How many drummers does it take to screw in a lightbulb...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fmmahoganyrush
  • Start date Start date
Fmmahoganyrush

Fmmahoganyrush

Pleads the 5th...
As the joke goes... ...none, they have machines that do that now. But as far as sequencing drum track on a program like Cakewalk, I've found the results to be less than desirable. There no life in the drum track. No velocity changes, realistic snare rolls are impossible, quick same beat/double hits on the snare (yeah right), and even the tightest drummer, say Neil Peart, doesn't sound like a machine, although he has the stamina of one. The terms Cakewalk throws around to humanize drum tracks are "Quantize" and maybe "Swing". How does this work. Is there a way to point and click a reasonable sounding drum track? Is a Roland (or reasonable facsimily) drum pad the way to go in effort to pick up velocity changes and double hits, realism, etc... I realize "for every job there is a correct tool", in this case a drummer, but I'm just trying to put stuff together in my little studio (I use that term loosely) in my free time that sounds OK, not necessarily perfect, but the drums...
Eiye-Carumba (or however they spell it) I have heard some really good MIDI drum tracks (although some of you might think that's an oxy-moron), and would like some insight on how it's done. Any Ideas?
 
I resemble that remark ;)

I actually started playing acoustic drums because I was tired of trying to get a human feel through a machine. It's possible, but I think it's still too difficult.
I can say avoid quantizing because that will do the opposite of what you want ... it will make sure every drum hit is exactly on the beat or subdivision that you set the resolution to (1/8, 1/16, 1/32, etc). I think "swing" functions kinda do the opposite, move drum hits away from those values by some measure ... never tried it though. It's still a computer changing your hits arbitrarily ... so I doubt it's of any use ... maybe on wicked-expensive machines.
The best sounding keyboard-drum tracks I've done have been where I've played just the kick-snare beat (leaving everything out where I wanted a fill) and then added hihat and/or ride making sure that I play what is physically possible for a drummer with only 2 hands and 2 feet to do (ie. no 16th note fills while still maintaining the snare/kick/hihat beat). The last thing I'd do were fills, and I always found that keeping them simple was the best way to go. You can do really complicated things with a drum machine ... but by trying to make it sound like Neil ... you'll expose that it's synthetic even more.
As for velocity, you can usually set this on your keyboard or drum machine ... and it works, depending on how good the equipment is. I find when doing drum on a keyboard, that I have to lighten way up on the touch in order to get any expressiveness.
I don't know if that helps ... but it's been my experience. I quit and decided to learn how to actually drum, because with the music I've been doing ... the machine just wasn't cutting it.
Good Luck.
 
get a crash too, nobody makes a canned crash that even slightly sounds good.
 
Where are you gonna find a drummer smart enough to figure out how to change a light bulb......
 
Hey Gidge -

it doesn't take just one drummer to change a bulb

you'll need five - minimum
 
OK Bball, I'll bite. Why does it take five drummers to screw in a light bulb?

Also, any comments on "good" drum pads / modules / all-in-one packages, other than V-Drums? I'm talking more in the lines of the various small kits by Roland - Octopad or I think they had something like a PD-200 or something like that?
 
cheating:

I have gotten fantastic results using acoustic drum sample discs and a beat slicer. You can splice these suckers down to each individual hit then rearrange them any way you like. I have created 3+ minute drum tracks entirely from a 2 second drum fill doing this and they sound absolutely nothing like the original fill but it does sound amazingly realistic.
 
Beat slicer? Is that like a Vegematic? Seriously though, what the heck is a beat slicer. Is that like cutting and pasting anolog waves in Cakewalk or other sequencing software? Fill me in because I'm interested (I let my brother-in-law listen to the two songs I've been working on, and although he can't play anything except the radio, he has a good ear. His response - "THE DRUMS SUCK!!! Everything else was OK, although it all needs to be tweeked) Any other suggestions out there? I'm still interested. Thanx for all the help so far. Tom.
 
yep five....

one to stand on the drum stool and change the bulb, two to spin the stool around, and two to stand to the side and play on keyboards and guitars because they actually think they are musicians........
 
Here's a link to the one I use. I generally use it within the full registered version of fruity loops, but it works as a stand alone too.

http://sonikmatter.com/software/bc/default.asp

I've attached a lo-fi of some loops made with this to get an idea. The loops were all made from the same drum pattern, you can kind of get the idea on how it works. In a song of course I'd make a lot more patterns and wouldn't string them together the way that is strung, but its a brief 16 second 97kb demo.

It's another option anyway, and if you're looking for realistic drum tracks without using straight from the box loops its a good way to go about it.
 

Attachments

I'll agree with Tubedude here... I use Sonic Foundry's Acid for all my drum tracks, with pretty good results.
 
How many guitarists does it take to change a light bulb ??

Answer none. They are all to stoned.

Maybe you can get the keyboardist to do it. He's a techie-fag.

You'll never get any drummers to do it. They are off getting laid man.

Want drums ? suck at coordination. Just record a click and track a bass drum, then a snare drum, then a highhat. voila drums. You will find that you need to plan your fills ahead of time. That should be easy for you though. Every godawful singer songwriter stoner musician who has had me track for him has always tediously planned every fill in advance ...

You can listen to a click and hit 2 and four with a rim shot right ?? Can't you punk ??

You can get drums by tracking them one at a time, but you will find yourself needing to understand how rhythm works in an ensemble. You will eventually gain some wisdom by doing this which _will_ substantially change how you think about music. Then you will understand who the tools are :)

I would recommend tracking drums one at a time with a click and then cut and copy a verse or a chorus or whatever.

Personally, I find learning about chord substitutions and harmony alot easier than learning how to find a
pocket for the first time.
 
Hey Crustacean, I checked out the mp3 you attached. Sounds pretty good. My lame drums don't even come close... ..at this point they've been reduced to a glorified (not to mention time consuming) click track. I think I have acid floating around here somewhere (that's Sonic Foundry Acid you guys... ...I think I would know if there was any lysergic acid diethylamide floating around here) The next question. If I'm using Cakewalk, do I put the drum track together with Acid first, then import it into Cakewalk as a wave file. If I already have most of the song done on Cakewalk, and just want to do the drums over, will the tempos from each program sync? Is there anything special I should know about this process? Try to keep it simple, as I feel an Acid learning curve coming on. Thanx, Tom. BTW, contrary to the suggestion in a prior post, It's not that I'm uncoordinated, or can't keep a beat... ...I don't have the space for a drum set in my present studio situation, nor do I have (or have any desire to have) the mics, booms, mixer, (shall I go on) to accommodate the recording of drums. I'm not a drummer, I'm just a, what was it now, a singer songwriter stoner guitar playing techno-geek keyboard banging (Bang keyboard - too stoned to get laid) whatever..........
 
Fela . . .

Guitarists don't change light bulbs . . .

They call the electricians union !
 
...YEAH....you want me to change a light bulb with these talented hands?.....
 
First of all...

How many guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

50. One to screw it in and 49 to say "I can do that."


Now... Don't worry TOO much about the Acid learning curve. Acid is VERY user friendly... It's one of those things where in your first night playing with it you can get some cool things happening. Of course, it also powerful enough to not really limit you down the road either. Can't beat it. :)
 
KaBudokan,

Actually its "I coulda did that BETTER".....

I agree about the learning curve on Acid...my test on software is how far I can get with it without picking up the manual....Acid, Sound Forge, N-Track, Goldwave and Fruity Loops, which I use mainly, have all passed....of course I eventually pick up the manual and say "Wow, it can do THAT"....
 
I love guys who dont consider drummers musicians. They are always the guys who need to punch in all their shit bec their playing is so sloppy. They are also the guys whose time is all over the place when they dont hear the snare on 2 and 4. The chords they map out all change on the 1 and they never ever imagine doing anything on the 1-e or 2-e bec they dont know it exists.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top