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

  • Thread starter Thread starter junplugged
  • Start date Start date
I would like to add my $.02 at this point.

I do love the sound of accoustic drums recorded professionally and played professionally and given a huge budget that is the way to go. That being said with the advent of the home studio professional quality is not always available due to either equipment,experience or both. And you may or may not always have access to a drummer that is just going to nail a part exactly as you want it. That is why drum machines became widely used but programming them sucks.

I have just made the conversion from accoustic to homebuilt vdrums and I am absolutely loving it. Not only do I not have to worry about having $3000 worth or mics set up to sound good, but with a sampler installed I have unlimited access to samples that were recorded with thousands of $$$$$ worth of equipment. (look at battery by native instruments). Plus eventhough I consider myself to be a solid drummer I still make mistakes here and there. The beauty of the vdrums is that through midi if I mess up a fill it can be fixed without ruining the rest of a good take. I am in no way advocating using MIDI to create ridiculous fills that you cant play thats clearly cheating and cheaters should be shot accordingly :) but fixing is okay. This alone would be a great feature for your "aspiring" drummer

I am in agreement that programming drum machines is a huge pain in th arse but that is only a fraction of the electronic drum community so to speak. Eventhough I have a killer set of accoustics at my disposal I find that I can easily use my v's to easily obtain great sounding high quality results.

Bottom line accoustics are great but in many situations just not as practical.

But I may be wrong it has happened once or twice.
 
Last edited:
I believe that I said something similarly in my previous post, but I certainly didn't bring it as far as what you said.
We are living in a "Stepford Wife" society. People are so used to staying at home and either intellectually or physically masterbating, that they've forgotten how to interact with other humans. We have been shown that the machines that we invented perform more accurately than we do. So when we are feeling inept, we turn to the machine, and when we are questioned about it, we answer "It's just a tool, it's still my stuff" in a very defensive manner.
Every time you depend upon a machine to perform something that you should have learned how to do yourself, you've given up one more part of your humanity. Group music is meant to be played together by human beings. Multi-track overdubbing is another abomination, but one that we've learned to live with. Sure the musicians are playing their instruments or singing, but not with each other. It's like staying at home and masterbating to a porn video and convincing yourself that you have just had a sexual relationship. Multi-track overdubbing was the first step to the decline of recorded music. Sure you can polish everything and make it perfect, but at what cost?
It seems that everyone wants to be an artist if only it wasn't for that pesky studying and refining your craft thing.....oh, wait a minute there's a machine for that.:D

If electric drums are so damn great, then why are they trying to sound like acoustic drums?

Pretty soon Bill Gates will come up with "Singer/Songwriter 1.0" and it will be supported by "Band in a Box 1.0" and all of us can just go back to picking garbage, because music will be dead.
 
Re: I disagree

Laynestaley said:
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.
Click to expand...

hey! another Alice fan :-D
sounds great man, is that you? Awesome tune :) we should talk sometime, I'm a HUGE Alice freak :)
 
I believe that I said something similarly in my previous post, but I certainly didn't bring it as far as what you said.
We are living in a "Stepford Wife" society. People are so used to staying at home and either intellectually or physically masterbating, that they've forgotten how to interact with other humans. We have been shown that the machines that we invented perform more accurately than we do. So when we are feeling inept, we turn to the machine, and when we are questioned about it, we answer "It's just a tool, it's still my stuff" in a very defensive manner.
Every time you depend upon a machine to perform something that you should have learned how to do yourself, you've given up one more part of your humanity. Group music is meant to be played together by human beings. Multi-track overdubbing is another abomination, but one that we've learned to live with. Sure the musicians are playing their instruments or singing, but not with each other. It's like staying at home and masterbating to a porn video and convincing yourself that you have just had a sexual relationship. Multi-track overdubbing was the first step to the decline of recorded music. Sure you can polish everything and make it perfect, but at what cost?
It seems that everyone wants to be an artist if only it wasn't for that pesky studying and refining your craft thing.....oh, wait a minute there's a machine for that.

If electric drums are so damn great, then why are they trying to sound like acoustic drums?

Pretty soon Bill Gates will come up with "Singer/Songwriter 1.0" and it will be supported by "Band in a Box 1.0" and all of us can just go back to picking garbage, because music will be dead.
Click to expand...

Okay first off I am just assuming that this post was directed to me. But as far as electric drums sounding or trying to sound like accoustic drums that is only half the story. There are so many more sounds on my module than just a traditional "drumset".

And as far as musicians playing together I couldn't agree more. I think that you add a certain feel by playing together and recording at the same time. But there is also something to be said for the whole band not having to rerecord a whole song together because one member botched a measure.I never said to use electronic stuff drums synths whatever to edit and write stuff that you can't play. What I said was to use it to fix minor glitches in a track rather than having to rerecord an otherwise good take. My edrums are "so damn great" as you put it. Because of them I have access to unlimited amounts of great sounding drumsets at the push of a button. I can also practice and record anytime day or night which is great since I have a 9 month old child. Sounds are great but I am not a better player because of them I still have the skills to play anytime anywhere just like a keyboard player with banks upon banks of sounds. Or a guitar player with an effects processor.

But just for arguments sake I should differentiate that the e-drums I am speaking of are of the v-drum type variety NOT a simple drum machine.
 
So V drums are those electronic pads? Triggers to your sound module with many kits, and your hits have velocity and timing by you, and you can correct/quantize some that are off. I think that's what you are saying. That's a good combination, as long as your samples are able to change according to how you play/hit the triggers.

One question I have is the High Hat. I can vary the amount of pedal pressure and get an infinite number of sounds, do the samples change according to pedal pressure too?

With that setup I guess you wear headphones most of the time, I guess I would miss the acoustic kit, but if you have that too, then I guess you have it all covered, but this also sounds a little expensive, although very versatile.
 
probestyle said:
Okay first off I am just assuming that this post was directed to me. But as far as electric drums sounding or trying to sound like accoustic drums that is only half the story. There are so many more sounds on my module than just a traditional "drumset".

Click to expand...

Probestyle,
Sorry if I came off as attackng your post, I was responding in general to all of the electronic gizmo heads that have been flooding recording studios and stages. I just had an argument with a sound engineer that wanted to add triggers to my kit so that he could then re-model the sound.
In essence I agreed with most of what you wrote in your post about applications of electronics. I have even considered getting v-drums so that I can practice tracks at night without disturbing family and neighbors. My taste would NEVER allow me to use such an instrument to perform or record. But I'm glad you're having fun with them.
I also understand the difference between a drum machine, loops and e-drums. I feel as though they sound alike to the ear though even though there is the human element to the e-drums, they sound too synthesized for my tastes..
We all need to play together more. That's when the real magic happens. The rest is gimmickry and editing. My biggest respects go to the sound engineers that excel in recording live performances and live sessions. Actually capturing the moment and making it sound true to the ear. With the other kind, you sometimes have to ask who is really making the music, the musicians or the sound engineers?
 
Yes the hi hat is pressure sensitive and handles open closed and everythinng in between( including foot splashes).

As far as the toms/snare go Roland is using a technology they call "v-positioning" and cosm modeling to sense where on the head you hit in reference to center and rim and the sounds are modified accordingly.

As far as quantize goes I am really not a big fan. All I have ever done to modify/fix small problem spots is go into the MIDI score and move one or two individual notes here and there.

The price was fairly decent but I didn't go out and buy the roland pads just to say I had roland pads. I started with blank kellar shells and a pile of hardware that I bought from drummaker.com and pieced it all together from scratch. The cymbals are Hart Dynamics which I like becase from an audience perspective they give the illusion of real cymbals. And I built the triggers mechanisims from scratch. I used the roland brain because I liked the functionality. Overall It costed less to build than the cymbals and cases of my accoustic kit let alone the actual accoustic drums and hardware.

As far as who makes the music it's fairly simple. A band without an engineer can still make music. An engineer without a band is just a guy sitting in a room with tons of equipment.

To acheive that human element in my "home studio" I added a headphone amp and a few decent pairs of headphones so now my band and I can practice/record relativley(sp) quietly less some string noise. And there are definatley(sp) some sounds on the module that I think are way too electronic for my taste and some of the cymbals leave a little to be desired so I trigger sounds through Battery(sampler). Now on top of the module I have an arsenal of professionaly recorded drums from DW, Pearl and others and an array of cymbals from zildjian, sabian,paiste,meinhl, ect.. All in all pretty sweet and in my situation it is a perfect fit. But it may or may not be for everyone.
 
Re: I disagree

Laynestaley said:
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.
Click to expand...
I found the sound to be entirely adequate for my needs. Is there a good book or other tutorial on getting started with Fruity Loops? I'm a long experienced performing musician, but with zero experience with the electronic toys.
 
Re: Re: I disagree

bgavin said:
I found the sound to be entirely adequate for my needs. Is there a good book or other tutorial on getting started with Fruity Loops? I'm a long experienced performing musician, but with zero experience with the electronic toys.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid there is not. But you'll be able to learn it without a manual. Once you got started you can always come here for tips and tricks or for where to look for some decent samples.
There are actually one or two tutorials out there but they mostly deal with the advanced stuff. Here's some info that will get you started. I hope it is helpfull.
http://rapbattles.com/articles/86573.html

Good Luck.
 
I use an akia mpc2000xl for drum tacks wich sound a hell of a lot better then my friends crappy set recorded in a crappy room. It depend on what samples you have for drum hits and how much time you put into programing loops. I'd rather put real drums to my music but if the drums that I have access to suck and I don't have the proper recording environment to make them sound half way good.
 
I don't know about recording my crappy drums vs. what I may be able to do on a computer or drum machine. What I do know is I like playing drums. I like playing guitar and Bass. I like singing and playing keyboards. Technology can definitely make me sound more versatile, but there is nothing like knowing an instrument and letting the sound of that instrument be heard thru your playing. That playing can not be done thru a computer, only programming. I have a serious lack of respect for people that rely on programming and call it music.
 
97reb said:
I have a serious lack of respect for people that rely on programming and call it music.
Click to expand...

1. I think everyone here agrees that nothing can top real drums on music, if they're played well.
2. The reason people depend on programming often is that thay don't have access to real drums or simply can't afford them, or don't know how to play them.
3. If that so called music sounds way better and is more enjoyable to people then the frustrating and distracting sounds of a badly recorded untuned drumset that is played off beat, well then give me programmed drums anyway.
4. I bet you can't even tell the difference between real and programmed. Some of your favorite music may have programmed drums and you wouldn't even know.
5. In my book there's two ways to go in homerecording; you can either do everything you can to make your music sound as good as possible or you could swear by doing everything manually and sound not half as good as you could sound.
So you refuse to use any technology in your music. That means you don’t put any reverb or delay on your vox or on any other instrument, cause that’s technology and not the actual sound of playing right?
Take away the technology out of the latest cd you bought and there's nothing left of it...
6. I have a serious lack of respect for people that come in here with nothing to show for and start judging other people without even having a clue what they're talking about.
 
i wonder if he pulls up the synth/strings patch on his keys or just calls in the whole damn orchestra......
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top