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[muso] Drum Machine Software

Started by Des Nilsen, November 28, 2006, 04:44:12 PM

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Des Nilsen

Hello there,

I've been recording bits and bobs for ages now, and I've finally stumbled on a sound that suits me. When it comes to a beat I use a very simple drum machine built into a multi-effects pedal, effecting the sound, overlaying other parts and reversing others for something quite smooth and strange.

It works, but I've heard drum machines on here and elsewhere that sound so much better and I'd like to play around with them. I remember Rats had a nice live-but-chopped-up sound on some of his stuff. Quite appealed to me.

I'd love it if any of you could recommend some software to get, free or otherwise. Free is always preferrable, of course. Something that will sit well with funky, buncy, 70's session bass style, spacey Cocteau's style guitar and thick, bassy fuzz. Basicly flexible rock.

Thanks. x

-

Labian Quest

My brother's a drummer, but we haven't sorted out a room where we can record live drums yet, so I've been using a Boss DR-880 drum machine (it's got 100 kits with 24 bit samples, but at £300 they are pretty expensive) if you're any good at step time drum programming, or better still, know a drummer who can record MIDI drum tracks with an electronic drumkit, you can do pretty much anything with one of those or some decent virtual drum software.

As far as free stuff goes, I've had reasonably good results using some of the free drum soundfonts that are available on the web, you can load them into your sequencer using a free VST called sfz, though they don't usually have that many layers in them (maybe 3 or 4). I've also just been trying out two of the big name virtual drumkits - BFD and Drumkit from Hell, and of the two I would say I prefer BFD, as the interface is a lot easier to use, plus the fact that the RAM requirements, while high (you will need at least 1 GB to run it properly) aren't as ridiculous as DFH's. I am going to be recording some tracks using BFD in the next week or two, so if you're interested in hearing how it sounds in a song I can post a few samples.

BFD interface: (note how you can adjust the volume of the mikes )

http://www.harmony-central.com/Newp/2003/BFD-lg.jpg

El Unicornio, mang

Just a quick recommendation for EZDrummer from Toontrack. I'm also using the Expansion pack, 'Vintage Rock', which is based on the Ludwig drum set The Beatles used. Awesome program that totally negates the need for a live drummer when you're recording.



I use BFD, from MIDI tracks recorded from the TD-8 V-Drums. You can treat the resulting sound anyway you choose, even separating out the various pitches/sounds into separate tracks (so you can have one effect on the kick and another on the snare, for example). Another nice touch is that you can separate it based on the virtual microphones too, so you can mix it as if you actually had a fully mic-ed up drum kit. I tend to just use its stereo outputs though and use the mixing on it's interface, panning the various cymbals and toms and trimming their levels etc. Of course, it's not got any "drum machine" sounds on it - it's a virtual drum kit, after all - but with gating and effects you'd probably be able to make it sound like one yourself.

Staggeringly, it's only £150, and the new one is out too so they've probably made improvements I'm not aware of. Can't go far wrong with it. Obviously the TD-8s make this setup a little more expensive than your suggested £300 limit, although they're 8 years old now and it's quite possible you could find a second hand one for... I dunno, maybe £500-700? They're not necessary of course if you have a MIDI drum machine you're already happy with and just want your sounds to change - you can do all that chopping up business with the MIDI information you already record. If your drum machine is old-school and doesn't output MIDI performance data (although that would have to be pretty fucking old) then you'll have to get a more modern one anyway, but I don't know much about those. The V-Drums are one of the most important parts of my setup though - to be able to get a natural drum performance into MIDI and then adjust it to be perfectly in time is invaluable, and makes me wonder how anyone manages to record a drum kit without it being MIDI'd up.

I've had very limited experience with EZDrummer but it sounded pretty good too - although I'm not convinced its worth going for over BFD unless you really need to save that extra dosh (EZDrummer is about £100-130, if I remember correctly).

El Unicornio, mang

I have BFD (a pirate copy) but I've never installed it,simply due to it being about 11GB, and my laptop only having about 18GB spare