Smart Drum machine

[Ekewaka]

I'm looking for either a plug-in or HW drum machine that has some smartness. I.e. like a drummer does fills from time to time that sounds realistic based on one or two initial patterns that play most of the time.

 

Think of smart randomness that a drummer does, shuffling, timing, fills, snare rolls and so on.

 

A plug-in is fine as I could incorporate it into Mainstage. Been surprised I have not seen anything similar as it's not a hard problem concerning programming but I have close to zero time starting another SW project.

 

Any suggestions welcome.

[therealvicz]

Spectrasonics Stylus RMX

[mikecorbett]

I recommend the trusty old Alesis Sr16 and plug ins of your choice. It wont do fancy rolls per say, but it is very intuitive and musical the way it works. You have 2 patterns, A and B, and two fills (A and B also). Using a pedal or the fill button you can trigger fills at any point in the pattern. This in practice means that depending on how deep into the pattern you are when you press fill you will get a portion of the fill. It will also sound crashes on the "1" of the next bar. Also, depending on whether you keep the button or footswitch depressed for the duration of the fill or if you only tap it momentarily, you can alter whether the pattern after the fill is A and B.

 

I hope this doesnt sound complicated. In reality, its like driving a car after a while: you can be playing keys and switching patterns with fills back and forth without even thinking about it. Its incredibly musical and satisfying. Programming the machine is straight forward and there are enough quantize options to get good grooves.. I think its 96 PPQN.. Used in conjunction with software it can be very powerful in the studio, just sync it to your DAW.

 

I also own Stylus RMX, and its great for assembling drum tracks, has fantastic sounds etc. But it wont allow you to play in and "feel" a song as you can with the ould SR16. Sometimes you dont want to be copy pasting and mousing around your drum programming, and this is where dedicated drum machine have the edge at the moment. NI Maschine begins to blur the line between hardware and software, but the only way you can get fills etc is by muting or unmuting... or changing patterns.. it kind of works but its not as satisfying as the SR16. Now, I know, its like 20 something year old hardware.. but trust me. The icing on the cake is when you start to augment your programmed fills with pad playing, mid fill... done tastefully you can introduce all kinds of timing variations and feel, depending on how good your own timing is. I like have fairly sparse fills programmed and then I can play triplet time stuff over the top etc.. all while playing the keyboard too!

[GDP]

Native Instruments Maschine (or Mikro):

 

http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/maschine-groove-production/

 

[Ekewaka]

Thanks for all the links so far. Stylus RMX, intriguing but as mentioned, it might be not controllable at live settings as it might have its own choices.

 

As for Alesis, SR18 versus SR16, heard something about SR18 not having even patterns causing problems when doing A/B and fill switching? Maschine is nice but sometimes I think using any Ableton Live centric pattern switcher might do the same thing and it's tricky to make patterns on the fly in a live situation.

 

I might also just bite the bullet and make longer drum WAV loops that I let run with suitable fills here and there...

[mikecorbett]

Well, I dont know about the SR18. I would just use the SR16 and Kontact, Battery, Stylus ..

 

But can I ask what is your intended use? You want to make patterns on the fly? Live? Studio? What style of music?

[NoLights]

I'm putting together a [dreaded] duo project -- sax and me, with drums and bass from Band-in-a-Box. I bought all of their "real styles" -- lots of variety, ability to program some interest. But when you do a song, it's cast in stone (especially if you export the tracks as an audio file). But without too much struggle, I've done a couple of dozen jazz tunes. I should have a pretty full repertoire by the time "gigging season" rolls around here in Maine (roughly a ten-day period around the end of July).

[Ekewaka]

I'm looking at a low-volume trio or duo setup, checking out if it's possible to avoid hiring a drummer of many reasons (some places have small areas for a band, more people, less money and more politics and so on...)

 

As the songs go from just anything composed the last 100 years and stale drum machine patterns are so 1980:ies, I was hoping to cobble together a system where the drumming is organic and somewhat semi-unpredictable, similar to what drummers do. Suspect I'm not the only one trying to put together such a system. And having stale background loops playing might or might not work. I should take a look at Ableton Live's unique way of introducing live clip randomization in the clip view, for example. But more SW running, uh huh...

[mikecorbett]

I'm looking at a low-volume trio or duo setup, checking out if it's possible to avoid hiring a drummer of many reasons (some places have small areas for a band, more people, less money and more politics and so on...)

 

As the songs go from just anything composed the last 100 years and stale drum machine patterns are so 1980:ies, I was hoping to cobble together a system where the drumming is organic and somewhat semi-unpredictable, similar to what drummers do. Suspect I'm not the only one trying to put together such a system. And having stale background loops playing might or might not work. I should take a look at Ableton Live's unique way of introducing live clip randomization in the clip view, for example. But more SW running, uh huh...

 

Well, for anything composed in the last 100 years, with an unpredictable drummer feel, at low volumes, I would hire a drummer with an electric kit.

 

Failing that, if you really wont hire a human, go for an SR16 or 18 or Akai XR20 (same machines more or less). I cant speak to the competition, but none of the other I know of have the A/B fill thing going on in the same way.

 

Speaking as someone who has experience running Ableton Live live, let me just say that I wouldn't want to be doing it and playing an instrument at the same time... same goes for any software stuff to be honest. If your not playing an instrument, then you could run Live, Maschine or whatever, but I'm guessing your a keyboardist seeing as you've posted here.

 

Other options would be Akai MPCs, Yamaha RMX1, ROland grooveboxes etc, but these are more dance music orientated and dont offer fills either.

 

Regarding stale drum machine programs... if your so inclined, roll your own, its amazing what can be done. Caveat: A drum machine is never, ever going to be able to do what a drummer can do, so while you can dream... I wouldn't hold your breath.

 

Having said that, I have always enjoyed playing with drum machines. Their time is great, they don't get drunk, paid, or piss of the manager. Best of all, you can turn em down. And joking aside, with sparse but clever programming, you can leave plenty of room for your playing, and that of your friends, to "breathe", and you can enjoy musical experiences unperturbed by the fact that your using technology. Thats why they are so popular, they work!

 

 

 

 

[Ekewaka]

As for Ableton, if you rename the clips with the BPM value, the clock will adjust which is nice. And the clip view has follow actions that could trigger somewhat controller clip changes. So I don't need to control the clips played.

 

However, I don't want my laptop to run Live with Mainstage as having even more SW running is always less fun in a live environment. Live is fortunately stable (8.2.4) compared with the 8.0.x versions that were terrible.)

[mikecorbett]

Oh I know Ableton will do that, I just find it very stressful to try to play keys and controll ableton at the same time, your stress tolerance may be higher than mine. Drum machines are so rock solid conversely that I forget I'm playing with one most of the time.

[Ekewaka]

Yes. Agree, I was going through the internet searches today and I'm pretty much surprised that no new systems, HW or SW have a semi-automatic pattern generating fill system or variations on existing patterns based on typical drummer behavior. Stylus RMX seems the closest and I really need to test how it behaves with let's say two drum patterns programmed for Dusty Springfield's The Look Of Love.

 

I.e. if I would do the design I would add fills every 16 or 32- bars, cymbal shots and some snare rolls and do variations in the shuffle and quantization for snares and hihats along the way.

[burningbusch]

JamStix sounds like what you're looking for but it's Windows only. They have talked about an OSX version but nothing has come of it yet. Still, it's worth watching the quick start tutorial. It will also jam along with you.

 

http://rayzoon.com/jamstix3_vid.html

 

Busch.

[Ekewaka]

JamStix sounds like what you're looking for but it's Windows only. They have talked about an OSX version but nothing has come of it yet. Still, it's worth watching the quick start tutorial. It will also jam along with you.

 

http://rayzoon.com/jamstix3_vid.html

 

Busch.

 

Jamstix, yes that's what we are talking about. iOS app would be great.

[Bosendorphen]

I use the XR20 on rare occasion when our drummer can't make the gig (or fit on a tiny stage) and have used the A/B/fills feature with a pedal (along with the stop/start pedal). Works well in a pinch. Used to use a Zoom RT-123 which had no A/B pattern setup. We called it "Artie" (RT). Now we call the XR XavieR. Hey you gotta do something silly.

[dodonnell]

The most realistic drum machine I ever used was the Oberheim Drummer. It doesn't have any sounds built in, but sends out MIDI data to a sound module.

 

It has random fills, follows your playing dynamics and note density, and really acts like a drummer. Unfortunately it is no longer manufactured.

 

used Drummer for sale on Ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/Oberheim-Drummer-Perf-x-Midi-Interactive-Programmer-W-Power-Adpt-Manual-/321053210359

 

Duane

[GovernorSilver]

Yes. Agree, I was going through the internet searches today and I'm pretty much surprised that no new systems, HW or SW have a semi-automatic pattern generating fill system or variations on existing patterns based on typical drummer behavior.

 

Have you investigated the KARMA technology used in Korg's Kronos, M3, etc.? KARMA can generate drum patterns and fills to varying levels of improvisation.

[Bif_]

The most realistic drum machine I ever used was the Oberheim Drummer. It doesn't have any sounds built in, but sends out MIDI data to a sound module.

 

It has random fills, follows your playing dynamics and note density, and really acts like a drummer.

 

Duane

 

Agree with Duane. I have an Oberheim Drummer and it does a very nice job with fills and following your playing. The fills are randomly created based upon where you hit the 'fill' pedal in the measure. Cool stuff.

 

Greg

[Ekewaka]

I actually spent some time this afternoon, using Logic instead of Mainstage as the bed for drums and the rest of the synths. Wow. I could add all kinds of small variations with midi instrument drum tracks here and there an liven up the set. In addition the mixer part of Logic is better than the Mainstage environment. So I will flip over from Mainstage to Logic instead for this project.

 

Oberheim drummer looks nice but this new concept I put together is nice. I save the projects to Dropbox after finishing them up in the studio and sync them to my laptop. Job done.

[Bif_]

Oberheim drummer looks nice but this new concept I put together is nice.

 

And it sounds like you already own what you need to utilize your new concept. No new gear needed! Good deal.

 

Glad you figured it out.

 

Greg

[MrVegas]

Yes. Agree, I was going through the internet searches today and I'm pretty much surprised that no new systems, HW or SW have a semi-automatic pattern generating fill system or variations on existing patterns based on typical drummer behavior.

 

Have you investigated the KARMA technology used in Korg's Kronos, M3, etc.? KARMA can generate drum patterns and fills to varying levels of improvisation.

 

I have a Kronos but I have not taken the time to try to figure out how to use it as a drum machine. How hard is it to do?

[GovernorSilver]

Yes. Agree, I was going through the internet searches today and I'm pretty much surprised that no new systems, HW or SW have a semi-automatic pattern generating fill system or variations on existing patterns based on typical drummer behavior.

 

Have you investigated the KARMA technology used in Korg's Kronos, M3, etc.? KARMA can generate drum patterns and fills to varying levels of improvisation.

 

I have a Kronos but I have not taken the time to try to figure out how to use it as a drum machine. How hard is it to do?

 

I understand the Kronos (which I don't have) UI has similarities to the M3 ( which I do have). On the M3, the sequencer is easy to use in real-time recording mode and drum kits are easy to select. For programming a basic drum track, I spent the most time just going through the factory drum kits to decide which one to use.

 

For the KARMA improvised/auto-generated drum features, I needed this DVD course to learn how to use them, because some menu-diving is required: http://www.karma-lab.com/vppca/house101dvd.html

 

I don't know if a Kronos specific version of this course is out yet or in the works.

[RABid]

When I had a Karma I really liked some of the variations that would come out of it, but I did not like the lack of control over those flourishes. To me it worked better if you recorded the drums while playing around with the controls, then chop them up to put in a song.