Ze Drums-- She are kiking my arse

[herodotus]

You know, I would be neglecting my role here if I failed to point out that there are tons of unemployed drummers in the world

Proof that there is indeed some kind of universal justice (speaking as a former drummer)

I believe you are thinking of bass players

I *really* need a MIDI-enabled steering wheel



Derek.

An interesting proposal.

[Lunch Money]

Cool beans with the tips, thanks. I always found the transition between tapping on a table and tapping MIDI keys to be a tough one, but that's because I had the kit samples loaded. Maybe I'll try doing it without a sampler loaded sometime and see how that turns out for me!

The tricky part, too, is not knowing where to add grace notes and so forth. It's the 'subtle' drum sounds that really make it come alive, not just the kick and snare (or so my experience has been).

As for using a real drummer, I'd love to. I just don't know any. And if I did, I don't have the mics needed to hook it all up.

Great advice, though, even if I wasn't petitioning for it. I may have secretly hoped for a tip here or there.

Greg

[Sascha Franck]

You could even take shamanns tip a bit further and actually record your finger tapping.
Of course you will now need some additional programs/plugins, such as a beat slicer extracting MIDI files and something to replace the beats.
This could make up for quite some great beats - I've done it with success allready.

Another idea would be to get another input device, such as a used SPD-6. They are great for finger use. A MIDI keyboard actually isn't the best input device for any sort of lively drum patterns.
It might however help to spread the same instrument over more than one key. I often do that with hats or percussive elements. That way you can use L/R patterns rather than only recording one instrument using one finger.
In addition, it defenitely helps to learn some realtime MIDI drum programming. On a standard GM drum setting I'm using my left for kicks and snares (usually ring and index finger) while playing hats or cymbals with the right. After a while of practice this will become quite natural.
Regarding grace/ghost notes: Experiment with a simple kick/snare/hat groove and add offbeat 16th notes all throughout, triggering a softer snare sound. Then change velocities of some of them, delete a few, whatever. IMO this will help enormeously to bring your beats to some life.
Further, I can only recommend buying some cheap percussive instruments, such as a bunch of shakers, claves, maybe some bongo-like things (don't go for real bongos, you'll only expect them to sound like track XYZ) and such. Record them over any basic drumbeat and very often you may find things to live up.

But hey, I know you weren't exactly looking for advice. I'm actually in the same boat. I know quite a bit about drum programming, I got the required tools and such - and still, I usually find my beats to sound utterly boring.
Guess it's got a lot to do with insufficient input devices. Especially tough for guitarists as you just don't feel "home" on a keyboard. That's why I keep looking for a cheap SPD-6 or something else.

Seems as if in the end a real drummer is still the best choice. Unfortunately you don't have them hanging around at your place most of the time...

[Zauni]

It's not even that I can't visualize a good drum track. I can 'hear' them with my mind's ear, and can even 'beatbox' them (not with any skill, just to give an impression to myself while I'm jamming or bouncing the idea off people.
Greg

I don't want to come off just pitching my software here but what you are describing is exactly the reason we put a learn function into Jamstix. You can use it to just tap a snare and kick and Jamstix will pick it up. Then you can just click some hihats to it or use the randomizer to have that done for you and slide up the accents and you have your personal groove.

Again, I don't want to look like a snake oil salesman...let me know if I do.

[sonicsmurf]

Well, drums. Used to be my favourite topic because as a former drummer I try everything to get some realistic drumming into my computer.
Yesterday I tried Jamstix. I did not find it easy to understand. Then I read the Rayzoon forum and was just a little smarter. After about two hours of playing around (and setting it up in Tracktion) I was able to really use it (together with guitar). Not everything it "played" made sense in a musical way, especially the fills came in at moments when they should not have. And even though I reduced the variations with the sliders, sometimes it was awful what the thing did - if it had been a real drummer, I would have stuck his drumsticks up his nostrils. The fills and accents were often "messy", and I hate that in my stuff. But still, I'll try it some more. Jamstix is a promising concept. And, contrary to some other posts, I did not find the internal sounds bad. The snare could be tighter but this can be adjusted and then the standard kit sounds okay.

What I do when I cannot make up my mind about a drum pattern for a new song: I just record the hi-hats as a guideline without too much structure. Once the other instruments have been recorded, I add kicks and snares. Starting with only hi-hats helps me focus on the flow of a song.

[rockstar_not]

Are you able to tap out the beat with your fingers? Just put them on a table and see if you can get the rhythm you want.

After that, do the same on a keyboard and record the midi.

Great idea. The sound is inside your head anyway.

You could even record the fingertapping, make midi later. KT Drum Trigger might do the trick.

Lunch - you and I - we cry the same sad song. I don't even get inspired by the loads of beta monkey loops discs that I have any more - none of them have slow groove hand percussion. So I resort to recording lame synth-pop stuff instead of the slow acoustic rock stuff I'm more comfortable with.

I tried this with KT drum trigger with limited success. You really need different tappable sounds (different frequency ranges) in order to make it work correctly to trigger different instruments. Lining up impulses on an audio track and entering midi on a midi editor time aligned to the audio works just as well, and you have more control over it. And then, there is the tapping on the controller.

To the dude that taps em out fine on the steering wheel - I think that Edirol makes a controller that looks like a steering wheel for tapping out rhythms. Nope, not a current product on their site. Well, it looked kind of like a circular shaped drumkat controller, sort of like a hand-drum midi controller

Next step for me is buying or building my own cajon with the wires on the one side for the snare sound. Or a Djembe, or both.

Now, what i really need is a full-on 12' high room and a nice DW kit that the kids at church can come over and bang on while I record.

-Scott

[sonicsmurf]

KT DrumTrigger is interesting. I wonder if it'll work if I "beatbox" with my mouth into the vocal microphone - the result should be a BD/SD/HH drumkit pattern... hey, that's another thing to try out

[rockstar_not]

KT DrumTrigger is interesting. I wonder if it'll work if I "beatbox" with my mouth into the vocal microphone - the result should be a BD/SD/HH drumkit pattern... hey, that's another thing to try out

had not thought of that one.... runs off to try it out.

[greendoor]

If you have a drum brain you can plug a couple of mic's into the trigger inputs ... Boom Shick b-Boom Boom Shick ... too much fun. I have SPD-6 which is OK - I set them up with two pads per kick and snare, and then another patch with two pads per open and closed high hats. You can play them sort of like bongos - much more fun with two pads per note.

[Lunch Money]

Zauni -- I like your humility in promoting your product. Don't worry about coming off as a salesperson or anything like that. Let's face it, you have a product you're excited about and you see opportunities for people that might get some use out of it. No need to apologize for that. In fact, between this and the previous post you made to me explaining Jamstix a bit more in depth, I think I'll give the latest demo a whirl.

The KTdrumtrigger idea is good, but I've never heard of people getting very satisfying results out of these midi replacement plug-ins, so I've just never really opened my mind to them enough. Another case in which I should give it another whirl I guess.

rockstar_not: we'd both be recording the same sad song instead of just singing it if only we could get the drum tracks layed down.

[MotorMind]

Btw, have you guys checked out JamStix?

Although I find that it it works best for rock/pop/funk stuff, it really is pretty fantastic and does what it advertises....

Actually, it can be used with a lot of other styles too... I like to load anything *but* drum sounds into it.

[sonicsmurf]

I tested and then bought Jamstix, it takes a bit of learning to get it under control but I like it a lot and will use it in all my stuff (the internal drumkit actually sounds *very* realistic when tweaked and EQ'd a little). Next thing I will try is to use it with other sampled instruments such as congas.

I played around with the KTdrumtrigger but did not get very far. What I tried is a setup that would be very simple to use. Often I just drum with my hands on my knees while doing the kick drum with my right foot. So I placed a microphone on the floor next to my right foot, and a second microphone above my knees, and then tried to setup the trigger filters so it would turn my drumming into the Kickdrum / Hihat / Snaredrum sounds of the drumkit soundfont in my computer. It would be fun if this worked, but the result was not that good

[KoenTanghe]

I played around with the KTdrumtrigger but did not get very far. What I tried is a setup that would be very simple to use. Often I just drum with my hands on my knees while doing the kick drum with my right foot. So I placed a microphone on the floor next to my right foot, and a second microphone above my knees, and then tried to setup the trigger filters so it would turn my drumming into the Kickdrum / Hihat / Snaredrum sounds of the drumkit soundfont in my computer. It would be fun if this worked, but the result was not that good

Hi sonicsmurf,
can you send me a recording? I tried the same before with my drumtrigger plugin (and also beatboxing) and it did work for me. I adit it's sometimes a bit difficult to find the right settings but still, it should work if the sounds are different enough (like very high or very low).

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

I can't drum worth crap, and frankly, if I had to drum to save my life I'd be six feet under!

That said, I've ended up with a dozen Beta Monkey drum loop CDs and I can typically find one that fits the mood. They're played by a Real Drummer(tm) and sound pretty decent. No, I don't work for them, I'm just a happy customer.

I've tried using MIDI drum grooves and hacking them up and/or changing 'em around, with some limited success. But I just downloaded the Jamstix demo and I'll play with it over the weekend. We'll see how well it drived DR-008 (lol)!