I am looking to purchase a drum machine, but I am not sure which one will suit my need.
First of all, I have NO need for a machine that can generate its own sounds, I will exclusively use it with acoustic sets samples. Second, I have neither no need for a simple sample playback'er like the LM stuff in Cubase.

What I need, is a drum machine which with a click of a button can make a fill or a break or a roll, randomized after selecting for instance all the tom's (I hope all know what I mean).

Is there such a drum machine which can do this? My eyes have landed on the DR-008 a few times, will it suit my needs?

It sounds like you want a pattern generator rather than a sample player or other sound source. I take it that you already have a nice set of drum samples you want to use. The closest thing I have seen to what you describe is Jammer. It is like Band in a Box. Though not limited to drum parts it will automatically generate patterns depending on the style you choose. It will also generate drum fills but will not restrict fills to using only the drums you select. Products like Jammer are designed to quickly create the basics of a song and the file can be saved in MIDI format. DR008 is not a drum machine that creates patterns. It is a sound source that plays sample files and has generators for electronic drum sounds.

Robert

Battery will give you random fills - load a drumloop, set sample start to random modulation (16th/8th note snapping, etc) then put in a few hits in your sequencer - instant craziness.

Thanks for the tips both of you. Hmm, darned, I think programming drums are extremely tedious. Granted, I haven't played with the drum maps and stuff in Cubase, but how do most people out there program drum rolls and fills?

Z: for the somewhat simple stuff, i just jam out on the drums live on my keyboard. then i go into the piano roll and fix up any mistakes and maybe beef up some of the fills.

for the more complicated beats, i'll do one of a few things: one method is to set the tempo of the song to half its original value and record the drums at that speed via midi keyboard. another method is slicing up some rex files in phatmatik and re-assembling them in a really fucked up manner a la squarepusher. my other method is to record drums from my kit. i've recently been working on some drum & bass by drumming instead of programming drums, and not only does it sound pretty cool but it forces me to get creative with my drumming.

funkylime wrote:

Z: for the somewhat simple stuff, i just jam out on the drums live on my keyboard. then i go into the piano roll and fix up any mistakes and maybe beef up some of the fills. for the more complicated beats, i'll do one of a few things: one method is to set the tempo of the song to half its original value and record the drums at that speed via midi keyboard. another method is slicing up some rex files in phatmatik and re-assembling them in a really fucked up manner a la squarepusher. my other method is to record drums from my kit. i've recently been working on some drum & bass by drumming instead of programming drums, and not only does it sound pretty cool but it forces me to get creative with my drumming.

Like I said I haven't played around with drums in Cubase, but I did in Reason 2, and it sounds absolutely horrible. If you want to hear what I mean, you can download a song from my web site: http://home.broadpark.no/~sbull/ (and perhaps give me some feedback at what I do wrong with the mix).

Consider using some of the pre-constructed MIDI file drum parts like those from Twiddlybits. I know Sonar II will let you paint in MIDI drum patterns.

Robert

on on a bar in your piano roll draw in ¼ lines in your bar so now 4 hits will happen in one bar instead of just one hit that way your roll will be 4 times your bpm......follow me

in its chopping function in the piano roll, fruity will do some drum fills for ya. i program all the drum fills myself. even though i get frustrated often, i like to painstakingly tweak every hit until it sounds realistic...

Z - where did you get your sample set? I am desparate for a decent acoustic drum set!

Secondly, while perhaps not quite what you had in mind there are two step sequencer/drum sample play back machines available - Machine II by Jorgen Aase (freeware) and Desaster Development's Ruction (commercial $45). While you still have to do basic step programming, you can then "play" the sequence you just created using midi. Doesn't quite solve your problem but it might help!

Michael

MArmstrong wrote:

Z - where did you get your sample set? I am desparate for a decent acoustic drum Michael

I like this one that I downloaded from here at KVR (Banks)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/b.turl/Bat-AmbientKit.rar

Let me start by also getting behind Machine II. Easy to use, so you can make your own fills and patterns very quickly. If you have a drum machine plug with the sounds you want, and your host supports MIDI FX (Sonar, Plasma, Cubase SX with the MFX wrapper), you might look into "Slicy Drummer" from www.musiclab.com I've used this many times when stuck for a drum pattern. Their drum fill plug looks good, too...

Z wrote:

Thanks for the tips both of you. Hmm, darned, I think programming drums are extremely tedious. Granted, I haven't played with the drum maps and stuff in Cubase, but how do most people out there program drum rolls and fills?

I generally program drums in the tedious step write way, I'm used to doing it in this way and I like the control that is possible......does take time, though.
Some things to maybe take into consideration when trying to emulate an acoustic kit played by a human........

if you have a 16's feel on the Hihat that a drummer would need both hands to play it's unlikely that there will be a Hihat hit at the same time as a Snare.

Cymbal crashes are generally punctuated with Kicks or Snares so I usually don't have a Hihat playing at the same time as a Cymbal.

Once I've written some kind of drum fill I usually get rid of the Hihat that may be in the same part of the measure.

I always play with the velocity of all elements of the kit i.e. for a galloping 16's feel Hihat pattern.........Loud, Rest, Soft, Softer (times 4 beats)

Try different samples of the same instrument to get different dynamics i.e. try a hard hit Hihat on one note and a soft hit on another.

Experiment with triplet fills of Toms and Snares over a 4/4 especially the last beat of the measure. (Lots of drummers make triplet type fills)

Well these are just my personal thoughts.
Hope they're useful.

I'm not really surprised that it's hard to find a drumfill generator. It's not quite easy to create a drumfill; it demands quite well developed skills. As said here before, if you randomize a pattern it very rarely works well. A drumfill, simple or complex, is a composition on itself. Having a knob to do that for you would be like having a knob for composing a great song...

DR-008 has a function that enables you to place a pattern under one knob, but you have to program that pattern yourself.

The midiplugs from Musiclab look interesting, though.

This reminds me of an idea for a program that I have been mulling arround. Essentialy it is a virtual drummer that is based on existing drummers (e.g., Keith Moon). Each drummer can play a variety of patterns (tom rolls, breaks etc.). The rythms are built in a:

Do this fill, now do a roll etc etc.

I'm sure this is technically difficult to pull off. But it has to be better than my poor drum programming. A rex type system would help with tempo selection.

Oh, I forgot the best things:

1. You see the drummer phyisically playing the parts (in 3D).

2. You can choose how drunk/stoned the drummer is which makes their playing looser or tighter.

3. When you exit the drummer explodes and/or chokes on vomit.

Any takers?

JEMSKIJEMSKI wrote:

3. When you exit the drummer explodes and/or chokes on vomit.

Their own?

I always program drums with a mouse on a drum track in Cubase. Step programming of drums is the most reliable way to get what you want.

The more you play live, the more you understand what a drummer is doing - I play live about every 2 weeks or so with various drummers. I have an excellent drummer friend who has given me lots of tips, but I go with aucoton's tips most of all - remember that an acoustic drummer has only two hands and two feet - so hi-hats stop playing during a tom fill, you can't hit a cymbal and a flam at the same time, etc

Ghost notes are really important too, especially since modern drumming is so snare-focused. Ghosting can be done either with ghost samples or with 32nd beats at low velocity (eg 40-60)

There's an excellent article on this in computer music http://www.computermusic.co.uk/tutorial/real/1.asp which deals not only with drums but other "real" instrument programming.

MArmstrong - I use Battery Studio Drums and they're fantastic. They're really lively and characterful. Plus they're easier to program now that there's a drum map generator on the web (look in my other posts for details)