Drum Machines

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Alanfc

Alanfc

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TO Everybody-
Regarding Drum Machines

In everybody's opinion, what about a drum machine is the weakest in terms of fooling the average listener? In other words, what is the biggest giveaway ?

If you could elaborate that would be really helpful like: is it the snare (why) , kick drum (why), cymbals,? Is it the perfect timing and perfect attack, etc...

Thanks
 
Drum machines are notorious for thin sounding snares and weak sounding cymbals. In a full mix of drums, bass and guitar, the snare can easily get lost. One way of getting a more meatier snare is to copy the high tom to another preset and tuning it to the same pitch as the snare. Correspond each tom hit to the snare, but keep it low enough in the mix to not be heard.

Some people contend that a dead give away is when the drummer appears to have three arms: for example, one playing the snare, one playing the hi hat, and one playing a tom or cymbal. This in itself is a pretty stupid argument, considering that many drummers dub in additional instruments during recordings anyway.

The average listener will most often know the drums are fake when they are recorded with little regard for authentic sounding fills, repetive and obnoxious beats, and failure to do those things that engineers would do when tracking real drums: like tuning the drums or proper spatial placement of the different percussion pieces in the mix.


Cy
 
I agree with eveything that Cyrokk said....... but I would add the timing issue, also. :cool:
 
Ive heard songs here done with samples for kick snare and toms, but live cymbals and it is a great compromise....very realistic sounding.......
 
"Talent"....

Most of the time when people listen to my tracks they ask me who the drummer is...!

The answer? Me...
I also play drums... One of the primary reasons that I find drum machines sound like drum machines is not necessarily the sounds... Many drummers nowadays are turning to electronic drums... And much has been done to improve the sound...

What I've done with my drum machine (Alesis DM5) is to have the toms and cymbals going out the secondary output, Then separating the snare on the main channel panned left and the bass drum panned right... Each goes to it's own channel... that way I can adjust the EQ of the snare and the bass drum at the same time...

But, Most of it is technique... Just like what Cyrokk says with the "three arm" synrome as well... Keeping it simple for most of the song is part of the key...

I also spend a lot of time choosing the sounds that I think work for the music I'm writing... I'm very picky about what sounds I use...

- Simplicity
- Good sounds
- Good technique

These will make your drum tracks sing...
 
I use a Boss Dr Groove DR202 and got it mastered!!!
I can now pan kits, adjust pitch, resonance and delay, add de-cresh and cresh rolls,flams,paradiddles etc and adjust ride,crash and bell cyms accents tailored for hit emphasis, and snare/tom 1-2/floor tom can be added as roll riffs panning from hard right-center-hard left. Yup! I got this baby down tite!!!

My only complaint:




















It still doesn't and never WILL sound like an actual drummer on a kit!!
But it is the next best thing!
 
Used to mess with several Dr Rhythms, and I think the one thing more than any other reason is repetitiveness. I used to spend hours upon hours trying to get those things to sound real by doing slightly different versions of patterns, kinda like how a drummer doesn't always play the same thing during a song. The other thing is how perfect drum machines sound. For example, if you were doing a fast hi-hat, turn off the quantizing and give it some flaws. Been using Acid and a bunch of one shots as a "drum machine" and I dunno if I can make it sound totally real but it seems to be better than a drum machine. :dunno: At some point it's probably just easier to go out , get a drum set and learn how to play the thing...
 
DAFFYDRUNK said:
Used to mess with several Dr Rhythms, and I think the one thing more than any other reason is repetitiveness. I used to spend hours upon hours trying to get those things to sound real by doing slightly different versions of patterns, kinda like how a drummer doesn't always play the same thing during a song.
Click to expand...

So true Daf!

I try my hardest to include fill-ins, double snare-hits,rolls or whatever to TRY and break up the monotony of your average 8-bar repetitve rhythm kit!
 
MISTERQCUE said:
So true Daf!

I try my hardest to include fill-ins, double snare-hits,rolls or whatever to TRY and break up the monotony of your average 8-bar repetitve rhythm kit!
Click to expand...

The double hits is where Acid works really good. Since every 2 times you click the plus on the horizontal grid sizer ups the "resoultion", You can zoom in till you get to 32nd or 64th notes ect, have two snare tracks and offset one of em just a little bit. Slightly lowering the volume, and pitch of the second snare kinda helps the realism I think. Works good for other double shots like toms too. Since the one shots seem to be much bigger wavs than what would be found in a drum machine, it seems to breathe a bit more than the average drum machine. The only draw back is you have to step time program it but with the graphical display and the ability to instantly play back the seciton you're working on, it's pretty easy to deal with. I know most people use Acid for loops and accent em with one shots, but going strickly one shots allows you to create the exact rhythm you're looking for and tweak the piss out of it until It's doesn't sound too bad.
The Drum Sugar CD I'm messing with also has 8 or so slightly different closed hi-hats for example, and I semi randomly used different ones to give the hi-hat some variation just like a real drummer never hit's it the exact same way. Still doesn't sound perfectly real but I think you could get it to the point where the average listener might not home in on the drums and think they're fake...
 
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