KVR Audio

cunparis · Post by **cunparis** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 7:42 pm

I was listening to a CD today and I really liked the drum beats and I would love to be able to do something similar. I play flute and a little piano, and I'd like to put the two together and record some tunes. But I'd like to have some modern beats to go with it. I have absolutely no idea how to do this.

I've been researching EZDrummer, Stylus RMX, Battery 3, etc. and I'm a bit lost. I do own Band in a Box and I've been using that but it's too limited. I want to be able to say, have a pause in the drums or speed up the tempo. So I think I need to do this inside a sequencer.

I don't know how much work is involved in learning this, my time is a bit limited, so I guess I'm looking for the easiest software to learn and use. It's ok if it doesn't sound great, I can deal with that later on (upgrade to something better when necessary). I'm just looking to get started.

I've also played around with some loops but they seem too limiting and too monotonous.

If you'd like to listen to samples of the CD I'm referring to, here is a link.

http://www.amazon.com/Revisited/dp/B001HEZ7EM

Track 5 is a good place to start, it's a very mellow type of beat that would go perfect with just about any slow melody. Track 4 is a more ethnic beat. I think the former may be easy to do with most drum packages but I'm not sure if they can do ethnic beats.

I'm using Reaper if that makes a difference.

Once I get a few recommendations I plan to watch more of the tutorials and do some more research on it before making my decision.

Thanks

Shabdahbriah · Post by **Shabdahbriah** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 7:53 pm

The current issue of Computer Music magazine has a copy of Geist Lite on it. Free.

There are many video tutorials for Geist available from the dev, and on youtube.

Start there.

Xenobt · Post by **Xenobt** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:55 pm

Take a look and listen to these, lots of folks here seem to like them:

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/live-po ... do-records

Their Epic Battle collection is pretty awesome too!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

TR908 · Post by **TR908** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:12 pm

Shabdahbriah wrote:The current issue of Computer Music magazine has a copy of Geist Lite on it. Free.

There are many video tutorials for Geist available from the dev, and on youtube.

Start there.

+1

If you don,t really know what software you want to use yet then I'd recommend buying a copy of CM magazine too. Every issue has a suite of plugins and even a basic sequencer that will at least get you started.

For £6 it's a good a place as any to work out what you want to invest properly in

fasdewx · Post by **fasdewx** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:51 am

Have you come across Musink? It's notation editor that's pretty quick to snap drum beats together in, and exports as MIDI. It'll play the beats back to you through any MIDI device too. I've been using it for a few weeks; it seems pretty good for drum stuff. You can get it for free from http://musink.net

fasdewx · Post by **fasdewx** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:56 am

oh, there's an example drum beat from Musink here btw:
http://soundcloud.com/musinkmusic/drumk ... fbeats-via

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 11:34 pm

If you are comfortable with Reaper midi editing, then I recommend Proteus VX.
It is free and you can download it from here:http://www.creative.com/emu/proteusvx/
It has many kits. Just drag and drop the bank file to the instrument from the library tab (it is tricky little bit) then choose Kit in the filter.

If you need to check other software, I recommend FL Studio. It has a demo which fully functional except save.

optofonik · Post by **optofonik** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 11:55 pm

You already have your sequencer so add Jamstix Studio and TabTrax. Look around online for some drum tabs you like, convert to them to MIDI files with TabTrax and import into Jamstix. Add a couple of MIDI file packs for convenience, I recommend Toontrack, and you're off to the races.

cunparis · Post by **cunparis** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:44 pm

I'd like to thank everyone for their suggestions. I'm not sure everyone listened to the two sample tracks I gave because many of the suggestions were for "normal" "rock" type drums. From my research, it seems EZDrummer is the easiest to use to get into that, and quite affordable too. However I'm interested in a more electronic sound right now and for that I am leaning towards Stylus RMX. I've watched most of the tutorial videos and it's the one that makes the most sense to me. i'm watching these thinking "I can do that". When it comes to loops, I was a bit lost on how to make fills and intros etc. Some loop packages don't give you fills and intros, just plain loops. But watching the Stylus RMX videos I can see how one can make fills & intros from the slices. I'm not sure if this is possible without Stylus RMX (say using Reaper) but it seems Stylus RMX makes it very easy. Only drawback is it's a bit expensive.

Geist looks pretty cool but also looks more advanced for a beginner. Some of the others were more rock type drums, I'm not really into that..

Thanks

How to get make some drum beats for my music