You've been warned...

[Bob Womack]

A whole day sequencing drums will drive you absolutely CRAZY.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Bob

[Trevor B.]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

A whole day sequencing drums will drive you absolutely CRAZY.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Bob

So, Bob, are you saying, "Hire a drummer"?

[rick-slo]

What? - didn't hear you.

[Bob Womack]

If you've got the dough or the budget, a good drummer "beats" programming, both for feel and speed of recording. Unfortunately some scoring gigs are on a smaller budget so you exchange the real thing for a lot of manual work. Especially if you are borderline O/C about your drums. I found myself getting a bit buggy about performing some of the fills with anticipation, putting them ahead of the beat, and others with just enough behind the beat drag to be funky. Love pocket management. Until I don't.

Bob

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

If you've got the dough or the budget, a good drummer "beats" programming, both for feel and speed of recording. Unfortunately some scoring gigs are on a smaller budget so you exchange the real thing for a lot of manual work. Especially if you are borderline O/C about your drums. I found myself getting a bit buggy about performing some of the fills with anticipation, putting them ahead of the beat, and others with just enough behind the beat drag to be funky. Love pocket management. Until I don't.

Bob

I program beats all the time and I am perfectly normal normal normal normal normal.... stop repeating yourself yourself yourself... I'm not not not... you shut up up .... your a wack job... no I'm the one that's lucid lucid lucid. two - three - four - triplet

[Bob Womack]

I read a guitar player interview with Steve Howe where he spoke of coming down out of his guitar room and back into the real world to join the family. The moment he was out he realized how little the difference between two chords he'd been agonizing about mattered once he emerged.

It's kind of like that with drum programming. After staring with eyes glazed for hours, back off a couple of hours and the minutia can sort of disappear. Except that one little fill at bar 39 STILL ISN'T RIGHT!

Too true. I'm patterning Jeff Porcaro and Joe Vitale right now. Two pocket masters.

Bob

[Trevor B.]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

If you've got the dough or the budget, a good drummer "beats" programming, both for feel and speed of recording. Unfortunately some scoring gigs are on a smaller budget so you exchange the real thing for a lot of manual work. Especially if you are borderline O/C about your drums. I found myself getting a bit buggy about performing some of the fills with anticipation, putting them ahead of the beat, and others with just enough behind the beat drag to be funky. Love pocket management. Until I don't.

Bob

These days all my gigs are on a smaller budget. "Crazy" here I come!

[MikeBmusic]

I wish I had a space to record drums! Of course then I'd have to wish for some drumming skill, too!

Can definitely relate - I typically will spend an hour or 2 - at most - at a time doing the drum work. I use EZDrummer2, then play with the MIDI loops - more often than not velocities - until I can't take it anymore!

[Doug Michaels]

How about the Beat Buddy. The drums are real and really recorded. They reside on an SD card that inserts into the BB. They can be edited in too many ways to mention and there is tutorial on line that explains all of it. I use the BB live and could not live without it. There is absolutely nothing like it on the market......yet. Its a foot pedal drum machine. Just hit the pedal like any other pedal and it starts right up with either an intro drum or none. It also has fills, transitions, parts for chorus or verse and a ton of other tweeks easily made. I know a lot of guitarists have recorded their demo's using these drums and the Beat Buddy rather than supporting a drummer although I like supporting drummers too and use one often.

[Ty Ford]

I'm still stumbling up the curve of BFD 3.0, but making progress It's a pretty amazing program, but not plug and play. I feel your pain.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Bob Womack]

Yeah. The program I'm using, Drumagog, can have up to thirty-six samples per sound, allowing you to have left and right-hand hits, various locations on the head or cymbal, various clutch states on the hat, etc. that can be either triggered by the intensity of the original hit or controlled with automation. If you've got a pretty good sound already but need a little more of one thing or another you can mix between the original drum sound and the sample to get the best of both. It's pretty amazing and flexible but that's the problem: with flexibility you get options and manipulating all that detail takes time and detail-orientation, from whence cometh the bugginess by the end of the session.

Bob

[Ty Ford]

Yep. We just worked on a tune last week and have a side stick hit from nowhere that's right at the end of the song, just where you don't want it. It's not a hit on the screen. I don't know whether it's a bug or op error, but it certainly is an entertaining way to spend an afternoon.

Your Pal in Pain,

Ty Ford

[Bob Womack]

And then there's the "quiet hit" that shouldn't be quieter because the original is just as loud as all the others. You replace the original with another and it triggers great then you do the export and it creeps back in. Yuck. Fiddle, fiddle.

Bob