real drums played like crap still better than a machine on my tracks

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junplugged

junplugged

Taking the slow road
real drums played like crap still better than a machine on my tracks, even though I'm not a drummer.

I got an old, used kit of Samsons and I can't play for squat, but when I decided one day to just see how they sounded recorded, I was hooked.

First off, I'm not producing anything, if I was not only would I find a real drummer, I wouldn't do it at home w/ my limited budget and limited equipment, space, knowlegde, etc.

So I record this kit in a tiny room about 10'x8 6.5' hight, with one Mxl v67 into an Art v3 pre to MR-8, the #1 cheapest digital box.

If I listen to the track solo, it's bad. I add acoustic guitars, bass and electric and the sound is just so far superior to my years and years of drum machine programming, I can't believe it.

I just feel like jamming to the real drum sound and it lights up the track and me.

To even get anything decent out of my drum machine I'd have to program for hours and hours, and plan it out and have charts and notation and fills that made sense, that were playable by a human and the HH never sounded anything more than a machine. Not that some music is fine with that sound....

I use a click track, I have to, and that gets a bit tricky. Do any of you real drummers have any tips from your experience of beginner's problems getting a decent track down? or should I post a track for criticizm?
 
junplugged said:
real drums played like crap still better than a machine on my tracks, even though I'm not a drummer.

I use a click track, I have to, and that gets a bit tricky. Do any of you real drummers have any tips from your experience of beginner's problems getting a decent track down? or should I post a track for criticizm?
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why to go !!

The only thing I (an old drummer! ;) ) would say is don't over play! Sometimes less is more if you know what I mean.
 
Accoustic drums are far preferable.

One thing I've started experimenting with recently is recording some drum beats, then cutting up the track and looping sections of it together, pasting in fills here and there. The tricky part is getting the joins so they're not noticable and trying to mask minor variations in tempo
 
I disagree

junplugged said:
real drums played like crap still better than a machine on my tracks, even though I'm not a drummer.
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I disagree. I don't know about drum machines, but with a sequencer like Fruity Loops one can create a drumsound that is hardly or not at all distiguishable from the real thing, thus way better then real drums played and/or recorded like crap.

All it take is some skill and a good pair of ears.

This song has some 'artificial' drums, now I'm not saying that they are fantastic or that they can beat real drums, but they do sound better then crappy real drums anyday IMHO.

 
Re: I disagree

Laynestaley said:
... one can create a drumsound that is hardly or not at all distiguishable from the real thing,.....
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hmmmmm, while your programming is nice and the drums sound ok, I would never mistake them for real drums.

I always find it interesting when someone goes through the trouble of recording a cover song, verbatim. sounds good - but I'd rather listen to the original AinC version...
 
One thing I notice as my crap drumming recorded sounds inspire me, I play drums a lot more. So it's getting a little bit better each time, I'm hoping it'll be one hair over crap soon. I know as a beginner that's a lofty goal, but I hope to attain it at some not too distant point in the future.

I just wish that 12 years ago when I spent $700 on a Roland R8 Human Rhythm Composer (yea, right) that I had spent that much on a set of drums. That would have been twice the kit I have now, and I'd have more experience on it by now. And I'd have a lot better tracks.... Not that I didn't learn a lot from the machine....

The big thing about real drumming, for me, is that I can sit down and record something NOW that has dynamics, feeling, accents, fills, and sections with repeats and changes, etc, and it'll take me as long as 5 minutes. If I want that from a machine, I'll have to plan it all out, program the patterns, then the same patterns with fills, then never even get to the dynamics b/c I don't have time to get into those deeper parameters inthe thing. Then I'd have to go to the song mode, plan out the patterns that have and don't have the fills, then put in the repeat signs, and listen to it a few times and on and on. And by then, I've become a decent (or sucky) drum machine programmer, not any better of a player, and the other tracks w/ my guitars vocals bass and inspiration is about ended.

Not to mention I have to make sure it's in the PA and I have that working, layers of menus, finding the right sounds from the pads, making sure my fingers hit the pads correctly, then if I had some dynamic from loud or soft pad hits, I have to adjust them....

Neither the machine or my own drumming are for a finished product tho, and that's why I can get away with it for now, demos.
 
Re: Re: I disagree

pratt said:
....I always find it interesting when someone goes through the trouble of recording a cover song, verbatim. sounds good - but I'd rather listen to the original AinC version...
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Me too :D. Recording cover songs is really learnfull, in every possible way of recording. It offers insight in song construction, song layers, mixing, mastering etc. and it really learned me how to really listen closely to the music. If I had started by recording my own stuff I never would have gotten as far as I am today.

Back to what this thread is about, sorry for drifting of..

pratt said:
hmmmmm, while your programming is nice and the drums sound ok, I would never mistake them for real drums....
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I do agree that nothing can top a good recording of a good drummer, I'm just saying that you can get pretty decent drums using software with better results then those of a crappy drummer.

Also the drums of the song I posted can't be mistaken for real drums by the guys on the forum. I'm not too sure about the other 99,9 % of the population.
I also didn't mean that this song has the best possible programmed drums.....
 
Re: Re: Re: I disagree

Laynestaley said:
Me too :D. Recording cover songs is really learnfull, in every possible way of recording. It offers insight in song construction, song layers, mixing, mastering etc. and it really learned me how to really listen closely to the music. If I had started by recording my own stuff I never would have gotten as far as I am today.
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that's cool, I understand

Laynestaley said:
I do agree that nothing can top a good recording of a good drummer, I'm just saying that you can get pretty decent drums using software with better results then those of a crappy drummer.
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I agree with that - but you saidy 'hardly or not at all distinguishable'....

anyway, sounds good, nice programming. where did you get the drum sounds??? the splashes are particularly nice.
 
The snare and the cymbals always give away electronic drums for me. You might can fool me on the kick and toms. But the electronic drum movement is ever closing in on the holy grail of perfect sounding beats. It is just a matter of time before we will all be fooled. But by then, with the direction of record labels, there will only be one song by each artist on a cd, the music will all sound the same weither its rap, rock, or pop, and the album sucess rate will be derived on how catchy the video is. Oh wait that is now. Oh crap.
 
real drums played like crap by me

I can totally relate to this. I've had a DR 660 for a coupla years, a wack of different drum softwares', but the crappy kit played by the crappy drummer (me) works so much better. Perhaps its because I am recording the other instruments crappily too :confused: ...

I find it horribly frustrating and time consuming programming drum beats. Not to say that trying to record a perfect take on drums isn't frustrating or time consuming, but the level of improvement of me playing them versus programming them is far superior. Not to mention the sense of satisfaction that comes with being actually able to play another instrument. I just have to learn to keep things much simpler when starting off :D.

As far as a click track...I found one pretty good way of working that out, probably by luck, and it might not work for you. I programmed the drum track into my DR 660, then play along with it, using a set of AKG K-55 headphones. I have the DR 660 volume level just about maxed, and I find it really works great, no bleedthru on the mics, and I don't have trouble hearing what I'm playing. Plus no ringing in my head at night :D. The most major improvement I have found so far is in my ability to keep consistent time. I also like to go through some of the preprogrammed beats, and just sorta 'jam along', it's good for teaching myself new things, and I don't lose the beat.

Now the problem I am faced with, is this; am I guitar player, bassist, vocalist, or drummer ? :confused: ... that and I need to buy a house and better drums...
 
I hope you're talking pure "sound quality". If not, you're sadly mistaken my friend. There's nothing worse than hearing a drummer with really bad timing and execution.

RF
 
Depends on what you're after.

I am an old drummer. Mostly a live gig drummer, but Ive had some things recorded, only recently (the last year or two), have I become interested indoing some recording myself. I tend to only like live instruments (my taste) I also prefer live sessions when musicians can interact. What I tell my students is: The word "drum" is a verb to you, not a noun. It's all about the doing. The relationship betwen a human being and their instrument conversing with other human beings with their instruments. I feel no amount of electronic programing can match the sound of that type of magic.
There is another type of musical creature out there.The "singer/songwriter". These individuals have benefitted greatly from the technological age. They can have at their fingertips all of the gizmos and processors, loop programs, auto-tune and the ilk to produce a good enough recording all by themselves to showcase their musical ideas. Lets not go overboard though and confuse the "instrumental accompaniment" that serve as background to these ideas as being equal to a real human being. It serves a purpose, and that's it!
To my ears, electronically produced percussion sounds more like Casio keyboard rhythm programs than they do real percussion. Even the most sophisticated ones just sound false. But I can understand how and why a person would use them. But then, they will have to realize that people like me have to ignore those sounds if we are expected to listen to their music. It woud be like a vocalist trying to listen to a song that had synthesized vocals. You just can't enjoy the performance because it is so obviously made by machine. I can understand it when used for a demo. I can never understand it for a final recorded product.
I just don't like the sound of electric drums either (my taste again). I will never play them because they sound like electric drums. They are too evenly tempered.
You get the same sound no matter how good or bad you play them. The cymbal sound.......Casio?
 
A good musician will subconsciously make changes that add feel to the song! Also a few microscopic mistakes give the song character.
I'd rather have real women than a blow-up doll although one is probably more convenient than the other.
 
One thing I did was loose the idea that I'm gonna produce a polished pro recording w/ my home gear. Doing it all yourself is what the gear sellers want you to believe, even if they don't explicitly say it.

A demo I can do. So that kind of frees up the tracks from perfectionism. Since I'm demo-ing a song, not a performance or any virtuosity, then for me this is ok.

So real drums just pop out of the recording for the rock, folk/rock, alt rock, pop rock styles that I try to do.

I agree that it really feels great to be learning another instrument, especially such a cool one, that is physical and helps wit my time keeping on my other instruments too.

The other thing is that I'll know a little more now when I get together with a drummer. I'll have an understanding of what can be achieved, and I'll know the language, and just be able to communicate more, and that may help more than anything in the long run.

I also noticed that people who hear my real drum demos vs. machine drum demos, they seem to move or get the beat more. They just seem to respond and not space out, they seem to say, "Wow." More than before. These are non-musicians who can't tell the timing on the HH is off or I missed a hard snare hit and got the rim or whatever.
 
I also noticed that people who hear my real drum demos vs. machine drum demos, they seem to move or get the beat more. They just seem to respond and not space out, they seem to say, "Wow." More than before. These are non-musicians who can't tell the timing on the HH is off or I missed a hard snare hit and got the rim or whatever.
Click to expand...

Missing a snare of HH isn't so bad! Especially for the non-musicians. It's when the timing is really off that even the most ignorant people can hear (or feel)! People on't listen for mistakes but when music (the beat) moves people, it's pretty obvious when it's off.
 
Well, after starting this thread maybe 3 weeks ago, I've been trying to play one drum track myself and it's been a learning experience, and that's about it.

I like the sound quality, but as far as playing, maybe one of you real drummers can record and post an mp3 version of this track recorded at 22.1khz (I have to check this again) and I can start with that. I'd have to transfer it back to a wave and upload to my MR-8....

But anyway, I posted the rough mix of this tune on the mp3 mixing thread.

Beyond practicing and taking lessons for the next 3 years, do you guys have any other suggestions?

Or should I now go program this chart into my R8?

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junplugged
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2151&alid=-1
 
i use Fruity Loops and samples because Im not a drummer, not because i think it sounds better than a drummer.......one day when i get better on drums ill go that route.......

i think the drums on the sample are distracting from the groove.....
 
Good point. Now that I'm listening to it again, and to my older versions with only guitars, I think I like them better :)

Well it was an experiment and maybe I'll use it as a "before" picture after I either improve my drumming, record a real drummer, or use my R8 or FLoops, or most likely for now, redo it w/ only guitars and voc.
 
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