Software recommendations for complicated drumming mock-ups

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
This is sort of off topic for GigaSampler, per se, but I\'m wondering if anyone has recommendation for software that is capable of creating fairly complicated drum patterns for a song and then outputing MIDI files that could be loaded into my Pro Tools rig.

I\'m working on a sort of \'Yes\' piece right now and just can\'t afford to invite Bill Bruford over for a week. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

How do you all go about creating the rhythms in your pieces?

Thanks,
Mark

[Erik Nygaard]

The easiest way would probably be to get some drumloops in the preferred/similar style and doctor them in Recycle, Chopper (Acid) or other loop-tools. I have a number of accoustic pop/rock songs were I have used ready-made drumloops and tweaked them in Acid to suit my own arrangements.
My combination of Gigastudio, Home Studio 2002 (Sonar-light) and Acid pro makes it fairly easy to test arrangements with quality-sounds. This should be possible with Pro-Tools as well, haven\'t tried it yet.

Good luck
Erik

[This message has been edited by Erik Nygaard (edited 02-15-2002).]

[Mark_Knecht]

Erik,
Hi. Thanks for the reply.

Yes, today I am using Acid Pro 3.0 for this much like you are. It\'s very easy to build things in Acid (IMHO) if you have a good set of prebuilt loops at the measure level at least. Making the assumption that I know the tempo I want the work to be at, I then export audio from Acid and load the wave files as tracks in Pro Tools. At that point it\'s no different than any other audio I\'m working with.

However, for what I\'m working on right now I really do not have a good library at the measure level, and there are going to be a number of tempo changes within the work. To get around this, I\'m using one-shots, but this is very time consuming...

Additionally, another limition of Acid is it\'s basic interest in always being in 4/4 time. Most loop libraries I\'ve found are in 4/4 to suit pop music. This does not easily fit into what I\'m trying to do.

For these reasons I\'m interested in exploring the use of MIDI driving GSt to create the drum audio. That way if I make changes within Pro Tools it will immediately reflect back to what I\'m hearing without having to go back to Acid to make new wave files.

I\'ve sort of gotten curious about finding MIDI loop libraires for Acid and then attempting to use them in Pro Tools the same way. Acid does support MIDI tracks, although I\'ve never used them. Also, people on the Pro Tools side are exploring sync\'ing Acid to Pro Tools which would handle at least the tempo change problems.

But short of all of that new technology, if there were a really great tool that could just generate MIDI drum pattern files, I would love to then just drop them into my Pro Tools setup as blocks of MIDI information and let PT drive GSt as I do for other MIDI instruments. I\'ve already built gigs using my favorite drum sounds, but have no great way to drive them...

Thanks for the interest, and also for any other ideas you might have in the future.

Take care,
Mark

[Haydn]

I don\'t think there\'s a shortcut to doing Bill Bruford type drum parts. His playing has a tendency to not repeat itself. He likes to throw his snare hits all over the place from measure to measure.

[sporter]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:


But short of all of that new technology, if there were a really great tool that could just generate MIDI drum pattern files, I would love to then just drop them into my Pro Tools setup as blocks of MIDI information and let PT drive GSt as I do for other MIDI instruments. I\'ve already built gigs using my favorite drum sounds, but have no great way to drive them...


Take care,
Mark<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


I\'ve been looking for something similar. Somthing that I have used with good results is Jammer.(http://www.soundtrek.com/) I use it to drive my drum sounds in GS, and save it as a midi file, which I can then use in Logic. It\'s a little more cumbersome than I would like, but the results have been good when I needed a particular style, and couldn\'t get the right feel by programming my own.

[Mark_Knecht]

Sporter,
Thanks for the info. I\'ll have to check this out.

Mark

[Erik Nygaard]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:

Yes, today I am using Acid Pro 3.0 for this much like you are. It\'s very easy to build things in Acid (IMHO) if you have a good set of prebuilt loops at the measure level at least. Making the assumption that I know the tempo I want the work to be at, I then export audio from Acid and load the wave files as tracks in Pro Tools.

......

Additionally, another limition of Acid is it\'s basic interest in always being in 4/4 time. Most loop libraries I\'ve found are in 4/4 to suit pop music. This does not easily fit into what I\'m trying to do.

......

I\'ve sort of gotten curious about finding MIDI loop libraires for Acid and then attempting to use them in Pro Tools the same way. Acid does support MIDI tracks, although I\'ve never used them. Also, people on the Pro Tools side are exploring sync\'ing Acid to Pro Tools which would handle at least the tempo change problems.

......

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I seem to be working in the opposite direction :-) First I lay down some midi-tracks in Home Studio and render these
via Gigastudio as beatmapped tracks in Acid.
Then I build the drums from scratch in Acid starting with full loops from one library and maybe mixing them with percussion/cymbal/hihat-loops from other sources.(a tip: you can start any loop from any point within thereby creating some variations on the theme).
Then I render the drums to a wave-file and export the them back into Home Studio and redo the midi-tracks with the proper backing. Then it\'s back to Acid with everything and starting to try out different arrangements where I will select only parts of (the complete) instrumental tracks and generally mess about. And I can also do some small changes to the tempo/pitch if neccessary. I always keep the original drum-jigsaw (muted) so I can go back and do changes to the individual parts.
As for other timesignatures than the old 4-4 I completly agree, I have a number of songs in 3-4, 6-8, mixed 3-4/4-4 amd some 5-4 as well and it is a bit harder to keep track (yep) with the current time.line sticking to 4-4. The midi implementation in Acid is scarce to put it mildly, I have put forward several suggestions on Acid on the Sonic Forums.
I did try to make drum patterns in midi once upon a time, but my limited knowledge of actual drumming put a stop to that. Also it is probably hard to implement grace notes and all those other small variations in a real drummer performance. For me the solution was to find loops that could serve as a basis/building blocks to match my own compositions. And I have also found loops in very odd timesignatures on magazine CDs (ie British Computer Music/Future Music).




[This message has been edited by Erik Nygaard (edited 02-19-2002).]

[KingIdiot]

Get a Drum Trigger PAd if you can atleast keep rythm with your hands

I do all my drum programming step sequenced in cubase. Tedious....but I used to program Mike Portnoy type drum playing on my DR-5....

Sequencing is a dream compared to that http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

If you know the beat. I suggest step writing it (using a keyboard controller for input), and then if you can play it...somewhat ... with your keyboard. Open another track and play along with another Kit http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif


I usually go with the step writen track and make fine tuned adjustments for ghost notes and the like. Atleast with complex parts...simple sixteenths I play real time, adding rolls in the piano roll editor.

------------------
Really...I am an Idiot

[Mark_Knecht]

KingIdiot,
Maybe I should look into a trigger pad. I hadn\'t considered that previously as I didn\'t really have anything I wanted to trigger real time, but now with my GSt setup maturing, that might be a good solution.

Any recommendations for good, but fairly low priced, units?

I just got into Mike Portnoy recently. Never paid much attention to Dream Theater, but found the first Transatlantic CD a couple of weeks ago. That CD is almost magical to me. Got the second one also. Not nearly so interesting a CD, but his drumming is quite good.

And you did this on a DR-5? I guess there is a link between doing music and S&M sometimes... ;-)

BTW - I guess your answer is \'There isn\'t any good software for doing this\'.

Cheers,
Mark


[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-19-2002).]

[Mark_Knecht]

Erik,
Hi. Thanks for the description. It\'s pretty differently than I\'ve been working (assuming I\'m really understanding!) so I\'d like to explore it a bit more.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>First I lay down some midi-tracks in Home Studio and render these via Gigastudio as beatmapped tracks in Acid.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, is \'Home Studio\' a sequencer of some sort? I\'m not familiar. Anyway, this makes sense to me if your into doign the MIDI programming from scratch and by hand. I\'m doing the same thing in Pro Tools but sort of failing miserably in my attempts to sound like a drummer.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Then I build the drums from scratch in Acid starting with full loops from one library and maybe mixing them with percussion/cymbal/hihat-loops from other sources.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So what I think you\'re telling me, but I\'m not sure, is that you take your audio from step #1 back into Acid, and then what happens I\'m not sure. Do you ADD sounds to what you\'ve already done? Or do you sort of recreate the whole thing in Acid using the library and throw away the audio from step #1? I think the idea of adding sounds as one shots at this point is one I\'ve never had.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Then I render the drums to a wave-file and export the them back into Home Studio and redo the midi-tracks with the proper backing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK, so now you have your Acid Audio in Home Studio, sitting above your original MIDI, and you do more hand editign of the MIDI to make it match what you did in Acid.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Then it\'s back to Acid with everything and starting to try out different arrangements where I will select only parts of (the complete) instrumental tracks and generally mess about.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So at this point you\'re more working on arranging the song stucture than the drums I think.


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR> And I can also do some small changes to the tempo/pitch if neccessary. I always keep the original drum-jigsaw (muted) so I can go back and do changes to the individual parts.
As for other timesignatures than the old 4-4 I completly agree, I have a number of songs in 3-4, 6-8, mixed 3-4/4-4 amd some 5-4 as well and it is a bit harder to keep track (yep) with the current time.line sticking to 4-4. The midi implementation in Acid is scarce to put it mildly, I have put forward several suggestions on Acid on the Sonic Forums.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now I\'m getting lost. Is your goal to keep the MIDI in Home Studio valid, or to build drum tracks in Acid to eventually us in Home Studio like you had recorded a drummer?

If it\'s the later, then how do you get your tempo changes back?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>I did try to make drum patterns in midi once upon a time, but my limited knowledge of actual drumming put a stop to that. Also it is probably hard to implement grace notes and all those other small variations in a real drummer performance. For me the solution was to find loops that could serve as a basis/building blocks to match my own compositions. And I have also found loops in very odd timesignatures on magazine CDs (ie British Computer Music/Future Music). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree here totally. It is very time consuming looking for all these loops and then managing them within my song structures. Lots of work, but lots of fun when something works well!

Assuming that I haven\'t gone totally astray, I must say that this seems like a LOT of work! We\'re certainly not that far apart on what we\'re trying to do, I think, but I\'d simply never have the patience to go through all of those steps to get to where I\'m going.

None the less, thanks very much for sharign your process with me. I do like the idea of mixing MIDI created drum patterns with one-shots or other loops in Acid. I\'m going to give that some thought, although I think my method might be to build a GSt instrument that just had my Acid loops in it, so I could play it from my MIDI database. (Or try to sync Acid with Pro Tools, which I know others are trying to do.)

Cheers,
Mark

[Mark_Knecht]

Went at lunch today and played with a Yamaha dd-55. It was fun. I felt more musical in 2 minutes than I think I ever felt about anything ever did via MIDI programming.

Thanks for the idea King!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KingIdiot:
Get a Drum Trigger PAd if you can atleast keep rythm with your hands<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>



[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-19-2002).]

[Haydn]

Mark,

Noticed you like the Transatlantic CD. Have you checked out The Flower Kings? Roine Stolt who is the guitar player for Transatlantic is the brains behind The Flower Kings. If you like odd meters and extended tunes, you\'ll like their material.

[Mark_Knecht]

Haydn,
The Flower Kings are high on the list for checking out this month. I like Stolt\'s guitar playign a lot on \'All of the Above\', and really on everything else also, but certainly on that song.

The SMPT:E CD is just magical for me. I can\'t figure out what I like so much about it, but I seem to be listening over and over again.

I will probably give Dream Theater a buy this month also, but I have enough to really go through right now I think I\'ll be taking a little break from purchases!

Thanks,
Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-19-2002).]

[Mark_Knecht]

KingIdiot and anyone else,
Any experience with either the Roland SPD-6 or the Yamaha DD-55?

Thanks,
Mark

[Haydn]

Mark,

My current favorite Flower Kings in Space Revolver but you can\'t go wrong with any of the albums. The song, My New World, gives you an idea of Roine\'s writing as he did the majority of the song. He also sings most of the lead vocals on that song.

I purchase most of my CD\'s from Greg Walker of Synphonic music. He lives in the LA area and has good prices and excellent service.

[Doc]

Look into the different DrumKat controller multipads, also Hart makes a six pad \"MultiPad\". Many outfits make full kit drumpads and/or stick on triggers to put on a real drumkit. The DrumKat\'s have inputs for additional triggers, i.e. highhat / kick pedals, so you can make a fairly compact drumkit setup for midi triggering. By the way, they can trigger anything via midi, (songs, chords, notes, drum hits). Just think of them like a keyboard only you use drumsticks or your feet in the case of attached pedals to trigger. When you drum on a pad you will get a more contolled/natural drum part than by using a keyboard or recording midi by step.

[KingIdiot]

Mark,

The person you may want to talk to about triggers is Donnie.

I don\'t own any triggers, but need to get a simple one in the very near future.


and yes programming this kind of stuff on the DR-5 was tedious and very frustrating...since I was limited to 32nds at the smalles I believe. Got some great results after recording and moving around the audio/FX processing.

well great for the limitations http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

It helped that I had/have a great drummer I can ask about drumming. I played with him in a band for a few years. He introducved me to more techniques of drumming which I can say has helped me very much in understanding how to get a \"sound\" from drums...however it hasn\'t helped my timing at all... I\'m one of \"*THOSE*\" guitar players http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif


------------------
Really...I am an Idiot

[Mark_Knecht]

Doc,
Found my own answer by talking to Brian at Hart directly. Most folks are using Midi drum modules that have trigger inputs.

Cheers,
Mark

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
Is there some sort of converter for drum triger to MIDI?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[dwdonehoo]

The best program, and it is free, for doing drum patterns can be found here:
http://www.geocities.com/midibrainz/ (\"http://www.geocities.com/midibrainz/\")

With it you can not only sketch out your basic song structures in midi, but you can also build up very complex drum patterns, export it all to a midi file and import it into your favorite sequencer (tweak away!). And yes, you can do things as complex as Bill Bruford or Niel Pert.

Just for your info....

[Mark_Knecht]

Doc,
Thanks! The DrumKat stuff looks great, but I think they\'re beyond my budget for doing this sort of thing right now.

The Hart stuff looks really great, especially the MultiPad. It\'s listed for $169 on Musician\'s Friend. (If they actually ship it...) However, it doesn\'t appear to have MIDI on it. How do I use it with GigaSampler and my MIDI sequencer? Is there some sort of converter for drum triger to MIDI?

Again, I\'m no drummer, and am just looking for a way to get some life in the drum parts I\'m working on. I\'ll probably be banging away with my hands as well as sticks. Thanks so much for showing me a couple more options.

Thanks,
Mark

[Mark_Knecht]

Thanks King.

Yep, having a drummer around is a big help. Additionally, I\'m sort of thinking that my MIDI drum stuff is so real people listening know what I\'m thinking. Then later maybe we record a real drummer anyway.

I\'ll look around to see if Donnie\'s email address is listed and try sending him a note.

Thanks again.

[Erik Nygaard]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:


1) OK, is \'Home Studio\' a sequencer of some sort? I\'m not familiar. Anyway, this makes sense to me if your into doign the MIDI programming from scratch and by hand.

---

2) So what I think you\'re telling me, but I\'m not sure, is that you take your audio from step #1 back into Acid, and then what happens I\'m not sure. Do you ADD sounds to what you\'ve already done? Or do you sort of recreate the whole thing in Acid using the library and throw away the audio from step #1? I think the idea of adding sounds as one shots at this point is one I\'ve never had.

---

3) OK, so now you have your Acid Audio in Home Studio, sitting above your original MIDI, and you do more hand editign of the MIDI to make it match what you did in Acid.

---

4) So at this point you\'re more working on arranging the song stucture than the drums I think.

---

5) Now I\'m getting lost. Is your goal to keep the MIDI in Home Studio valid, or to build drum tracks in Acid to eventually us in Home Studio like you had recorded a drummer?
If it\'s the later, then how do you get your tempo changes back?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is probably more complicated to explain than actually performing :-)

1) Home Studio 2002 is a midi/audio-sequencer with unlimited tracks,DX-plugins/instruments, Acid-like looping/timestretching. A cut-down version of Sonar, but I can\'t see that they left anything significant out.

2) After my midi-recording are done I export these as wave-files to Acid were I then build my drum-arrangement around the (former) midi-tracks. When the drums are finished I may decide to redo some midi-tracks, that is why I render a mix in Acid and import into HS. It is easier to do a better performance hearing the full \"picture\". Hope this is clearer.

3)I may add additional midi-tracks in HS against the rendered background from Acid. I never do any complicated midi-editing, prefering to do things live. Only some velocity/transposing and maybe fixing blant timing errors. There is no duplicating what I do in Acid, just another tool to make usic.

4) Yes, song structure is so easy to handle in Acid. You can rearrange very fast, use only parts of the origianl miditracks etc.

5) I keep the midi-tracks in HS so I can come back to them later if necessary. The same way I keep individual drum loops in Acid for eventual later readjustments.
Keeping the whole song with all its components in Acid makes it easy to adjust tempo for the drums. Of course I must export the miditracks from HS to Acid once more if tempo/pitch changes later. Wich is what I am doing at the moment with several songs after discussions with my lady singer. This process takes a bit of time, but is very straightforward.




[This message has been edited by Erik Nygaard (edited 02-22-2002).]

[Erik Nygaard]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
Hi,
This is sort of off topic for GigaSampler, per se, but I\'m wondering if anyone has recommendation for software that is capable of creating fairly complicated drum patterns for a song and then outputing MIDI files that could be loaded into my Pro Tools rig.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi again

I just discovered a shareware tool called Groove Trainer on http://www.e-drummer.net (\"http://www.e-drummer.net\")

Contains a lot of presets and you can make your own in different timesignatures.
Also shows patterns in notation and you can mute parts etc.

Hope this helps
Erik

[dwdonehoo]

Erik: Thanks for writing out your methods. I always like exploring new ways of doing things. After listening to Thomas_J\'s number and having planned to use Acid for just that sort of music, I will have to try your approach. I often use music wizard to lay out the drum track, import to sequencer and finish it off there. I want to use Acid to use the canned beat stuff and layer on that, which I think Thomas_J did with great results. (TJ, chime in if you wish.) I have done some interestinig things aka metal meets full orchestra using Wizard. I need to get into Acid more.

Mark: Looks like you are into (still? http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif ) the progressive thing. I started playing bass long ago (before moving off to keyboards) listening to C. Squire and Jack Bruce and played a lot of Yes and Genesis, so good percussion has always been important to me. N. Peart also makes a good study. I am always interested in networking with fellow composers. My web site is below.

Doyle W. Donehoo
Radar Music
http://www.sierra-trails.com/radarmusic.html (\"http://www.sierra-trails.com/radarmusic.html\")

[dwdonehoo]

\"1) Home Studio 2002 is a midi/audio-sequencer with unlimited tracks,DX-plugins/instruments, Acid-like looping/timestretching. A cut-down version of Sonar, but I can\'t see that they left anything significant out.\"

Probably SMPTE/MTC is not there, like Home Studio 9. Which is why I have Sonar...

-----------------------
Doyle W. Donehoo
Radar Music
http://www.sierra-trails.com/radarmusic.html (\"http://www.sierra-trails.com/radarmusic.html\")

[Mark_Knecht]

Doyle & Erik,
Thanks for the great info and pointers. I will be checking them out over the next few days and weeks.

I bought a drum module yesterday with trigger inputs, and will be getting a Hart MultiPad in the next few weeks.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed here. Lots of good stuff.

Cheers,
Mark

Doyle - BTW - We live about 5 minutes apart from each other! :-)

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 02-22-2002).]

[Doc]

Mark, I\'ve got a Hart Multipad that I\'m not using if you want to buy used instead of new and save a few bucks. Just email me at doctorkr444@aol.com (take out the \"444\" in the address, its there to prevent spam)

[Mark_Knecht]

Doc,
what is it with people wanting to sell me their MultiPads? http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif Are they no good?

You\'re now the fourth person to to approach me on this. I\'ll keep you in mind if I try and get a bidding war going! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Thanks,
Mark

[Doc]

I\'ve got two Drumkats and the Hart multipad, I\'m really a bass player, lol. Hart is one of the best companies for trigger pads, but I\'m only using one of the Drumkats (got the others for a good price and just have not resold them yet). I\'m a gear junkie, like to try things for a while then sell and try something else. Got mine on ebay for $120. If you can pick one up cheap do it since you have the midi module already. Check ebay and harmonycentral.com\'s listings to cover all the bases. Go to some drummer forums and you\'ll see how the working drummers rate each of the different manufacturers and their products. Good luck and let us know the best price out there and your experiences getting the perfect drum tracks.

[Mark_Knecht]

Hey Doc,
Fun stuff. Thanks!

Mark