Major UJAM flaw for VICE drums

[AdvancedFollower]

Vice is specifically made to emulate vintage drum machines from the 80's, primarily sample based ones. Many of those weren't even velocity sensitive, or they only featured 2-3 different levels of velocity (or just a simple "accent" button). There wasn't enough memory at the time for deeply multi-sampled drums with tons of dynamic range. This is part of why so many 80's songs have that robotic feel to the beat.

If you want to program realistic, highly dynamic drums, you're probably looking at something like Superior Drummer or Steven Slate Drums.

Fun fact: Most synthesizers of the 70's/early 80's also lacked velocity sensitivity. Legendary synths like the Jupiter 8, Juno 60 and Prophet 5 completely lacked the ability to articulate individual notes using velocity, you could only affect all notes globally e.g. with the Mod Wheel.

[sqigls]

some of the Beatmakers are velocity sensitive to volume and cutoff, some only to cutoff. As Bones said, many if not most drum machines in the 80s didn't come with velocity sensitivity. Some had an accent feature for hits above 100 or so.

HA, AdvancedFollower beat me to the explanation... typing in mono again

[paramita123]

Vice is specifically made to emulate vintage drum machines from the 80's, primarily sample based ones. Many of those weren't even velocity sensitive, or they only featured 2-3 different levels of velocity (or just a simple "accent" button). There wasn't enough memory at the time for deeply multi-sampled drums with tons of dynamic range. This is part of why so many 80's songs have that robotic feel to the beat.

If you want to program realistic, highly dynamic drums, you're probably looking at something like Superior Drummer or Steven Slate Drums.

Fun fact: Most synthesizers of the 70's/early 80's also lacked velocity sensitivity. Legendary synths like the Jupiter 8, Juno 60 and Prophet 5 completely lacked the ability to articulate individual notes using velocity, you could only affect all notes globally e.g. with the Mod Wheel.

Thanks for the explanation, yes I was born in 79 so grew up listening to lots of that music
I know Superior Drummer and also Slate Drums, I have SSD5 free version. But I guess I'm looking for fusion realistic / vintage electronic WITH velocity layering. Maybe I'm asking too much haha !
I guess I'll just load 2 drum machines actually and blend as required
have a nice day

[paramita123]

some of the Beatmakers are velocity sensitive to volume and cutoff, some only to cutoff. As Bones said, many if not most drum machines in the 80s didn't come with velocity sensitivity. Some had an accent feature for hits above 100 or so.

HA, AdvancedFollower beat me to the explanation... typing in mono again

Mono is cool too thanks for the reply anyway, I've given up my grudge on VICE haha, I'll just layer with 2 drums plugins and stop being a grumpy dad and just make it work

[BONES]

There seems to be a strange echo in this thread. Weird!

Thanks for the feedback, glad you manage, yeah I can imagine the volume issue, tricky to produce more subtle parts. I get what you say about the early digital gear, hence why the music was what it was then... I picked VICE because I want to infuse my pop rock songs with some of that synthwave vibe...
I guess my best pick is to use multiple drum machines at once... Then all individual outs for more precise processing, but that also negates the UJAM mastering features ..
Anyway I am impressed you bought so many of their plugins ...! You must have quite the collection

Yeah, overall I think I have nearly 30 of their plugins. Some of them were freebies from one source or another and I've bought most of the others when they were released, at really good prices. I doubt I've paid more than half price for any of them. I use them a lot, too, much more than I thought I would when I started using them. Their guitars, in particular, have allowed us to do things we'd never have been able to do otherwise.

[BKSchatzki]

I'd say that their Beatmaker, Guitarist, and Symphonic lineups are their strongest, but that's gonna differ from person to person. I sold my UJAM stuff last year because I'd fallen in love with a new kind of workflow, but I miss those three lineups the most. Beatmaker is always so on point, and the Guitarists and Symphonics just get you there so friggin' fast. Carbon is the "phantom limb" I keep reaching for that isn't there lol. And I suspect Vice would be too, if I hadn't amassed such a massive sample library of those kinds of sounds haha.

That free plugin you mentioned sounds pretty darn good, and I love that the routing is just right there too. That looks really quick to dial in.

[paramita123]

There seems to be a strange echo in this thread. Weird!

Thanks for the feedback, glad you manage, yeah I can imagine the volume issue, tricky to produce more subtle parts. I get what you say about the early digital gear, hence why the music was what it was then... I picked VICE because I want to infuse my pop rock songs with some of that synthwave vibe...
I guess my best pick is to use multiple drum machines at once... Then all individual outs for more precise processing, but that also negates the UJAM mastering features ..
Anyway I am impressed you bought so many of their plugins ...! You must have quite the collection

Yeah, overall I think I have nearly 30 of their plugins. Some of them were freebies from one source or another and I've bought most of the others when they were released, at really good prices. I doubt I've paid more than half price for any of them. I use them a lot, too, much more than I thought I would when I started using them. Their guitars, in particular, have allowed us to do things we'd never have been able to do otherwise.

Now I'm curious to hear your production ... If there's anything I can listen to please send over ! I'm curious to hear the UJAM beats and guitars in action. I'm contemplating buying some of the guitars.

[BONES]

Clicking on the little orange "NOVAkILL" in my signature will take you to our Bandcamp page. The songs in the "Therapy" EPs all use Ujam drums. You can also listen to some WiPs of a few covers I was playing around with a couple of years ago, here - https://soundcloud.com/user-365521 The first one uses VD-Heavy, the second one uses BM-Nemesis and the others all use BM-Vice. I think DELIVERNCE on Therapy I might also use Vice.

[Johannn]

Agree. Was surprised, and disapointed, that this plugin lack velocity control. Its just lowers the filter cutoff a bit on the lower velocities in obvious steps (not smooth). It has soo much going for it, then this.
Many posts here about Vice Drums being a truthful emulation of old drum machines, but there are controls in it that are not truthful to the old drum machines - like Time machine - so those arguments are not very logical to apply to the lack of velocity..

[Ah_Dziz]

I'd recommend just resampling the kick. Then you have the same kick you seem to want and full velocity (and whatever else) control.