How do you get your drums?

Mediocrites

New Member
For those of you that don't use a real (live?) drummer, how (or what plugins) do you use drums in your recordings?

I'm debating between Superior Drummer and Addictive drums, from what I'm reading. I'd rather play guitar and not have to think too much about percussion, so I'd prefer ease of use and a multitude of choices/loops over the highest audio fidelity.

I'm still on an Ableton Live 9 trial period and I quite like it so far, so I might decide to stick with it, although maybe it's me and I haven't given it much time, but I'm not a fan of the drum rack in Live 9 yet.
 
I've been looking at Toontrack's Easy Drummer 2, so I'll be curious if someone comments on it here. Looks like an easy in for a guitar player/non-pro recordist. Haven't tried it, just read and checked video reviews.
 
I use Superior for "realistic sounding drums"*, but I do program the patterns and fills myself. For electronic drums I use either Battery or Maschine.

*ie compressed, eqd and otherwise produced-within-an-inch-of-it's-life
 
Dunno about the others mentioned. But I've been using BFD2. It works sounds pretty good.

However I can't figure out the routing of ambient mics. So it's probably not the most intuitive option.

Ez Drummer's "tap to find groove" is something I've wanted for ages...
 
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I have BFD, BFD2, Session Drummer2 and 3, addictive drums, and EZDrummer 2, roland V-drums (TD-6), and there's always the keyboard for when i'm too lazy to put down my guitar and sit at the V-drum kit. ...and i still get bogged down when i have to add drum patterns to help with writing. I still end up losing the groove and feel, by the time i have found a kit, a tempo, and a pattern to fit the groove in my head.
I am working to overcome this, starting with EXDrummer 2, using tap tempo, finding a close approximation, and then editing the result in Sonar to get the final groove i want for the part.

Using EZD i have never found a pattern that matches what i tap into the search system - Whatever it suggests, there is always a number of hits to change, usually in the kick drum pattern. I have even tried the 'on-line' search, where i believe ALL the EZD patterns are searched for a match, and still no matches.

So i have given up on EZDrummer as my 'session drummer' for the moment, until i read all the instructions and get the ropes of creating patterns.

Instead i have been using BFD2 and V-drums. I do have to go to the adjacent room and sit at the drum kit and play, but i get the groove i want without spending too much time in 'left brain' mode and subsequently losing my groove. Then i can quantize and adjust the hit levels in the DAW and get back at the writing.
Still takes time though.

Would be nice to have a 'virtual drummer' though, along the lines of EZD but with more accurate pattern retrieval. Or... maybe there are just too dang many patterns and variations in the world for that to work well...
 
EZ Drummer. Have been using it for years. I've gotten reasonably good and using their templates and then modifying them to make the sound less repetitive. Something I learned years ago was:

Take 1 or 2 bars and make them good

Double those 2 bars. Now alter the 3 and 4 bars a little bit.

Double again. Alter the 8th bar a bit.

Now you've got a reasonable 8-bar pattern that sounds a little less machine.

Repeat as necessary for chorii and what not.

It's worked well for me over the years. Add in EZD "human feel" thing and it all starts to get pretty decent.
 
I am in the process of converting a acoustic drum kit to an e kit. Everything was delivered this week (shell kit, mesh heads, triggers, MIDI I/O brain etc). Superior Drummer 2 was recommended to me by several forum members who have gone the acoustic to e-kit conversion route and I eventually ended up going with it for the software solution. Supposedly SD2 offers more realistic drum sounds than EZ though I imagine like everything else it's just a matter of personal taste.

With that said, there are some good deals out there and I was able to obtain SD2 with two additional New York expansions pacs for significantly less than $200. I see that package is being offered at several online vendors for $199 today. Rumors have been circulating that Superior Drummer 3 is on the horizon and that would certainly explain the package deals but only time will tell. The rumors, and I reiterate that they are just rumors, speculate that SD3 will be an upgraded SD2 with the added new features/functionality that were introduced with EZ Drummer 2.

So my thinking, needing a software solution now, was that even if SD3 is on the horizon I didn't want to wait around for a release date and put myself through that anticipatory hell and at the very least I would be in the reduced price upgrade path for a cheaper version of SD3 should I decide the upgrade worthy of my cash later on.
 
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Supposedly SD2 offers more realistic drum sounds than EZ though I imagine like everything else it's just a matter of personal taste

Almost right Craig...

SD2 offers a lot more mixing and shaping capability than EZD2, whereas EZD2 is incredible for building grooves and drum track MIDI files. So the ultimate is to have both - build your grooves within the nicely simple EZD2 kit presets and then play them back through SD2 for a massive array of tweaking options
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Great idea with the triggered kit too....
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Here's ours front and rear:

Kit1.jpg


Kit2.jpg
 
I use a mix of Superior Drummer and EZX packs. X-drums and many more great options make SD a better choice. I also suspect SD 3 coming out soon and wouldn't be surprised to see it released during Toontrack's November Metal Month.
 
Almost right Craig...

SD2 offers a lot more mixing and shaping capability than EZD2, whereas EZD2 is incredible for building grooves and drum track MIDI files. So the ultimate is to have both - build your grooves within the nicely simple EZD2 kit presets and then play them back through SD2 for a massive array of tweaking options
thumbsup.gif


Great idea with the triggered kit too....
wink.gif


Here's ours front and rear:

Kit1.jpg


Kit2.jpg

I like it. Do the cymbals have trigger also? and are they muffled?
 
I guess I'm to old school, I like to use a drum machine I can control old school with foot switch's live or recording. Boss or alesiss
 
I like it. Do the cymbals have trigger also? and are they muffled?
First off my apologies to the OP for sidetracking the thread a little. But it is related to the topic as far as triggering solutions for one of the software choices. That's my excuse and I am sticking with it.

So,

I think I can answer that since I have pestered Clive quite a bit over the past couple of weeks. He is an absolute gem of a person and has been very patient with regards to my ignorance and basic questions. ;)

He uses Alesis Surge cymbals. They are brass cymbals with a layer of plastic underneath to muffle the sound. They are most definitely triggered. Smartrigger makes them as well. In fact they are both made by the same company. I am not sure if Alesis makes the Smartriggers or its the other way around but you get the gist. They are not as muffled as the typical rubber frisbees you commonly see on e kits and definitely require a drum module or MIDI trigger/software solution to create your sounds.

Here is a video showing the acoustic sound and subsequently the sounds created with the module/software:

New kit trigger demonstration - YouTube


I am not as interested in the cosmetic look of a real cymbal since my kit won't move from my music room so I went with a compromise (acoustic noise wise) between the Alesis Surge's and the aforementioned frisbees. I picked up some Pintech Visulaite cymbals that are made of acrylic with a pad on the striking potion. They also come in many colors as well as a lifetime warranty. If I was thinking in terms of live use I would definitely have gone the brass route for authenticity. With that said I think the Visulite's have a cool look of their own,

Here is a pic of a hi hat Visulite cymbal:

7Yyw9F0.png
 
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