Creating songs - drum machine?

AntonHunter

willo said:

marxski said:

I found them both fantastically average at it. In the end I threw the towel in and hired/paid a session guy. 

Can I ask - how did you find the session guy? And did they do the recurring at their side and send it over, or did you get them into your studio?

I'm asking because I'm rubbish with programming drums and need some tracks that cover a lot of time signature changes, so it all gets complicated, too complicated, for me to do.

There's a bunch of session players with their own recording setups on Fiverr.com. Can't vouch for any in particular, but a decent place to start at least.

marxski

willo said:

marxski said:

I found them both fantastically average at it. In the end I threw the towel in and hired/paid a session guy. 

Can I ask - how did you find the session guy? And did they do the recurring at their side and send it over, or did you get them into your studio?

I'm asking because I'm rubbish with programming drums and need some tracks that cover a lot of time signature changes, so it all gets complicated, too complicated, for me to do.

It’s someone I’ve know for 20 years and played on an album I did. He’s very good at serving the song. 

The approach we are using is to have 8 rehearsals of 3 hours each and gradually build up the song repertoire. Then at the beginning of October we are in a commercial studio for two days tracking the drums and guitar. The plan is for other stuff to be recorded a track at a time. Some with click some without. The songs clearly have natural tempo builds and I’m buggered if I can be bothered programming tempo maps for a click. We are mainly going to ‘vibe it out’. Man.

fretmeister

@manicguitarist ;

You can get real drums played for you on Fiverr.

I've used this guy for several tunes and they've worked out great

https://www.fiverr.com/glennwelman

manicguitarist

@fretmeister ;
Cheers dood! It's working out really well with the Trio+ tbh, but thx anyways.

fretmeister

manicguitarist said:

@fretmeister ;;
Cheers dood! It's working out really well with the Trio+ tbh, but thx anyways.

He's in this "Secret Shopper" type review vid as one of the drummers.

Funkfingers

marxski said:

Apple drummer in Logic is supposed to ‘follow’ a track you specify.

EZ Drummer 3 promised something similar.

I found them both fantastically average at it.

The Apple Logic Drummer algorithm "Follow" function alters the drum part to better fit the pitched instrument(s) after the fact rather than in real time. Even then, it only gets you so far.

To imitate human performance nuances, it is necessary to experiment with the editing pages' complexity/loudness grid, push/drag, swing and fills controls. Introduce dynamic variety. 

For hyper complexity, it may necessary to convert the drummer track graphic representation to a MIDI Piano Roll for detailed editing of timing and velocity.

For one of my musical collaboration Projects, in the complex time signature section, it was more satisfactory to drag MIDI drum and percussion events into timing alignment with the acoustic guitar notes than forcing the guitar into strict tempo and losing all human feel.

Once upon a time, human drummers used to speed up during the more exciting portions of a composition - usually the chorus. Use the dedicated Tempo track to alter the sections by a few BPM. Ramp up for half a bar into a chorus. Ramp down again smoothly just before the beginning the next verse.

If your Project includes MIDI sequenced keyboard parts, these will follow the tempo changes too.

Once you become familiar with how some performance features appear on a MIDI Piano Roll grid, you can draw them in using the mouse pointer. (Stunts such as running a hand quickly across the keys of a Hammond organ.)

Vintage65

fretmeister said:

@manicguitarist ;;;;

You can get real drums played for you on Fiverr.

I've used this guy for several tunes and they've worked out great

https://www.fiverr.com/glennwelman

That dude is unreal and quite cheap for what he is offering. He's played for Jordan Rudess too.

https://www.youtube.com/@GlennWelman/videos

Vintage65

fretmeister said:

manicguitarist said:

@fretmeister ;;;;;;;
Cheers dood! It's working out really well with the Trio+ tbh, but thx anyways.

He's in this "Secret Shopper" type review vid as one of the drummers.

I do like the way Britt B plays, but I would ask Glenn W to play in that style for a fifth of the price, and you do get a couple of revisions.

I tried going down the midi drum editing road, but after watching tons of drum cam videos, I quickly realised that I was never going to beat a human