Recording quesrion

[jimilee]

What do you guys use to record drums in your home studio, assuming you don't have your own set of course.


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[AllenM]

I use Toontrack's Ezy Drummer 2 along with some of the sound packs and midi packs. It has a great tool where you can tap in a beat and it suggests midi files that match, and the samples are some of the best I have used.

AllenM

[jtn191]

Im really bad at programming drums but find a sequencer like ts808 or 909 is easier to work with. my preferred click track actually

[selfdestroyer]

I used to use Additive Drums until I upgraded to the latest Logic Pro and found the drums they have included are pretty sweet. Been really happy with it.

Cody

[midwayfair]

Logic's drummer. It sounds okay (I have multiple demos people were surprised to learn the drums were programmed) and relatively easy to edit both on a surface or midi level. Things start to sound much better when you split each drum out to a separate tracks for different processing and even use different kits for different instruments. Some kits have better sounding cymbals, for instance.

The real limitations come when you start trying to program in the human element. Despite a sliding scale on intensity of a drum hit, there are a limited number of samples for the program to play back. So it's almost impossible to get the minute variations in timbre and volume needed.

[Willybomb]

Jamstix.  Mostly I use it with Kontact to trigger the Steven Slate Drum samples.

[solderfumes]

The lowest octave on a MIDI keyboard controller

Well, in general, I would first lay down the main grooves for the song (be it 1, 2, 4, or whatever bars), correcting the velocities and timing manually, and then loop it.  Then I'd convert the loops to proper MIDI tracks, and program in fills and what not with a mouse.  Not exactly a 21st century solution, but rewarding in its own way, and I never felt like it wasn't time well spent.

[peAk]

Addictive Drums, BFD, Battery

I like to write out all my drums by hand using Cubase's drum grid. Once you learn drums placement, it make things a lot easier.

Avoid quantizing if you can. If you do use it, maybe only use it to 80%. Nice grooves usually have something a little ahead or behind the beat, like a snare for example. If you quantize everything 100%, it will sound very stiff and drum machine like.

And of course adjust velocity.

My advice to start out with is learn how to program a hi-hat groove across a bar and make it sound realistic as possible (unless you are doing electronic music). Once you have a hi-hat groove that sounds good and "human-like", then it makes placing other elements, such as the kick and snare, much easier.

[jkokura]

I use Slate drums. I haven't done much lately, but I find they sound great. A little limited in how the kit is setup, but if you really need additional sounds you can add a second track with different setup.

I also have the Drum program that came with NI Complete, but I haven't used it much. I know it sounds good, but I'm more familiar with Slate.

Jacob

[jimilee]

Thanks guys. I was hoping to spend less time programming and more time recording, but to hear the groove I hear in my head is gonna take a little bit more than the sample beats.


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[Matt]

Boss drum machine.

[Lubdar]

As a former drummer, I find this to be a huge obstacle. There is a large amount of time and energy that goes into programming drums, and as alluded to earlier into getting the variations in pressure just right.  Crashing on a ride and getting realistic sounding wash is somewhat manageable/not believable but ghost notes and drags  on snares usually sound completely strange off.  I would think most software has a version of the "Humanize" function.

For the most part I write down my drum parts ahead of time because by the time I have to get the tempo and all of the different tracks/samples together to complete the gist of it, its totally warped. 

If you record the beat with your mouth, you can always get creative and through processing have your beat box version on top of the programmed version

[Willybomb]

Jamstix has an interesting take on the whole "human" style drumming thing.  Seriously, check it out.  Even the stock samples are pretty good, and you can set it to respond to the dynamics of another track.

[raulduke]

Checkout Drum Drops.
https://www.drumdrops.com/
They look like they have some really cool stuff (loops, tracks, sampled kits etc.)

[televisiondown]

I use Redrum on Reason. Got the Reason 8 Essentials for $60 at Sweetwater. Lots of drum options and very easy to record with. Used it on all my recent recordings:

soundcloud.com/rainyday45s