Best Drum Machine?

[MorbidAngel]

Hello

I'm going to be making demo recordings soon, and I need to buy a Drum machine. I'd really like to know what the best one is, I want one that is not to robotic sounding *good luck right?*
I will be recording some insane death metal and I'd like it to not sound to thin and mor organic. Price is not really an issue I guess as long as I can get what I want.

I have searched fo a "real" drummer in my areas but they are about as rare as an honest politician.

let me know what you guys think.

thanks

Chris

[Polaris20]

Buy SF Acid and a couple drum CD's. All drum machines suck compared to Acid.

I know, I wasted too much time with an Alesis SR16.

Acid uses real drums, recorded into loops.

[GuyCool]

Polaris. Is Acid good for 'rock' music, or heavier stuff-death metal, prog stuff with odd rhythms/time signatures.

Getting a good drum part is the biggest thing holding me up with my music-would Acid be a good shortcut???


Guy

[JESTER700]

It depends on your working style. I can't get into loops because I haven't spent time with it - I'm used to using drum machines, sequencers, etc. You could do as well with a drum machine or sequencer, with the main problem being limited sounds. But you could always program a machine, fly that into a sequencer, and use whatever sounds you like - even Gigasampler or something.

[Anonymous]

My experience has been working with loops is limiting and can be somewhat inflexible. I instead prefer to program drums via MIDI on my sequencer (Sonar 2.0) and then utilize soundfonts for the actual drum samples. Checkout Sonic Implants for pro sounding and relatively inexpensive drum soundfont collections.

Programming drums in this manner can be very tedious (but then what method of programming drums isn't) but affords total control over hit placement, velocity, timing, etc.).

Good luck...

Randy

[Lonely Raven]

Agreed. Sound samples that are sequenced are very convincing.

Quality loops are the runner up.

I'm still fighting my SR-16. It's too obvious.

[Drew]

What i've been doing is using Fruity Loops with a good set of real, sampled, drum its and the like. It's a LITTLE less flexible than midi programming, i'd imagine, but it's pretty easy to use, and a good reverb will make the drums sound quite realistic. If you want to give it a try, in a few days i can send my drum samples off to you- just gotta wait till i get back on a t-3.

I then sequence in Acid. I've got a bunch of drum loops as well, and every once in a while i'll bust one of those out, but i do most of my work with the sequencer now.

-Drew

[rlintz]

I also used Fruity for a long time with good results. Laying down a simple groove and then utilizing copy / paste in Sonar is very easy like in Fruity. And in Sonar, you have full use of odd time signatures, triplets, etc. that were a little quirky in Fruity.

[GuyCool]

My problem with programming stuff drums in midi or fruity loops etc is that to get the subtle nuances of a 'live' drummer takes HUGE amounts of patience, and some degree of skill-I'm not a drummer so knowing where and when individual drum 'hits' would work best isn't second nature. I can do it, but to come up with a whole song's worth of drum pattern that work together, but are different enough to maintain interest... well that's quite difficult.
I do find myself plagiarising drum patterns off tracks that I like.

I would rather spend the time playing the guitar. I want shortcuts...

Guy

[Polaris20]

Originally Posted by GuyCool

Polaris. Is Acid good for 'rock' music, or heavier stuff-death metal, prog stuff with odd rhythms/time signatures.

Getting a good drum part is the biggest thing holding me up with my music-would Acid be a good shortcut???


Guy

Acid 4.0, just released, has odd time sig support, VSTi instrument support, ASIO driver support, midi piano roll support....etc. It look friggin' awesome.

As for the loops, you can pretty much any style you want.

[Lonely Raven]

Cool! I just saw a Study Guide type workbook at Border's Books for
Acid 4.0! Guess I'll have to nab that!

[Drew]

Originally Posted by rlintz

I also used Fruity for a long time with good results. Laying down a simple groove and then utilizing copy / paste in Sonar is very easy like in Fruity. And in Sonar, you have full use of odd time signatures, triplets, etc. that were a little quirky in Fruity.

Interesting... I just use FL to program loops, and then arrange them in SF Acid 2.0 pro. You can fudge things a bit to do odd time sig support or triplets- for instance, for a "triplet" groove, take your time sig and triple it, program your main accents at 1/3 time, and then add "triplet" fills (actually straight 16ths at a different time sig). Then, use a program like Sound Forge to manually change the "loop tempo" acid reads down to the original target tempo. Same deal with odd time sigs- for instance, i just threw together a quick 15/8 groove for a peice i did for guitarwar.com. Since it was a fairly simple beat, i just changed the "bar length" from 24 16th notes to 30, and then told SF Acid to "read" the loop as being 15 beats long. The bar lines don't line up, but the beat does, and that's what really matters here.

I may need to check out sonar, though...

-Drew

[GuyCool]

Well... just bought Acid 4 ($99 til end of September direct from Sound Forge). Early days, but things are looking promising.

Guy

[Polaris20]

Originally Posted by GuyCool

Well... just bought Acid 4 ($99 til end of September direct from Sound Forge). Early days, but things are looking promising.

Guy

Make sure if you are using an M Audio card that you get the updated ASIO drivers. Otherwise there might be problems.

[track7]

GET A SOFTWARE SAMPLER/DRUM MACHINE and download Drum Kits from WIZOO SOUNDS.COM

They are so friggin unbelievable totally the best thing i've eevr worked with. They are 4 layered multi-samples for veloicty and are 24 bit etc, if you can program half decent your jaw will drop at how real it is!!