Programming drums

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Programming drums

Yeah, but you also miss the "flow" that you would get with a full kit with sticks. Still, we find our own happiness.

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

Yeah, but you also miss the "flow" that you would get with a full kit with sticks. Still, we find our own happiness.

I've been alive for 38 years and playing musical instruments for 30 of that and never ever got behind a set until maybe 5 years ago, then an ekit shortly thereafter. I have no flow to miss. I'm just a squirrel tryina getta nut. Don't tell Aceman.

[Scottulus]

Re: Programming drums

Hmmn, I usually "keyboard" input basic snare and Kick stuff, about 8 measures at a time, and then I add in my cymbal stuff the same way; after I do that I edit all my velocities and fill stuff in the step editor, Logic makes it really easy to do this, actually.If I feel really lazy, I'll just drop in a groove from NI Komplete's Studio Drummer, Or Abbey Road And mess with that a bit. Drummer's never quite do what you want 'em to do, so when I record stuff I like to keep that feeling of "immmm well, not quite, but it'll do..." hahahaha

I play drums too, if I feel really motivated I'll just play them in, but yeah huge pain in the but whichever way you go about getting your drums down...

[ginormous]

Re: Programming drums

I've gotten interested in making my own drum input and have found out that it can be incredibly easy for someone who's crafty enough. The device that does the actual velocity reading is nothing more than a simple piezo buzzer. They're a buck at Radio Shack (until RS decides to get rid oc components all together), and it's essentially a piezo with the leads lengthened and ran into the drum brain which reads the varying voltages generated by the piezo and converts it to MIDI numbers. If you get a slab of that soft shop flooring, you can cut it into sections, tape a piezo to the bottom with packing tape, butcher a few old guitar cables and solder proper color to color, plug it into a brain and you have a drum set. You can also make the sought-after mesh heads with some foam, a piezo, some screen door cloth and some way to stick them all together in a drum shape. Snap-form cake molds work great if you find them used at the thrift store.

You can also build a converter from arduinos or similar newfangled microprocessor toys...or just buy/trade for a brain with MIDI out.

No, I haven't done any of this. I have a DM8 that has drum with physical heads and stuff. I've wanted to though...sound like a fun way to make a nice, easily collapsible kit that could fit in a briefcase.

ooh, here's a vid of a guy who's just wired raw piezo buzzers into a drum brain. This is the same thing that DDrum sticks in those cast-steel clamps to convert drums to triggers, and the same thing that a $600 Roland snare has in the head. Cashing in on the mysticism of MIDI.

A buddy of mine did something similar in the 80's. Real crafty guy; he worked repairing VCRs and cameras. This guy took apart some old piezo tweeters, and got some Remo practice pads (small, circular high-impact plastic shells with padding inside, and actual Ambassador heads stretched across).



He took the practice pads apart, and used a Dremel drill to bore a hole on the side of each shell. He put a dot of hot glue on the tip of the tweeter crystal, and soldered some guitar cord on the ends of the tweeter crystal leads, and soldered a quarter-inch jack at the other end. Then he put the crystal inside, underneath the padding. He mounted the jack, and re-assembled the shell. Ta-da -- DIY drum trigger. He said afterward that "If anything, they're too sensitive." Certainly better than anything available commercially at the time.

[DankStar]

Re: Programming drums

Alesis Control Pad + set of sticks:

I use one of these. Geeze, I haven't done anything in awhile cause it takes me forever and turns into a micromanagement headache after a bit. I do a pass with 1-3 things (say, hihat, snare, and bass drum), then do another pass or 2-3 to catch the rest. But then I gotta delete the "double triggers", false triggers, fix velocities, fix some timing issues, etc. I need to do something again, probably something short just to make sure it gets done.

[Scottulus]

Re: Programming drums

Also, for what it's worth, "playing" stuff in on iPad (Garageband) sucks, it just does... Step recording is the way to go, I feel if you are using an iPad. I The Line6 MobileKeys 25 is a great way to midi control; My Fishman Triple Play midi pickup is kind of hit and miss on the iPad, even though it usually tracks very, very well. lol Not that anyone cares about iPad...

[jon the art guy]

Re: Programming drums

I use one of these. Geeze, I haven't done anything in awhile cause it takes me forever and turns into a micromanagement headache after a bit. I do a pass with 1-3 things (say, hihat, snare, and bass drum), then do another pass or 2-3 to catch the rest. But then I gotta delete the "double triggers", false triggers, fix velocities, fix some timing issues, etc. I need to do something again, probably something short just to make sure it gets done.

THat was one of the reasons I decided to not get one of those, now that I think about it. Alesises are built cheaper than the Rolands, and there's a lot of crosstalk. I went with the DM8 for that reason.