Mixing midi drums and bass with real guitar and vocals?

[brandmansam]

I guess this is a question that belongs here in the newbie section.

I've been recording guitar and vocals in my bedroom for some months and i was wondering if there is any chance to make a good mix by recording real guitar and then adding midi drums and bass? Is it a better idea to also use a midi guitar so that there's only midi instruments? I would like to record rock songs at home but I have no possibilities to record drums and bass.

So,
is there any point in midi instruments or is it just waste of time when producing rock(and similar genres) songs?

 

[grimtraveller]

Theoretically, anything is possible. I'm not a great fan of MIDI drums but there are some folks on here that use them well and over the last couple of years have helped me lose my biases. I must confess, I still have the bias towards MIDI bass but that's possibly because a) I've never heard any decent MIDI bass and b) I'm a bass player, mainly.

I think it comes down to how good you are with MIDI and how realistic you can get the sounds. I had Trilogy for a few years and I was resolutely unimpressed with it's sounds. The synth bass sounds were OK, but then, synth bass sounds always are, even the crappy ones. I wasn't impressed at all by the bass guitars and I grew to detest the double basses.

is there any point in midi instruments or is it just waste of time when producing rock(and similar genres) songs?

I don't think it's a waste of time. While my bias is towards electric and acoustic basses and acoustic drums {and I'm fortunate that in our flat I can use them}, it's a fact of life that not everyone in a home recording situation can go that way and therefore MIDI/samples/ VSTis {all the same thing, to me} can be a more than viable option. I use them frequently for brasses, strings, mellotrons, pianos, organs, Indian instruments, in fact pretty much anything that either I don't play or have a friend that plays and most of the time, I think they sound pretty realistic. Funnilly enough, just when I think they don't sound realistic, I'll listen to a record with the real thing and realize that actually, they do !
All along the line, what home recorders do will be compared with what commercial studios do and bit by bit, home recorders have ironed out the problems they've had to encounter. Your scenario is no different. It may take you a long while as you learn, you may go through many hair ripping episodes, but eventually, if you keep at it, you'll develop ways of getting your MIDI bass and drums to sound good.
One tends to pay less attention to specific components when faced with a killer song.

 

[Armistice]

There are a whole bunch of people, me included, doing exactly that. Although I don't MIDI bass, just drums.

Using MIDI to do drumming depends upon a few factors (a)the quality of the samples you're using (b)what you know about drumming, and (c)how much time and effort you put into it.

Nothing easier than making a simple loop and cutting and pasting it everywhere, but it sounds absolutely crap. Decent drum programming is a skill like everything else.. needs to be learnt.

There's a dude doing programming tutorials in the Drum forum if you want to know more...

 

[brandmansam]

Thank you so much grimtraveller and Armistice, that was the answer i was looking for.

So Armstice,
would you mind giving me any tips on good VSTis to use as drums and where to get them?

 

[mjbphotos]

I use EZ Drummer and find there is only a slight learning curve in starting out with it, obviously doing more advanced things takes experience. I think you will find that if you have not been recording to a metronome or click track you will have a hard time trying to match up drums to existing recorded guitar tracks. I always throw a simple repeating loop down first, record a scratch guitar track, then go back and decide where the tempo needs to be changed, reprogram the BPS in my DAW, then record another scratch guitar track. IF I'm happy with that, then I will start doing the real drum programming/MIDI arranging.

 

[Armistice]

EZ Drummer and Addictive are two fairly commonly use packages around here. There are others. I use Addictive.

I'd give you this advice, along the lines of what mjb is saying...

Work out a basic drum pattern that contains the approximate feel/groove etc you're after, NOT a metronomic beat, and record to that. IMHO you'll get a better end result that way. With just a metronome different parts can wander a bit "feel" wise and end up in time, but not quite coherent.

Somewhere along the way, program your drums properly and replace your recording set.

 

[CTB]

Sometimes I use both my real acoustic set and midi samples. If I can't get that "right" thump with my Kick, I'll gently apply a sample over top of my real kick (and sometimes) snare but leave my hats, cymbals toms alone. Its a lot of of tedious work but, it can save a drum track that wasn't mic'd well.

OR, Ill use my PS3 Guitar Hero drums as an electronic drum kit and just use the Kick and snare pads thereby avoiding the acoustic kick and snare altogether. Depends on type tune it is.