Looking for drum loop packages

[ultramexican]

Hello everyone.

I'm a guitar player/singer/songwriter who's recently got a hold of Ableton Live. And I am dying to insert backing drum tracks to my songs. I've never played drums and would prefer to avoid writing my own drum tracks.

I'm a newbie at this terminology, so I am not sure exactly what I need (drum kits vs. drum loops vs. drum VSTi) but I'm basically looking for some sort of bundled, pre-recorded drum tracks. Ideally organized in folder by BPM, then by folder into what drum kit was used to make the loops, and then the .wav files to be labeled like Verse1.wave Chorus.wav Fill3.wav Intro.wav Endcrash.wav, etc. So I can place them into Live accordingly.

In short, I want the closest thing to having a drummer playing in the same room as me.

What should I do? Where should I start?

Thank you so much.
~Carlos

[liars&ashes]

----Check the Sony site, they probably have the biggest/cheapest selection of drum loops overall. Also Dangerous Bear (some fellows on K-v-R here) do some live played drum loop packages that might be of interest to you.

Jeff

[ultramexican]

Thanks for the reply Jeff.

After some more looking around I found stuff like Drums on Demand and Discrete Drums that seem to offer the exact thing I'm looking for.

Is there anywhere I can get something "Drums on Demand"-esque for free?

I know there's tons of drum loops for free everywhere on the internet, but do you know of any that are drum kits intended to build a whole song out of? (i.e. intro, verse, chorus, fills, etc.)

[liars&ashes]

----No, and not really. Most of the free drum loops on the internet are not realy 1) legal to use, 2) of any quality, and of the few that are legal to be using, they aren't split up like that usually. If someone was going to do that much work, with any decently recorded drum samples, they'd most likely want to sell them. The ones you mentioned are probably good choices, as there doesn't seem to be very many of those kinds of build-a normal-song-sets of loops in general. On the other hand, you can just chop some loops up and build your own sections from one or two loops of the same kit, so that opens up your options all over again.

Jeff

[LOOPxDIGGA]

M-Audio has a set of 7 disks in a package called "Extreme Drums"...i came across them at guitar center for $80...all of them are split up the way you want...the sample disks are called "M-Audio Pro Sessions"...and as i said this package is called "Extreme Drums"...worth a look...

[ultramexican]

Thank you all for your input, it is very much appreciated.

After much searching...you are very much in the right, Jeff. Every set of drum loops that's worth a damn has a price tag on it. I'm new to the DAW world so I didn't know what to expect.

Recording and making my own music is turning out to be a much more expensive hobby than I had anticipated. I'm just a poor college student, though...once I get out there and get a job I'm sure it won't be a big deal to spend $80 on drum loops, but right now it just isn't in the cards for me financially.

I'm gonna stick to downloading drum loops in bulk and sifting through them in order to find something useable. Cheers and thanks again for the help.

[liars&ashes]

I'm gonna stick to downloading drum loops in bulk and sifting through them in order to find something useable. Cheers and thanks again for the help.

----2 other options, #1 make friends with a music store worker who can get you a discount, and no I'm not kidding, and #2, wait for your birthday or bar mitzvah etc. You'll be glad you did if/when you invest in some good drum loops though, they can make all the difference in how your music sounds and moves along.

Jeff

[ultramexican]

Well my birthday is coming up Feb. 8th...

I dunno. If you could only buy let's say one drum loops cd, what is the best "bang for the buck?"

How can I discern between Drums on Demand Vol. 1 or 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.

Theres so much to choose from and you could spend thousands of dollars on drum loops if you wanted to.

What would you recommend as a starter kit?

[liars&ashes]

----I'd check the descriptions and mp3 demos, maybe also check the tempos. Music is a very personal thing, I can only suggest you research more, the more you research it, the more you'll enjoy what you choose.

Jeff

[Bassballjg]

Thanks, Jeff, for mentioning our stuff.

Ultramexican, please do check out both Dangerous Grooves and Endangered Rhythms. They are both tightly played, well-edited and organized by tempo. Each library includes beat variations suitable for use as the different parts of a song structure.

http://www.dangerousbear.com/loops.html

http://www.dangerousbear.com/freeware.html

http://www.realmusicmedia.net/

[Debutante]

You should also head to Karamusic and get some pretty good freeware samples from their webpage. There are a couple of full kits and many other samples available. I think you may eventually have to settle for programming drums yourself, though, because that kind of categorisation, if you can find it, will likely not come for free.

I find sifting through loops a PITA so I always try to make my own. I also never really find any ONE drumkit sufficient, and usually mix and match with layering to get whatever sound I want...maybe that's because I haven't spent the dosh on really good samples yet though

http://www.kara-moon.com/index.php?modi ... m001_02_02

[Reverend Rhythm]

Have you checked out Power FX?

http://www.powerfx.com/

You buy credits and then only purchase loops you want.

[music-tech]

You can also find many drum loop packages in the Performance Loops (tm) style on our LoopLibrary.com web site. On that site you can listen to MP3 previews first to find the package that is going to fit your song, and the description will tell you how many loops are in the packs and what format they are in. Most of them are in ACID Wave format, so they are easily adapted to your project tempo by any program that can read ACID wave properties.

There are also free downloads from Queensryche drummer Scott Rockenfield on the web site, as well as many other hidden free loop packs that you can find by signing up for the free loops mailing list (and you can immediately unsubscribe if you don't want e-mails once every few months when I post new free loops).

If you want bigger, and more versatile collections of drum loops, check out the Performance Loops (tm) products I produce for Big Fish Audio.

The whole concept of my Performance Loops products that I started about 8 years ago was to fill exactly your kind of need (which wasn't being covered by other products at the time). All the drum loops are from actual songs where I mixed down the drum tracks and then split them up into many different loops, variations, and fills, that you could use to create a drum track that fits your song. I've used my own products for many of my own studio clients who couldn't afford to hire a real drummer, and their musician friends always ask who the drummer was because they couldn't tell they were loops. I always give enough loops and variations from each song's drum tracks so you don't have to use one loop over and over (which always gives it away that it's a loop).

I just finished another songwriter project with a client who had the budget to hire a real drummer, and we brought in Ben Smith from Heart to do the drums. It turned out great and we'll be putting loops from that session up at some point in the future, plus working on more songs with Ben that will also be used to produce loops.

Feel free to check out my site and e-mail me personally if you have any questions. These days there are lots of great products from many different companies, so shop around and find what works best for you. I don't make a living just from the loops/samples I produce, but I enjoy producing them and it all adds up to allow me to keep producing and recording music full time.