Simo Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 I'm looking to get a new drum machine, my Zoom RT123 has finally died after 5 years of hard use (and countless repairs!) and the built in drum machine on my MRS 802 digital 8 track doesn't have enough usable sounds and it's a pain to program. I'll mainly be using it to record demo's for my Metal band so good sounding rock/metal kits is essential. Does anyone have any suggestions for one's to try out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Dangerouso Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 Boss DR670 would be my choice. They should be around 100 bucks or so on ebay. You don't even need a bass player, it has built in patterns just like the 123. You can can tell the low end loonies, "all your bass are belong to us." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorecki Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 I've had three Alesis units over the years and still have two of them. Been good for rock/metal work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluespresence Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 You don't even need a bass player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Sorbera Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 you should SERIOUSLY consider getting a BOSS DR-880. Check it out here. But first watch this video (fourth one down). AFter watching the video you'll want that thing for sure! It's soooo much cooler than all the other drum machines out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lovekraft Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 (edited) You don't even need a bass player, it has built in patterns just like the 123. You can can tell the low end loonies, "all your bass are belong to us." Yeah, it works perfectly, so long as all you're playing is video game themes or country music. Of course, if you're tuned down to A or below, you don't need a bass player, you are a bass player. Back to the topic, do you have access to any MIDI synths? there are some perfectly acceptable kits, even on the simpler stuff, like the Nano-synth. You may have to tweak the EQ here and there, but that's what you do when you record. I've even used one drumkit from a Yamaha MIDI keyboard ( pomp-rock mix, probably not what you're looking for). You'll also find that fake drums sound a lot more real if you program a realistic sounding track, and quantize them just a bit so they're not in dead lock-step with the metronome. Basically, if the cymbals don't make you nauseous, and the bass drum doesn't have that hiphop carboard carton sound, you can probably make them sound decent with a bit of work. Edited February 4, 2005 by lovekraft Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 I'm new to recording but drums were my first real "problem" I encountered. I tried setting up a MIDI file manually for every piece and ended up just getting too frustrated. I looked around and decided to try something called Drumatic by Cakewalk. There's probably plenty more products like it but it's actually very good. They recorded two complete drum kits (a hard rock/metal kit and a more mellow sounding kit). They have .wav files for 1/8, 1/4, ... notes and all you need to do is drag them into your recording software and line them up. They include a whole bunch of fills also. The only thing that I think needs improvement is the cymbals - they don't have enough samples for my liking. This way, you don't have to live with the synthesized drum sounds but you can still manipulate the pieces in a similar fashion. I'm sure most of you already have used products like this and I'm late to the game but I thought I'd mention it just in case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marksound Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 Can you download those files from Cakewalk? How free are they? ______________________________________ I'm not cheap. I'm frugal. Say it with me. FRUGAL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorecki Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 This way, you don't have to live with the synthesized drum sounds but you can still manipulate the pieces in a similar fashion. ← Dave, just for your information nothing more. I don't believe anyone these days makes a drum machine/module that isn't digital samples of real drums though I maybe mistaken (wouldn't suprise me if Casio is still selling cheesy stuff). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted February 4, 2005 Report Share Posted February 4, 2005 in defence of digital, playing around with a software synth can actual;ly get you some pretty good drum sounds tho in truth it is better for slightlly more "out there" kind of sounds and if you want a real sounding kit then it is just alot easier to use real samples. ive recentlly started playing about with Reason (the cut down adapted version came with my soundcard) and the little software drum machine it has on it is amazing. its so easy to program in whatever patterns you want in whatever time signature, add in fills, change BPM on the fly. infact the whole program in itself is truly amazing for making music tho depends what you're into. (the majority of the latest prodigy album was made on it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simo Posted February 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2005 Thanks Dave I'll have a look into that Drumatic sounds like it's pretty simple, I've messed around with Fruity Loops before and found it very confusing I've been wondering about using a pc for recording and get rid of my 8 track, I downloaded a demo Guitar Tracks Pro and I've been getting some great results with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorecki Posted February 7, 2005 Report Share Posted February 7, 2005 ive recentlly started playing about with Reason (the cut down adapted version came with my soundcard) and the little software drum machine it has on it is amazing. its so easy to program in whatever patterns you want in whatever time signature, add in fills, change BPM on the fly. infact the whole program in itself is truly amazing for making music tho depends what you're into. (the majority of the latest prodigy album was made on it) ← Redrum - I've found it useful as well for 'effect' type segways. Reason's pretty cool even for rockers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted February 7, 2005 Report Share Posted February 7, 2005 Dave, just for your information nothing more. I don't believe anyone these days makes a drum machine/module that isn't digital samples of real drums though I maybe mistaken (wouldn't suprise me if Casio is still selling cheesy stuff). Oh, no - that's not what I was saying. I was talking about having to deal with the crappy "built-in" MIDI drums that come with Cakewalk and other recording packages. I would fully expect a drum machine to sound much better than those sounds but the reason I mentioned Drumatic is that it's much less expensive than a drum machine - something like $50.00, I think. I would never try to claim that Drumatic is in any way a better sounding product than a piece of equipment such as a drum machine - that would be crazy. I do think it's better than the crap that I got with my recording software. Maybe it didn't even come with Cakewalk - do those MIDI sounds come with Windows? Do you know what I'm talking about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 Yup, that's "General MIDI", and for most people it's actually built-in for Windows and not Cakewalk. Unless you put a virtual instrument into your MIDI track, it'll default to "Microsoft Wavetable Synth" which is just horrible sounding. I recommend using a computer rather than a drum machine. Any old sequencer will do if you want to put a wee bit of work into it, and some will do it more painlessly than others. If you already own the computer, it's going to be around the same price as buying a poor little old drum machine, but will sound way better. You can do things like load REAL loops of an actual drummer: Like THIS Nothing beats a real drummer. $30 for this one disc, or $50 for your choice of 3... that's real drum loops played by a real drummer on real kits. Granted it's not quite as flexible as programming your own, but some people (myself included) are better off letting a real drummer do that kind of work anyhow. And the flexibility is still huge. I have one of their discs (Drum Werks V) and I could make several albums worth of songs without sounding repetitive. Then if you want to program your own beats, you can always do it with about a bazillion different free plug-ins out there, or pay for something like Linplug RMIV. Not to sound like a shill or anything (I realize I DO sometimes, but I'm just an enthusiastic user), but when Tracktion 2 comes out next month, it'll include the RMIV (mentioned above) and 4 gigs of drum sounds, both 'real/live' and electronic. It'll also include Amplitube for your guitar and bass amp needs, and a slough of other stuff. Plus, well, Tracktion. Still, back to my original point-- any free or cheap sequencer will still do the job for you and do it better than the Boss unit. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 Gorecki, me and a friend are planning to start some sort of musical project type thingamyjig and im really tempted to start recording guitar parts as samples and then going down the whole NIN route with lots of synths and electronica type stuff. ive also been playing about with ableton live which is such a powerful program and is perfect for doing the same sort of thing. im a happoy bunny atm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidlook Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 I've got 3 letters for you BFD...I'm a drummer myself, and honestly...this software's so damn good no-one would EVER be able to tell the if it's a real drummer or not... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 in truth drum machines are the way forward. they keep time, it cuts down on beer cost and it wont try and grope your girlfriend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 I've got 3 letters for you BFD...I'm a drummer myself, and honestly...this software's so damn good no-one would EVER be able to tell the if it's a real drummer or not... ← Word. I'm friends with Paul of FXPansion (the makers of BFD), or at least as far as the online definition of friends goes (he lives in Germany, and we don't tend to talk about our personal lives much). We are actually both part of a freeware plug-in company ( BetabugsAudio ), should you wish to stop by. The interesting stuff happens in the Bughouse (the forum). I'm fairly confident he's not a drummer himself, though, but I do have a wee bit background insight into the program (not much as it rarely comes up), and from what I've been told, there's nothing that comes even close. Not a thing. Now if only I was good enough friends to ask him to send me out an NFR copy of BFD for myself, but I don't want to ask, you know? Seems tacky. Unfortunately! Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 ooohhh free VST plugins that look like they do cool things the flofi deluxe looks to be pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 Yes, but it sounds god-awful on vocals or guitar. I guess I'll post the link to BetaBugs on another thread so that we don't hijack this one. Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorecki Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 Gorecki, me and a friend are planning to start some sort of musical project type thingamyjig and im really tempted to start recording guitar parts as samples and then going down the whole NIN route with lots of synths and electronica type stuff. ive also been playing about with ableton live which is such a powerful program and is perfect for doing the same sort of thing. im a happoy bunny atm ← Sounds like fun, I have Live Delta (OEM version) and haven't touched it yet. I use Cubase for most things but I should spend some time with it, heard good things. Have fun..that's what it's all about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorecki Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 Oh, no - that's not what I was saying. I was talking about having to deal with the crappy "built-in" MIDI drums that come with Cakewalk and other recording packages. I would fully expect a drum machine to sound much better than those sounds but the reason I mentioned Drumatic is that it's much less expensive than a drum machine - something like $50.00, I think. Ohh...okay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 the only thing with live is it kinf of makes me feel like im cheating lol. if you have 3 samples all at different BPM then you can set a global BPM in Live and it will automatically change the sound samples so that they play at the chosen BPM. no pitch change, no degradation that i can hear. very clever but it makes me feel a little cheap lol tho in fairness the ex xynth player from NIN uses Live for all his current work so to quote my friend "If its going to be considered cheap then were in bloody good company" i havnt had a look at cubase at all. played with logic a bit and i can remember most of the stuff from my music technology courses at school but i hardlly know anything about logic. just seems to be hidden stuff. things like Live and Reason dont really seem to need manuals even. Reason certainlly doesnt just to get it going. i dunno, each to their own. now i have to spend time filling up my 160 gig HDD with porn, i mean samples, thats it ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregP Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 I found Reason to be unfriendly, so I'm surprised you had such an easy time getting it up and running. I don't have a background in hardware synths and so forth, though, which is what Reason emulates. Live is groovy, but once you're getting surgical, there IS quality degradation depending on the material used. Still, it's a great program! Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyG Posted February 8, 2005 Report Share Posted February 8, 2005 the first time i looked at reason at scared the S*%t out of me lol. its literally a case of just treating it as a large rack system and its fairlly self evident from there some of the stuff works on patterns that you program (Redrum and Matrix) and can then skip between the rest of it works on a combination of patterns and stuff that you program in using the keyboard. then there are the little tricky things like learning how to get the control voltages from whatever controlling whatever else you have. i just worked through it rack system by rack system starting with working outhow to program ReDrum and then have it change between patterns in the song. my only background in synth stuff is from knowing how a fair few work RE: my own studies and knowing how they can work together. even tho ive never actually got my hands on a real hardware synth :S as for Live you're probablly right that there will be degredation tho i havnt come across it so far. butthen im almost certainlly not using it to its fullest potential Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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