u-he drum synth please!

[Beamboom]

So would I. +1

+1
The customers are starting to line up

[david.beholder]

-1

Non drum machine customers are in alternative line

[mcbpete]

You seriously wouldn't want an virtual analogue drum machine as luscious as Diva is to leads & pads, and Bazille is to modular goodness ?!

[david.beholder]

You seriously wouldn't want an virtual analogue drum machine as luscious as Diva is to leads & pads, and Bazille is to modular goodness ?!

Seriously. Drum machines are unlike synths - samplers are easily replacing them.

[nilhartman]

A U-He synth, fine-tuned for drums and percussion synthesis, would be absolutely fantastic. Much, much better than any sampler IMHO (and quite different as well, obviously). I'd pay big money for it, I'd really do.

I believe I know mcbpete from an other forum (watmm, right?), and knowing the music we both listen to (and I guess, we both make), such a synth would be stellar and make tons of sense workflow-wise.

I love Bazille for creating drums (instant Autechre or Raster Noton, for example), but it can be tedious and time consuming.

Note that I'd be equally happy with the addition of percussive-oriented layouts/controls/components/mods to Diva, Bazille or Zebra, and would load them in Ableton Drum Racks or whatever. I personally don't care about an internal sequencer.

[sascha]

You seriously wouldn't want an virtual analogue drum machine as luscious as Diva is to leads & pads, and Bazille is to modular goodness ?!

Seriously. Drum machines are unlike synths - samplers are easily replacing them.

Depends on who's playing: the DAW or yourself.
As a drummer myself, I wouldn't subscribe to that, especially not in terms of realistic acoustic sounds. There are good libraries and plugins around (my favourite is AD2 as it offers the least processed sound, from a player's perspective). But they all still lack interaction and changes in tiny nuances. For instance, there's rarely a product that offers seemless changes when I open up the hihat, most stop at five discrete positions. The hihat is probably the most expressive part on an acoustic kit, but electronic reproduction is still poor.

Generally, with drum libraries, there's also no more than a handful of random or round-robin samples per velocity layer to counteract the 'machine-gunning' effect. Let alone positional information, which is still hit and miss (some hardware modules allow for it but there's no standardised way, and some methods are closed systems and some even patent-covered). Moreover, when I play cymbal swells, it all sounds like an armada of one shots piling up, all with the same transient attack, with no interaction between the hits (again, some Roland & Yamaha flagship modules address this but are closed systems again, and their overall sound is what I'd consider inferiour to VST-based libs). This also applies to buzz rolls on a snare. For a recording artist who just wants semi-convincing drums in a track, that's still okay, but for a drummer, a lot of demands remain.
This could all be improved to some extent but remains a matter of content and the amount of GBs of Ram involved.
Still, there's no real interaction, but that's partly due to Midi and a lack of a closed feedback loop between player and 'instrument'. (Nothing that I'd have an instant solution for, though)

This also applies partly to purely electronic drums. As a human, I could be the interface for any kind of electronic noise-making, and I've got 4 limbs to throw into the equation. I would also favour a more expressive nature of an electronic-sounding generator that reflects what I'm actually doing, instead of just firing up static samples.

[mcbpete]

Drum machines are unlike synths - samplers are easily replacing them.

No way absolutely not, why do you think there's a million different 808 & 909 sample based VSTs and sample packs - they're all trying to recreate the minutiae of the synth and the only way they can is via multi-gig packs whereas these VSTi synths (as an examply) are only a couple of meg and for me get so close to the original sound (and are completely tweakable) - http://marvinpavilion.ojaru.jp/en/sound/vst.html

Generally, with drum libraries, there's also no more than a handful of random or round-robin samples per velocity layer to counteract the 'machine-gunning' effect. Let alone positional information, which is still hit and miss (some hardware modules allow for it but there's no standardised way, and some methods are closed systems and some even patent-covered). Moreover, when I play cymbal swells, it all sounds like an armada of one shots piling up, all with the same transient attack, with no interaction between the hits

Exactly, and something that the Piano synth Pianoteq completely excels at - Every bit of sound can affect another bit depending on the variables of the piano (mic position, lid angle, sympathetic response, damping), it's not a case of just generating sound but a whole collection of variables that can effect one another

A U-He synth, fine-tuned for drums and percussion synthesis, would be absolutely fantastic. Much, much better than any sampler IMHO (and quite different as well, obviously). I'd pay big money for it, I'd really do.

I believe I know mcbpete from an other forum (watmm, right?), and knowing the music we both listen to (and I guess, we both make), such a synth would be stellar and make tons of sense workflow-wise.

Yep that's me

[david.beholder]

Depends on who's playing: the DAW or yourself.
As a drummer myself, I wouldn't subscribe to that, especially not in terms of realistic acoustic sounds. There are good libraries and plugins around (my favourite is AD2 as it offers the least processed sound, from a player's perspective). But they all still lack interaction and changes in tiny nuances. For instance, there's rarely a product that offers seemless changes when I open up the hihat, most stop at five discrete positions. The hihat is probably the most expressive part on an acoustic kit, but electronic reproduction is still poor.

As big fan of 70ths disco and jazz I agree that there are problem with sample libraries and nuances -- hi hat w. various pedal + stroke positions is good example. But all those issues are barely applicable to drum machines. Don't forget that your drum playing is not coming from you drums, but it's coming form you, your practice and your strokes and pattern training. Drum machines are mostly about different things.

Generally, with drum libraries, there's also no more than a handful of random or round-robin samples per velocity layer to counteract the 'machine-gunning' effect. Let alone positional information, which is still hit and miss (some hardware modules allow for it but there's no standardised way, and some methods are closed systems and some even patent-covered). Moreover, when I play cymbal swells, it all sounds like an armada of one shots piling up, all with the same transient attack, with no interaction between the hits (again, some Roland & Yamaha flagship modules address this but are closed systems again, and their overall sound is what I'd consider inferiour to VST-based libs). This also applies to buzz rolls on a snare. For a recording artist who just wants semi-convincing drums in a track, that's still okay, but for a drummer, a lot of demands remain.
This could all be improved to some extent but remains a matter of content and the amount of GBs of Ram involved.
Still, there's no real interaction, but that's partly due to Midi and a lack of a closed feedback loop between player and 'instrument'. (Nothing that I'd have an instant solution for, though)

This also applies partly to purely electronic drums. As a human, I could be the interface for any kind of electronic noise-making, and I've got 4 limbs to throw into the equation. I would also favour a more expressive nature of an electronic-sounding generator that reflects what I'm actually doing, instead of just firing up static samples.

Electronic drums are built to be consistent, way more consistent rather than acoustic drums. Electronic drums usually have less nuances, less params that real-life playing. Drum machine that could behave like real time hi hat with experienced player is yet to be invented and still gonna miss experienced player.

Let's take 808 kick as example. And I have poor mans 808 - magnificent MFB 522. The only difference in samples i see is initial phase. As you remember 808 kick is simple bandpass filter. There are 3 knobs only: level, tone and decay - that's it. It sounds bad, doesn't have complexity of real base, yet most popular base in electronic music. So you're going play it live? Haha. Why 808 is so popular - because it's allover famous techno, electric boogie and hip hop tracks that you've heard when you were kid. Why techno guys used them -- they were cheap, because there were way better sounding drum machines.

Overall: 2 samples and couple mods would eliminate machine drum effect on most of electronic drums. And both 522 or sampler tirggered by electronic kick would sound the same, esp in mix.

I've learned how to do this 2 samples + mod trick on Analog Rythm for the same purpose.

I think it's also worth to mention that x0x sequencer. Say 808 and 909 have only one dynamic setting: accent. It's completely against real live drummer. It's straight, it's has no variances, it's boring but it has consistent sound i.e. no need of compressor, it's really punchy (very important in case of club), it's very easy to program. Every time i saw someone tried to improve x0x seq with additional params -- they were losing programming simplicity.

Imagine, what would be sales of U-he drum machine that requires drummer but sounds good from variance of transient point of view vs U-he drum machine that would simple produce authentic 808 kick - even if it's really easy to produce anywhere else ))))

[Cyoon]

For me it would all be about a special creative workflow with such a tool. I like Break Tweaker, because i can play a whole pattern with my midi keyboard just like an instrument, really nice for live, also the content is quite nice. What would also be nice in terms of workflow would be along the line of the Electron hardware stuff, i cannot afford sadly..

[pdxindy]

Electronic drums are built to be consistent, way more consistent rather than acoustic drums. Electronic drums usually have less nuances, less params that real-life playing. Drum machine that could behave like real time hi hat with experienced player is yet to be invented and still gonna miss experienced player.

Those are your ideas of what it could/should be... I don't share your perspective. I love doing percussion in u-he synths (Zebra and Bazille) exactly because I can make expressive nuanced sounds that don't sound repetitive.

I also dislike working with samples... besides the points made by Sascha, I also find scrolling through long lists of samples to find the sound I want one of the least enjoyable, least creative, time wasting tasks possible.

[TheNickC]

I also dislike working with samples... besides the points made by Sascha, I also find scrolling through long lists of samples to find the sound I want one of the least enjoyable, least creative, time wasting tasks possible.

Definitely. You could just have the synthesizer and be able to dial in what you want immediately instead of searching through hundreds of samples for something that kind of sounds like what you were looking for. You can also automate the synthesizer and achieve a more dynamic sound than what is possible in a sampler. Big sample libraries are great for imitating the sound of acoustic instruments or if you just want a basic 808 kit, but sample based drum machines in no way make synthesizers obsolete. For me it's been the opposite, I used mostly sample based drums for years, now that I've seen more of what can be done and I have a much more powerful CPU I'm more interested in using actual synthesizers for anything electronic

[david.beholder]

Drum machines are unlike synths - samplers are easily replacing them.

No way absolutely not, why do you think there's a million different 808 & 909 sample based VSTs and sample packs - they're all trying to recreate the minutiae of the synth and the only way they can is via multi-gig packs whereas these VSTi synths (as an examply) are only a couple of meg and for me get so close to the original sound (and are completely tweakable) - http://marvinpavilion.ojaru.jp/en/sound/vst.html

X0X drum machines are really easy to simulate. In 2015 you're buying post processing not actually anything new in X0X sound.

Especially in case of 808: appeared generation of people who has never touched original thing and think of it not like about cheap and bad sounding drum machine but more like cult and magical object.
Also over last 20 years only 1% of tracks that you think have 808 is actual 808. In most of the cases there were samples quite removed and multi-layerd.

[david.beholder]

Electronic drums are built to be consistent, way more consistent rather than acoustic drums. Electronic drums usually have less nuances, less params that real-life playing. Drum machine that could behave like real time hi hat with experienced player is yet to be invented and still gonna miss experienced player.

Those are your ideas of what it could/should be... I don't share your perspective. I love doing percussion in u-he synths (Zebra and Bazille) exactly because I can make expressive nuanced sounds that don't sound repetitive.

I mostly think it couldn't be 3-mic acoustic drum synth. Do you think it would?
I like record percussion live but in case of complete mix how important that nuances vs stability would be.

I also dislike working with samples... besides the points made by Sascha, I also find scrolling through long lists of samples to find the sound I want one of the least enjoyable, least creative, time wasting tasks possible.

Sounds more like UI / Categorization problem.

[mcbpete]

Your forgetting a big thing regarding percussive samples vs. percussive synths - Yes the former may well be OK for drum machines that do exist, but what about drum machines that don't! What drum samples from existing drum machines would be able to create something like this -

[pdxindy]

I also dislike working with samples... besides the points made by Sascha, I also find scrolling through long lists of samples to find the sound I want one of the least enjoyable, least creative, time wasting tasks possible.

Sounds more like UI / Categorization problem.

Categorization doesn't help... Factory categorizations often don't fit my own conceptions. I also have zero interest to categorize thousands of sounds myself. Even if I do the categorization, a week later I don't remember what I put where and if I did it again I would likely do it differently.

Categorization assumes a distinct set of sounds that can be categorized and that you know what you want before you look.

No, you try to dismiss what I said but it stands (for me). I dislike scrolling through and auditioning long lists of samples. I am not going to spend my time on something that I dislike and feel un-creative with.

And of course synthesis is fundamentally more expressive and nuanced than samples. In order to try and make samples more flexible, they get more layers, round, robins, articulations, and higher quality recordings. The bigger and more complex sample sets get, the less I enjoy using them. Give me synthesis any day.