What are you guys using for Drums?

shredaholic

New member
What gets you realistic drum sounds without having to mic up a drum kit? I'm thinking specifically rock drum sounds, but if you use something for other genres that also sounds very realistic, lets hear about it!
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

jeez i could use a good drum program too, specifically a vst plugin. ive got groove agent but i cant figure out how to properly sync it with midi files.
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

That's what I'd prefer - I'd like to be able to edit the drums in midi, then use midi imports to trigger the drum program
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

97% of the time it's real drums played by a real person and recorded with real microphones, no triggers or anything unless it's a metal band & I know we're gonna be triggering samples. If that's the case I'll hang 'em right at the start.

If I need to augment what we have I'll turn to Drumagog. It's great because I can add my own samples & I'll usually build a library that's specific to that project. It's pretty painless to use too...

I dunno if it'll do what you need since I have less then zero use for MIDI anything in my shop, but when I need to replace less then steller sounds it's the clear winner IMO.
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

I've been looking at this? www.drumcore.com It looks like what i need? But I'd hate to drop 2 beans on it to find it Sux. Right now I'm using band in a box . I find a beat that's close,Make a midi file , bring it into fruity loops,Tweak it and add real drum samples. (A lot of work to get rigid groove less drum tracks:yell: ) Anytime my band has gone into a pro studio the bassist and drummer have them selfs a Lil' cream puff war. (Nothing more pathetic to watch 2 grown men argue like 2 13 year old girls:27: ) So I need a solution to that problem. (i.e.) Subtract one EGO! from the equation. So at $50+ and hour studio time. This would pay for itself if it can do what they claim?
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

J Moose said:
97% of the time it's real drums played by a real person and recorded with real microphones, no triggers or anything unless it's a metal band & I know we're gonna be triggering samples. If that's the case I'll hang 'em right at the start.

If I need to augment what we have I'll turn to Drumagog. It's great because I can add my own samples & I'll usually build a library that's specific to that project. It's pretty painless to use too...

I dunno if it'll do what you need since I have less then zero use for MIDI anything in my shop, but when I need to replace less then steller sounds it's the clear winner IMO.


Another vote for Drumagog..you can record entire songs with nothing more than a microphone, a pencil (or other item to tap your desk with) and the drumagog program! It's amazing
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

If your like me and HATE, I mean HATE putting your guitar down to mess with drums and the computer, you have get into using loops. I love the ones at www.betamonkeymusic.com For $30 you get a cd full of great usable loops and they are ACID'ized so you can change the tempos of any of them. I just drag and drop parts right in.. simple..

Heres one I did 2 weeks ago with the BetaMonkey double-bass set:
http://hair-metal.com/tunes/splawn3.mp3
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

DirrtyCraig said:
If your like me and HATE, I mean HATE putting your guitar down to mess with drums and the computer, you have get into using loops. I love the ones at www.betamonkeymusic.com For $30 you get a cd full of great usable loops and they are ACID'ized so you can change the tempos of any of them. I just drag and drop parts right in.. simple..

Heres one I did 2 weeks ago with the BetaMonkey double-bass set:
http://hair-metal.com/tunes/splawn3.mp3

I've got away with using loops so far, I'm just concerned about when it comes to recording my songs/albums properly that I won't be able to just throw down any old loop and make it interesting. I guess it's probably the easiest option though - I'll have to go and dig out that CD of recorded loops that came with my DAW!
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

CapoFirstFret said:
Another vote for Drumagog..you can record entire songs with nothing more than a microphone, a pencil (or other item to tap your desk with) and the drumagog program! It's amazing

Yeah, you could I guess but I don't use it like that.

I'm using it to fix "problems" with drum sounds that might not match the song. Like say the drummer used a really big snare, like a 7x14 mahogany on one song and the 'note' of the drum is too low for the song...it's kinda muddy and doesn't cut through the mix the way anyone wants it to. I'll fire up Drumagog and find a sample of a small snare, like a 3x13 and trigger that from the recorded snare...blending together the "meat" of the big drum and the slice of the little drum. I'll do the same thing with kicks & toms too and it's never replacement, always augmenting.

Well, 99.6% of the time anyway.

Create 'yer own loops...be original! Be musical, think like a drummer!

:eek13:
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

I've tended towards the sample and loop domain myself, more out of ease and familiarity than any studied decision that they're the only way to go. I've done entire songs with pre-made loops, which is easy but can feel rather bland. I've built entire patterns from one-shots, which takes forever but can yeild a much more tailored-to-the-song result. Most often, I mix the two up: pre-made loops -- preferably ones that don't feel too mechanical -- plus hand-added accents and transitions. I'm definitely still learning my way, but the recent addition of some Drums on Demand stuff has made it MUCH easier for me. I really dig how those collections are organized and the loops are much more usable than many I've tried before.

I work with them in ACID, usually recording a couple of scratch tracks as a guide, but sometimes I just site there with a guitar in hand and play along with it over and over -- helps with getting me nice and solid on the parts by the time I'm actually recording -- and then export the results in Audition.
 
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Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

kmcguitars said:
I find a beat that's close,Make a midi file , bring it into fruity loops,Tweak it and add real drum samples. (A lot of work to get rigid groove less drum tracks:yell: ) ?


The only version of Fruity Loops I've tried was pretty old ('99 ish?), and didn't seem to have a function for assembling individual patterns into song format. Do the newer versions offer that capability? My buddy is always on the lookout for a program that will simulate the Alesis or Yamaha drum machine experience.



kmcguitars said:
I (Nothing more pathetic to watch 2 grown men argue like 2 13 year old girls:27: )

Could be worse. Could be watching them argue ~with~ 13 year old girls. :eek13:
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

a boss DR-3 :D


got it today.. gonna try to record somehting tomorrow
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

DirrtyCraig said:
If your like me and HATE, I mean HATE putting your guitar down to mess with drums and the computer, you have get into using loops. I love the ones at www.betamonkeymusic.com For $30 you get a cd full of great usable loops and they are ACID'ized so you can change the tempos of any of them. I just drag and drop parts right in.. simple..


I have a couple BetaMonkey sets I use for mid-to-low tempo non-metal stuff in Acid, but can't say I'm all that impressed by their quality control. The recordings themselves are good, but I find that the loops start to sound artifact-y a lot sooner when you adjust the tempo than loops from 'genuine' Sony/Sonic Foundry disk do.

Also, I often find that BM's loops don't actually fill their entire designated length. That is, a loop file pasted into Acid might be the correct length to fill, say, 4 bars at the loop's manufacturer-stated original tempo, but the actual audio content of that file might really be a few bpm slower. So when I drag-paste several repeats of a loop in a row, there's a split second gap of silence before each repeat that I end up having to use Beatmapper to eliminate.

So, yeah, I end up using their one-shot samples a lot more than their loops.


DirrtyCraig said:
Heres one I did 2 weeks ago with the BetaMonkey double-bass set


My BM frustations (har har) aside, I've been considering buying that set for a while now. Just for the one-shots, though. Do you know if it uses a different kit from their rock sets, or the same one played more aggressively? I'd love to get some good muted cymbal hits.
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

J Moose said:
Yeah, you could I guess but I don't use it like that.

I'm using it to fix "problems" with drum sounds that might not match the song. Like say the drummer used a really big snare, like a 7x14 mahogany on one song and the 'note' of the drum is too low for the song...it's kinda muddy and doesn't cut through the mix the way anyone wants it to. I'll fire up Drumagog and find a sample of a small snare, like a 3x13 and trigger that from the recorded snare...blending together the "meat" of the big drum and the slice of the little drum. I'll do the same thing with kicks & toms too and it's never replacement, always augmenting.

Well, 99.6% of the time anyway.

Create 'yer own loops...be original! Be musical, think like a drummer!

:eek13:


But it's so much more fun to say you played all the drums for a track with a pencil on your desk :)
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

I use Propellerhead Reason 3.0 for programming my Drums, loops and anything else that's not a guitar or a bass :D
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

Program the midi track in Nuendo, use Battery2 to trigger samples. Kick and snare from Andy Sneap; hat's, one china, and toms from DFH (original); main china, crash's, ride, and splash from NSkit.
 
Re: What are you guys using for Drums?

I use Fruity Loops for two reasons.
1) It's layed out like a drum machine, which is easy for me because I've used them as long as they've been made.
2) You can import any WAV file into them, I've got a huge library of sounds. I don't use sampled loops, as I prefer to make my own. I learned a little secret from Dr. Dre. He never had to pay royalties for samples because he would sample a loop he liked and then replicated it with a drum machine. Very smart!
 
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