Programming drums via playing "straight in"

oh - yeah - i have a midi drum kit - a cheapo simmons (SD5K) about 400 bucks or less - I never use the onboard sounds - I just use it to trigger slate or addictive drums VSTS.

before that I had something like this :

Alesis PercPad Electronic Drum Pad | Musician's Friend

yeah some people get insanely good at stuff like tapping on maschine and other controllers - but for me i much prefer the pads and just play the part with sticks. If you can learn to play a paradiddle on pads you will pretty much get more realistic rolls and fills than you will programming. ymmv.

this is a track i did after playing for about two months. the kit sounds pretty natural to me, and no one ever
commented on it sounding roboty when i posted it in the forum



and here is one where i record a goofy cover of under the milky way in a couple hours. sound quality isn't the best - but I record covers for practice and to goof around, not really mixing chops

Under The Milky Way (Church Cover) - YouTube
 
So when you record direct like that, do you split each drum onto its own track?

BTW, I really want to figure out how to do it this way.
I'm pretty loathe to progam loops and make repeating robotic drumtracks to back my nearly decent guitar tones.
 
Telegram Sam said:
So when you record direct like that, do you split each drum onto its own track?

BTW, I really want to figure out how to do it this way.
I'm pretty loathe to progam loops and make repeating robotic drumtracks to back my nearly decent guitar tones.
Click to expand...

The drum kit has a single midi out. My interface has midi in. The drum VSTi plugins usually output a fader per drum in the daw, plus a stereo overhead and stereo room. Most of them will also let you output a single stereo pair instead - and just use presets for the levels or mix in the plugin.

One you build up some presets for kits you like you pretty much just add the vst and go. I have a template in my daw for a basic setup with 12 drum outputs and tracks set up ready to record for bass, guitar and vocals.

So anyway - i programmed the kick and played along for a long time - which works pretty well.
 
Telegram Sam said:
Those are really nice, Chuck.
Thanks for turning me on to your vids.
The first song has great sounding drums.
I think I know how I'm going to approach it now.
Click to expand...

thanks Sam. i know the sound quality isn't so hot on the vids - but i think they do kinda illustrate that the drums don't sound all that roboty or programmed. i also don't think you gotta go down the whole kit route at first and spend a bunch of money. you can play around with a couple pads cheap. Also the smaller roland kits show up ALL the time on craigslist. They are nice cause some of them have mesh heads, and multiple zones per head, etc... but even the used ones are kinda pricey.

I was ok with the half programmed/half played route for a while - it was a good place to start for me.

but anyway - if there was any way i could do a real acoustic kit I would in a heartbeat, but its not in the cards. I have a couple drummer friends, and they just aren't down with the sounds I get even after a lot of practice. 'This would be really good if it had real drums' - i hear that in my sleep.
 
I think I'm going to start out by using the Maschine as a MIDI controller, it is pretty responsive.
I was practicing Sunshine of Your Love last night and I have a cover song idea....

 
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