Drumming up a storm

[Albatross]

I had an HR-16 too. Guitar Center bought it off my hands and put it on display as sort of a museum piece.

Now I do trap smashing on a mesh-head electronic kit through 2 TD-8 modules. So if anyone decides to go that route I could be of more help.

[jast]

Jamstix is nice because it kind of thinks like a drummer. Its output is a combination of a drummer module and a style module – each influences what hits are generated. Some of the styles are very, very flexible – and the drummers add personality of sorts. In combination, this lets you create interesting-sounding stuff rather quickly, just by choosing drummer and style and playing with a few controls. You can also add your own manually chosen hits if you like. The resulting workflow is fairly comfortable and, as a side effect, gives you a feel for how drumming works. Kind of.

Downsides:

There aren't a lot of recorded kits, compared to many other pieces of software. One of my favourite kits is the BonzoPak addon (costs extra) – the stock kit is okay but doesn't give you that much flexibility in sound, and frequently none of the kits is close enough to the sound I want and I end up compromising. On the other hand, you can let Jamstix control other popular drum sequencers, so in theory you can still scale up later.

There's a lot of places where you can let Jamstix randomize the patterns a bit. That's a far cry from a real drummer who can alter the patterns in response to what's happening in the music. Jamstix has a mode that lets itself be influenced by the audio signal, but I don't think it influences the randomization. So, some stuff Jamstix generates will sound random rather than human. You can always fix it yourself, of course, so that's just something to be aware of.

[JonPorobil]

I tend to just write in the notes on the MIDI piano roll. Much like Lunkhead, I will start with a pretty basic pattern or just kick and snare and build up from there. Here is a good article from Sound on Sound about it:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep10/a ... m-prog.htm

Great stuff, Ken!

For the benefit of Wade and any others who happen to be learning here, I wanted to point out this section:

Every modern host has facilities to create tempo changes during the song and these can employed to good effect. This is something that you should give thought to well before you start laying down any audio, though, as if you lay the audio to a click track you're pretty much stuck with it.

This depends on your DAW, obviously, but it's not nearly as cut-and-dried as this article makes it sound. My process lately has been as follows (I use Cubase 6):

1.) Record a single-instrument-plus-vocal scratch track
2.) Sequence my drums under that.
3.) Determine where the tempo shifts belong in the song. Make note of all the points before changing anything.
4.) Load up the "Tempo Track" in Cubase. It's possible to insert tempo changes on the fly here, and Cubase lets you insert a "Ramp" for a gradual change or a "Jump" for a sudden change.
(TIP: Start at the end of the song and work backwards to make it easier to "sanity check" that you're changing the right bars.)
4a.) Cubase has (and I'm assuming other DAWs have something like this) a mode called "Musical Mode." If you activate Musical Mode on a recorded instrument track, then that track will warp at the appropriate spots to match any tempo changes you make after the fact. For the most part, it sounds awful, and I'd never use it in a finished recording, but it can be useful for "auditioning" tempo changes you're not 100% sure about.
5.) Once your tempo changes are in place, scrap your recorded instrument(s) and record it/them again to the newly re-tweaked drum part.

You'll have a very naturalistic-sounding performance because you're playing along to a late draft of the rhythm part that's (presumably) mostly finished, and because rerecording the instrument part has forced you to get more familiar with it by the second time around. And on a structural note, this can be helpful because, well, if you're one of those composers who has trouble making up good endings, you can do a heckuva lot worse than a simple slowdown at the end. If all the band members slow down at the same pace for the last measure or two, it sounds like you meant to do that, and the slowdown also gives the piece and air of finality. It's a musical cliché, but it got to be cliché for a reason. (I did this on my "The Lurker," by the way.)

For a good illustration of how judicious tempo adjustments can add interest to a song, check out my "Behind the Times" - there's a ritardando at the end of each piano solo "bridge" with the descending scale (one in the middle and one at the end) that I was very proud of. (Although, to be fair, there are still other aspects of that drum track that need tweaking.)

[wadewalbrun]

Thanks Jan! The Jamstix is quite intriguing, from the artificial intelligence standpoint. I bought Jamstix last night but haven't gotten to play with it yet. It isn't too expensive so I still may go out and get EZ Drummer too, simply because it may have more beats that can be dumped into Jamstix, plus, the sound of EZ Drummer drums is more realistic. Again, only what I've read so far.

Thanks Jon! A great point, and useful process advice! Love the "Behind the Times" ritardando. It works quite nicely there, and the I like the song in general too. Is that slowdown or speed-up in tempo something you are dictating in the VSTi or in the DAW?

[ken]

cntrl-T gets you to the tempo track in Cubase.

You can also write in time signature changes there if that is your jam. I'm just sayin...

[JonPorobil]

Thanks Jon! A great point, and useful process advice! Love the "Behind the Times" ritardando. It works quite nicely there, and the I like the song in general too. Is that slowdown or speed-up in tempo something you are dictating in the VSTi or in the DAW?

Thank you for the compliments! My VSTi (Superior Drummer 2.0) doesn't have its own tempo mechanism; it just follows the project file's native tempo in the DAW.

My DAW (Cubase 6) has a very robust tempo management system. I think there's about a half dozen ways I can automate or adjust the tempo in the program. CTRL+T brings up a grid style "Tempo Track" which displays the tempo as a line graph (X-axis is time, Y-axis is speed of the song in bpm) which you can add points to, either by using the pencil tool to freehand draw or by using the pointer to add individual change points (I almost always do the latter). I can also add the tempo as a "track" in line with the audio tracks, so I can more easily adjust on the fly without having to jump back and forth between screens. That view also support the pencil tool and manually adding one point at a time. I'll grab some screenshots when I get home, if you like. It might not be fully relevant if you're not using the same DAW, but most workstations have something at least kind of similar.

cntrl-T gets you to the tempo track in Cubase.

You can also write in time signature changes there if that is your jam. I'm just sayin...

Man, that is an easy thing to do and it took me months to figure out how. I recorded my "Stranded" (Nur Ein V) in "1/1" time because I couldn't figure out how to switch between 4/4 and 5/4 as the song needed. Eventually I figured out that you could just click on the top row of the Tempo Track and it would add a time sig change point. D'oh!

[wadewalbrun]

Jon - Wow, those are some pretty robust tempo management tools! Nice. Don't think my Mixcraft has anything but the basic BPM setting, and certainly nothing done gradually or time signature changes. Maybe its time to rethink my DAW choice at some point and opt for a more controllable landscape. I suppose like everything I've done in the past, potentially better methods and tools may present themselves from time to time, and compel change for me.

Thanks again Jon. Excellent food for thought on Cubase capabilities.

[JonPorobil]

Yeah, I don't know what your money situation is like, but a full install of the latest Cubase is about $450, and SuperiorDrummer is $200. I had to save for a while to afford them, and I'm pretty sure SD was half off when I bought it. Still, I've been very pleased with the robust set of editing tools that comes standard in Cubase. Oh, and you can often get a pared-down version of Cubase (either LE or "Artist") free with certain audio interfaces or instruments. I got Cubase 4 LE for free with my Lexicon Lambda, which was my first introduction to Cubase, and later I got a copy of Cubase 5 AI when I bought a Yamaha keyboard. If you're looking to sink some money into a more professional sound, you might be better off investing in an audio interface with a free DAW than spending half a grand on standalone software (at least at first).

Also, there are other members of this community who swear by other DAWs, some of which are less costly than Cubase. YMMV.

We're veering off topic, so if you're curious about the pros and cons of various workstation softwares, that might be a topic for another thread.

[wadewalbrun]

We're veering off topic, so if you're curious about the pros and cons of various workstation softwares, that might be a topic for another thread.

True, I may start nosing around after I get my recording issues up to snuff. Definitely worth another thread.

thanks

[Lunkhead]

(Not to continue off topic much longer, but, the full version of Cubase is probably overkill for most Song Fight! related stuff. A free version with an audio interface will get you pretty far, or the "Artist" version for $250 will likely cover most beginner to intermediate needs. I really like Cubase but I am also impressed with how much people seem to be able to do with GarageBand and Logic Pro X, which is only $200, but, you need a Mac or iPad/etc.)

[wadewalbrun]

Thanks Lunkhead, I'll keep that in mind.

[fluffy]

Personally I think that the included loops and softsynths make Logic well worth the price of admission (including the cost of getting a Mac). Logic X has an incredibly vast library of drum loops in all sorts of genres, as well as broken-down "topper" tracks which let you add a lot more texture and variety to your percussion. I also like to slice-and-dice the included loops to add even more variation.

I paid a lot more for a bunch of softsynths and sample packs that I never use than Logic cost, and Logic's included stuff is much better, broader, and easier to work with than any of them. There are still a few things I crack open Kontakt for but for the most part it's never worth the hassle of dealing with NI's horrible product activation garbage, and Logic's Drum Kit Designer blows away anything that NSKit does. And a limited version of that is even included in GarageBand now!

[wadewalbrun]

Thanks Fluffy! Useful advice.

I know there are a bunch of Garageband users out there, in the drums department, how does GarageBand approach it? Loops and virtual instruments? Does it rival any of the plugins that we've talked about in this forum? Apple always seems to design rather intuitive software, so I wonder about it.

[fluffy]

GarageBand is literally just a crippled version of Logic. It has drum loops both in the form of baked samples (which you can slice-and-dice and do all sorts of transient manipulation with FlexTime) and in MIDI tracks backed by softsynths (which you have a greater degree of flexibility with), and it also includes a feature-limited version of the automatic drummer that Logic provides as well.

I haven't played with recent versions of GB all that much but historically the difference between GB and Logic has been that GB gives you presets with a limited amount of control, while Logic lets you pull them apart and change everything about it underneath. The actual sound engines are the same, and most of the useful features in Logic are also in GB although sometimes the user interface is much more limited, and I don't think it provides things like track folders or take management (both of which I rely on way too much). GB also doesn't come with the full set of loops, synths, or samples, but what it does come with is incredibly comprehensive.

My favorite trick for doing glitchy drum tracks, incidentally, is to use Logic's "Electroclash Remix" drum kit (which is also in GarageBand IIRC) and run it through bitcrusher (which I think GB has) and tape delay (which I don't think it does), with all sorts of jacked-up settings to make rhythms just happen naturally. Then I tap out a rhythm on the keyboard. Both of my winning solo Song Fight tracks (Baby Be Quiet and Sorry to Inform You) use this, so obviously it's a winning strategy.

[Caravan Ray]

Personally I think that the included loops and softsynths make Logic well worth the price of admission

Yeah - I actually bought Logic about 2 years ago - but I still haven't even tried to use it yet. Just haven't yet been able to face the idea of sitting down to learn something new.

But buying it did add heaps of new loops and samples to my Garageband library. So - the simplicity of Garageband combined with this big new library of stuff to play with - yes, the included loops and softsynths alone make Logic well worth the price of admission. And one day I may even use the DAW!

[wadewalbrun]

Thanks C Ray and Fluffy! I went off a read some additional reviews of Logic Pro, and there was nothing but glowing reviews. Full of great features. And at such a cheap price too! From a drumming standpoint, it seems to hold its own quite nicely, with most all of the nice features that I've read about in other Drum VSTs . Aside from the seemingly overpriced MacBook it runs on, Logic Pro seems like a real winner in many many ways. Definitely worth a serious look when I get around to it. Thanks again for the good advice. Much appreciated.

[fluffy]

Personally I think that the included loops and softsynths make Logic well worth the price of admission

Yeah - I actually bought Logic about 2 years ago - but I still haven't even tried to use it yet. Just haven't yet been able to face the idea of sitting down to learn something new.

But buying it did add heaps of new loops and samples to my Garageband library. So - the simplicity of Garageband combined with this big new library of stuff to play with - yes, the included loops and softsynths alone make Logic well worth the price of admission. And one day I may even use the DAW!

I would not recommend trying to learn Logic by just importing a GB project into it, because a lot of what GB does under the hood to make its presets manageable make the project crazy complex. But these days they feel more similar than they are different, and Logic's instrument presets do a LOT for you nowadays and I actually need to unlearn a lot about classic Logic so that I can use its new functionality more effectively.

But if you're just using GB as a frontend to Logic and don't need the stuff that Logic adds, there's nothing wrong with that.