I've heard the comment over the years, "The only person who likes change is a baby with a wet diaper."
Most people get used to a song as it sounded when it was a hit on the radio. When a cover of that song is done, most people don't expect it to be a complete reproduction or clone of the original, or why bother listening to anything but the original? At the same time, they expect to be able to instantly recognize the song. There is a signature to the song as they remember it. Sometimes, part of that signature is the drums, a lead guitar pattern, a bass pattern, whatever.
Good players can always rework a song, but there is a risk to that, in that some people are going to hate the changes you've made. (Some people loved Eric Clapton's acoustic version of "Layla" and some people hated it.) Sometimes the risk is worth it if you can come up with a rearrangement that is really original and really appealing. In my experience -- because I have done a lot of this -- is that about one rearrangement in ten actually is acceptable to most listeners. If you are doing music in your living room or bedroom for yourself or your dog, where nobody else ever hears what you do, then there are no limits. But if you are playing for the enjoyment of others, it matters how your audience reacts.
Most people like what they know and don't like change. In my opinion, that's why drums in some -- not all -- songs are needed.
Regarding real vs sampled drums, I have spent a lot of time recording real acoustic drums when I worked with my son's prog-rock back in 1999 to record a couple of CD albums. It's hard, tedious work that not only requires a lot of time but requires a lot of good, expensive equipment to do it right. High quality sampled drums have already been recorded by good engineers using good equipment, and it can be a challenge to get real, acoustic recorded drum sounds to sound as good as the high quality sampled drums out there today. For most of us who are just trying to have fun with music, using sampled drum sounds allow us to get there quickly and with good overall sound. In fact, some of the drummers I have worked with had no problem, on occasion, using not only real but also sampled drums and percussion in their recordings. Their attitude tended to be, why reinvent the wheel if I've already got the sound I want right here? One drummer I worked with asked me to mix in a sampled snare drum with his own snare drum to get the overall sound he wanted for a particular song.
- Glenn
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