What do guitarists use for drums?

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VesuviusJay said:
Check out a sample of what you can do with PC drummer. Of course its more for the accoustic requirement, but you can do some great stuff, including tempo changes, time signiture changes, fills and doublestops. The best part is, you can take your favorite single drum .wavs and create your own kit that PC drummer uses. Anyway try this track out and see what you think of the sequenced drum track. It is definately so far the most "real" sounding and feeling sequencer of the multitude I have tried.

http://www.vesuviusdeath.com/AMrhythm.zip
Click to expand...
hey VesuviusJay... the link does not work...
 
Beta Monkey Music Drum Loops

I have to agree with everyone up here on the post - the Beta Monkey stuff is the best drum loops I've found for anything rock, hands down.

Yeah, you get the occasional clip or clunker here and there but the drums are just rock-solid both in sound and playing. You get so much actually - I sometimes don't know where to dig in on the discs! Cool sh*t for sure.

Duke
 
I'm a guitarist/bassist (but mostly guitar) who dabbles with drums. I'm not great on the drums, but I can make do.

What I do in my humble home studio (we're talking 4 track cassette), is use an Alesis SR16 drum machine, record the bass, and rhythm guitars. Then I'll go back and replace the drum machine track with real drums. It's kinda a pain in the butt, but it works out OK - even better if you know a REAL drummer that you can invite over.

A good friend of mine has a big barn outfitted for LOUD jamming, complete with a rather large drum kit with two floor toms. I personally do not need two floor toms sooooo.....

I would take the 4 track unit and set it on one floor tom, and a small Behringer mixer on the other floor tom. That way I have easy access to both units, while playing the drums. The drum machine is always on track 1. I'll line the mixer into track 1, which will effectively erase the drum machine as soon as you hit record. Into the mixer, I'll have two SM58's for stereo overheads, and sometimes a kick drum mic too (but I noticed that the overheads picked up the kick drum so well, that I nixed the kick drum mic). I'm lazy and like to keep it simple as possible. With headphones on, hit play/record, and there ya go. Sometimes I would prefer recording to an open track instead of the drum machine track, so that I could hear the drum machine in my headphones while recording the drums - just to help me keep time better.

And here's the results. Click the link below, and then click on "Music", which will be on the right. The songs titled "All I've Got To Say About Love", and "Long Lonely Nights" are the two songs that I recorded in this fashion. All other tunes were recorded under entirely different circumstances (some live snippets of the band).

http://www.soundclick.com/timothylamb

Hope ya like! Keep in mind - VERY low budget recording!
 
tombuur said:
If one thing is lame about Band in a Box, it's the drums. They sound so mechanical and unreal. BB may be fine for outlining a song and rehearsing. But drums, no.

In my experience good loops give the most realistic sounding drums. Unfortunately, loops are not very flexible. You are usually stuck with a rhythmic pattern with variations and fills, but sometimes it doesn't fit in and you can't find anything else in the collection that does. Also, you can't adjust individual drums, like increasing volume of kick drum. Here midi is a lot more flexible. But if you can find loops that suit your needs for a particular song, that's (in my view) what comes closest to a real drummer.
Click to expand...

Actually you can adjust just about anything about BIAB drums. You can change vol, drum sounds, beat frequency, and just about every other aspect via pattern editing.

Then given your adjusted/tweaked patterns, you can generate the final drum sounds by routing the BIAB MIDI output through a drum machine line an Alesis HR-16. The result can be quite good.

Ed
 
cellardweller said:
I've been known to repeatedly punch walls/old ladies ... amplified queefs
Click to expand...

Can you post an mp3 of that number then? :-)
 
Update

Just installed BFD Drums yesterday, and my first impression is they sound very real. I have so far used a Roland sound module for midi drums, and it sounds okay. If you like you can make great music with purely artificial techno drums, and so you can with the Roland samples. But if you want drums triggered by midi that sound like they were recorded with real drums, then BFD is excellent.

As to loops, I too think Beta Monkey is the best value for money.

And Band in a Box, I still think sounds artificial. The fact that you can edit patterns doesn't help. Those patterns are probably the reason for the mechanical sound. Also, I don't want to edit a lot. I just want to select drum grooves I like either in midi or as sampled loops and put them together.
 
I find Session Drummer in Sonar very useful. The drum patterns are supposely played by a real drummer hence the "real" feel.... combining with soundfonts I am happy with my drum tracks....
 
I use a Yahama RY9 Rhythm Programmer. I need to start learning sequencing, though. My daughter wants to record a song with a music box sound, and I'd like to create my own percussion tracks.

I recorded this with the RY9. Please give it a listen and leave a comment. Some have said the drums sounded pretty good.

We joke that drum machines are especially useful because they don't have issues! :)
 
Software = JAZZ++ ( freeware from www.jazzware.com )

Hardware = Soundblaster PCI 128 ($25) using Soundfonts configured for GS Midi. This gives 10 drum kits, and more than the GM 128 sounds ( over 300 )
 
I'm a native guitar player, that's why I bought a keyboard to play all other instruments I need within a song. I have Korg Triton Studio and the drums sound pretty great in my opinion, when mixed properly with effects.
 
I love to use Drummers for drums but I only get about a four beat click on the drummers head and they start moving.

Then I have to chase them around the house trying to reposition the mic until I run out of mic cable.

It just NEVER works.



:eek: :D :D
 
I also use the Boss Dr. 770. It sounds very good and I haven't even scrathed the surface on what it can actually do.
 
On a more serious note...

Has anyone out there tried to use the Boss DR-5 with the MIDI out to trigger something like Fruity Loops etc?

I have the DR-5 and like it for ease of use and portibility.

Sound wise on the DR-5 there is not enough dynamics (four levels of "loudness" with various combinatiosn of the acccent keys) and dated lower resolution sounds.

Bought Fruity Loops but I can not get into drum programing with a mouse and I have no other MIDI triggers available except for the DR-5 but I can't get them to communicate well and the FL forums and support were not any help.

A DR-5 site indicated the DR-5 was created before General Midi standards were defiend and while the DR-5 can send MIDI it does not automatically communicate with General MIDI formats.

I have given up for now unless someone knows the trick.
 
I prefer using the Wizoosounds drum samples in Kontakt or Battery with an akai mpd-16. It seems much more versatile than canned loops. However, for those with limited rhythm and/or want a quick beat, loops are great.
 
DRUMS,
whoaaaa..... i messed with a shedload of sequencers and stuff,
and i just cant EVER beat the sound of my own drumkit...
not that i got such a great kit (sonor force 2000, istanbul cymbals) ,
but i worked years on recording myself, and i'm slowly getting.....good at it...
ain't a pro yet..... but in my opinion, if you can record em right,
no drumcomputer can beat real drums


OF COURSE....you need a decent drummer....and i always do like 25 takes before i'm happy....And i start cutting and pasting,,,,,create loops...
but allmost EVERY electronical song of mine also contains REAL drums,
cause damn,,,,that sound...The dynamics....you get a different sound each time you hit the snare or the kick...

tyeah.....i love my kit....but i bet that most guitarists love their guitar...


so you don't want to buy a drumkit and an entire mic-setup?
fine....those BLUE JAY DRUMS from i donno-who ARE great, fact...

there's other real good stuff...like DRUMKIT FROM HELL....thats some fat stuff too.... and i think they even released version two....its an entire DVD full with samples i think.....fat samples
 
I had a Synsonics machine, then a Korg thing, then an R8 Roland I still have, and then I got drums. I wish I got drums back when I got any of the above, I'd be a far better drummer. So now I use a click track and try to play drums, but I kind of don't need any now, will do solo acoustic, and find a drummer to play them for the electric jams. I just rearranged studio and gave them some room.
 
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