I've had it with drum software
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Posted on Nov 19, 2010 09:57 am
Bigbluesman
Quasimojo
Member Since: Nov 08, 2010
Why can't they make a drum program thats easy to use.? I work full time and our band plays every weekend. I don't have the rest of my life trying to plot out a drum beat! I'v tried them all and I could scream. Anyone else have this problem? I'm gonna go to the music rental place and see if they have a box that would be easier. What do you guys use?
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Nov 19, 2010 10:02 am I have always found Velocity, that is Cakewalks drum machine with Sonar incredibly easy to use myself...I have basic beats up and running in minutes...but when it comes to tweaking little fills and stuff, man, I can get myself wrapped up in that for hours...Native Instrument's Battery has some awesome drums sounds and works with Sonar very easily too.
What problem are you having? A VERY easy system to use is (or was, I haven't used it in years) FruityLoops, that is very intuitive from my memory, I only stopped using it in favor of my tracker software's integrated tools.
cooloFrisco's Most UnderratedMember
Since: Jan 28, 2003
Nov 19, 2010 10:52 am maybe buy a pad midi trigger so you can play the drum beat with your hands... maybe that is more intuitive than trying to point and click a beat plot.
Nov 19, 2010 10:59 am I tried beatcraft and some other like it, where you have plot stuff on a grid. I'm too ADHD for that. I tried to mess with some midi stuff and I'm not getting anywhere. I did find a couple of mp3's that I cound import and build around that. I'v heard of Frooty Loops, but I have no idea how it works and I don't want to pay for it unless I find that it would work for me. I'v had my pc studio set up for a week or so...The last time I had a recording area together was with a 4 track cassette machine, so I'm just trying to get aquainted with this style of recording. So far, the quality and ease have been very impressive. I have an older PC in there, so I'm running some older software. I have Cakewalk 8 and, of course, kristal, but I find my Magix Studio 10 is very user friendly and its the one that I keep going to. Could you tell me a little more about frooty loops and also tell me what you think of the box type, like Boss and Alexis, ect.? Thanks!
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Nov 19, 2010 01:41 pm I've been using FL, and I like it pretty much. It's also capable of MUCH more than just beat / drum patterns, but the ability to sequence a drum part is pretty nice.
It does, however, take some planning, or at least a bit of planning.
I'm pretty sure FL has a download-able demo, but I'm not sure.
My wife's brother likes the box devices, or at least used to. He would make up quite elaborate sequences / patterns and have them all play out appropriately. I couldn't get the hang of it, having already wrapped my head around the FL way of doing drums.
FL has a list of your drum sounds (kick, snare, hat, cymbal, etc) that you create. You pick the sounds you want, and put them in the list.
Then you make a pattern for each section of the song. So you can have a pattern for intro, pattern for verse1, verse2, chorus, bridge, etc.
Then on the playlist, you tell FL to play the pattern(s) you want, when you want. You can mix and match patterns all over, playing them whenever you want in the timeline.
www.image-line.com/documents/flstudio.html
Yes, they do have a demo.
I've been meaning to try battery, as I DLed the demo a few weeks ago, but haven't gotten to it.
Another option is Jamstix, which you tell it how to make your song (which drummer, what style, how active, etc) and let JS create the song for you. Then you can go back and tweak individual notes. You can also have it play along with you as you're playing, kind of like having a real drummer with you.
They have a demo as well.
www.rayzoon.com/
J-botByte-MixerMember
Since: Dec 04, 2007
Nov 19, 2010 02:21 pm I've been using jamstix 2 for awhile now (they just released ver.3 a few months ago) I have to say for someone like me who can't be arsed to program drums himself (and I'm not very good at writing full percussion parts) Jamstix has been very helpful.
It does have a little bit of a learning curve. But basically, you load it up as a vst, (and it can also act as a vst host for other drum programs, i've used ersdrums with it a bit for electronic stuff)
You choose a song style which there's quite a few, choose a drummer, and yes the drummers do behave somewhat differently from each other. Then you look at the song structure. You can create an intro, verses, outro, and adjust the length and frequency of accents and fills on each part.
It can behave as a standard drum module and play whatever midi data you feed it, or it can behave and listen to incoming midi and behave as a live drummer, or you can set it to listen to audio levels, and it will jam along based on the musics loudness.
One thing I like to do, is set up the song styel, build the structure, choose a drummer I think will work with it, adjust settings until I get the style sounding close to where I want it, Then I'll have it play along with the rest of the track on its midi setting so it "writes" the part as it goes.
Once that is finished, I might make some further tweaks and have it re-compose the song, or a couple parts of the song, and then route some of audio from the other instrument tracks to another track (and make sure the new track is -not- sending to the master) To listen to audio Jamstix has its own audiom8 which you plug in an effect slot. So I'll have audio routed to a track just for jamstix to listen to, and it seems to work pretty well that way.
You can also adjust redirect parameters in jamstix for how often one hand or foot will redirect a sound (say play hi-hat instead of kick, or toms instead of snare, etc.)
I've got one track up that I used jamstix and redirected all snare hits to toms for a certain feel. (kinda a egyptian rock feel or something) Feel free to check it out: it's called Athasian Fields: www.thesixtyone.com/jbot#/s/uYxFKjPmNEs/
edit: Also the developer is pretty down to earth and personable compared to the larger corporate types, and he's very helpful in answering questions, listening to requests and suggestions, and that sorta thing.
Nov 19, 2010 02:45 pm Jamstix is awesome.
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Nov 19, 2010 08:45 pm im using toontack sd2 but im just over drum software in general. Its good for writing mock ups but thats it IMO.
GeoffSM7b the Chuck Noris of Mic'sContributor
Since: Jun 20, 2002
Nov 20, 2010 05:52 am I have EZdrummer and it's what it says , i use it for quick demo get a drum sound down and jamin (i use it with my e-kit) . I just got Steven slate drums and , DAMN ! Much more indepth but i love it the sounds are great IMO well worth the price.
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Nov 20, 2010 07:30 am yeah Geoff,
ez is good, Ive never used any of the others you mention, but i will say this,
Im back now to real drummers, and geez trying to do everything myself using drum softy nearly broke my mind.
i had a bass player for the ride but, man i was doing everything, keys/samples, vox, and guitars and writing, including trying to make the drums sound real enough write and record some seriously heavy ****.
Not that anyone was asking about all this, but i had a bit of wake up recently and now i already feel better about using a real drummer again and being able to start writing again.
I will have to post some of that shizz i did with the software at some point.
I guess this is relevant to this thread in the sense that maybe someone here might get a head **** with it at some point and will remember to take a step back and breathe.
GeoffSM7b the Chuck Noris of Mic'sContributor
Since: Jun 20, 2002
Nov 20, 2010 07:56 am I've never had that problem being that i was a drummer before anything else , that said I hate programing drums . I'll use my Roland kit play em , and pick a kit in one of the programs to go with the midi that i layed down . I like to have both a real kit (mic'ed up) and triggers from that so i can mix and match .
Dematrixhttp://www.reverbnation.com/2ndgMember
Since: Nov 27, 2007
Nov 20, 2010 07:27 pm hahaha, yeah it helps being a drummer for sure man.
songs with proggied drums for me just dont give me goose bumps like real drums would. I dunno, software drums wreck the magic i think.
Nov 22, 2010 07:17 pm Whoa this post is HEART felt for me. I do find Ezdrummer easier than most and Drumcore works well,l probably better sounds in Drumcore. But I'm a complete failure at using them. My biggest reason for not recording new material is getting drums done. By the way if anyone can help replace an existing audio drum track with midi PLEASE let me know. But look at Ezdrummer and other toontracks products for me it's the easiest route of those I have seen, but still not the route for success for me yet. I feel your pain.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Nov 23, 2010 02:56 pm I'd have to say if one doesn't like programming drums, can't play drums, or doesn't like stringing loops together, the best thing out there is Jamstix 3. If you have EZD, SD2, BFD, etc, it can use the samples from them if you don't care for the JS3 samples (which are very good IMO) as well.
It just doesn't get any easier short of having your own drummer, and you still have the option of editing as deeply as you want to go.
Dan
Nov 23, 2010 03:10 pm Based on my skill level at replacing sounds it is impossible that I won't learn something from the reaper tutorial. Thanks.
Mar 07, 2011 02:44 pm cool
