guitar body, or hardcase if you have one, with reverb can give some interesting, minimalist results
Click to expand...
Even empty cans with plastic lids (coffee, nuts, etc.). Play the lids or the bottoms of the open cans.
 
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