More about drum machines and such...

[Bobro]

Just thinking about a curious thing. Sampled drums, because of fast computers and cheap digital storage, now contain a huge amount of information- velocity layers, full tails. A dozen or more velocity layers and cymbals that ring all the way out for example. Compared to yesterday's one-shot low-bit samples, it's pretty amazing. On the other hand, I heard some popular new "rock" the other day. "Real" drums, but very edited and sound-replaced/enhanced, to the point where you wonder if the kick and snare are a beat-box and the rest of the kit is played more or less live. No value judgements here, whatever turns you on, but it seems to me we may already be at the point where a good percussionist with for example a D-Drum kit and the finest Giga sample set is actually ahead of someone with an acoustic kit who's being edited and sound-replaced, as far as "realistic" and "feel". Judging by current visual arts and CGI, I'd say that state-of-the art percussion would be morphing seemlessly between 100% live drumming, and loops and triggers. Once again, not a value judgement, because what's great for one piece of music may be bogus for another.

[Tusker]

Cameron: I agree it's a matter of taste. The thing I have against adding sonic support to a live drum track, is not that it's using artificial [i]means[/i]. Nearly everything we use is artificial to a pre-electric performer. My issue is headroom. We compress music to make the most of music and we [i] reduce[/i] variation to make it more present. With the sonically supported drums we are usually achieiving a similar [i]end[/i]. A good drummer has many bass drum sounds. If a sample set or synthesizer has variety and it can be used expressively I'm all for it. A lot of roots music of the sort I prefer has tenor and bass drums of various pitches. So what is a "bass" in one part of the rhythm is not the "bass" in another. This allows for more subtlety and variety in rhythm. I do think the human ear (heart?) can hear more than two measures (the typical loop editing length) and there is room for more variety in sound .... and a sense of breathing in the song. I hate the tyranny of headroom optimization. Jerry

[Groeg]

British producer Andy Sneap does this all the time. He'll track a real drum set and then mix in sounds from the D4 drum machine via triggering. He does rock/metal stuff and talks about how he used some preset kick drum from the D4 to enhance the real kick. I visit the Digidesign BBS (DUC) pretty regularly and this is where I read about Andy. He goes into more detail but I can't remember everything off the top of my head. Pretty interesting too. Groeg

[DC]

That's what made the D-4 so popular when it came out. You could use the triggers for pad sets, but also for live drum track replacement or reinforcement. Works great if you've got a problem tom or kick for example.

[Wewus432]

I was reading an article about the new Korn album. (not a fan, sorry) They did extensive post production using the program Drumagog to trigger sampled/drum machine sounds from the acoustic drums. I played around with the demo of that program. Anyone using it?

[Anderton]

<> Yes, my friend Pete Leoni says it's a life-saver for budget recordings. Rather than spend hours trying to teach a drummer how to tune drums, he gets the basic sound down, then uses Drumagog on mixdown to replace iffy-sounding drums. Good latency specs, too.

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by Bobro: [b] On the other hand, I heard some popular new "rock" the other day. "Real" drums, but very edited and sound-replaced/enhanced, to the point where you wonder if the kick and snare are a beat-box and the rest of the kit is played more or less live. [/b][/quote]Yeah, and this is fucked up. :D There are drummers who try to PLAY like drum machines too... mainly because they've been told to. There are lots of things real drums and drummers can do that drum machines and samples can't. And there are things you can do with drum machines and samples that real drummers can't do. That's all cool. But trying to make a drum machine sound like a drummer, OR for a drummer to try and sound like a drum machine, ends up being some horrifying lowest common denominator that doesn't showcase the best of either, but the most banal of both. Yet you're right, that's what I hear most of the time on the big hits. State of the art my ass... state of the watered down and boring is more like it. --Lee

[Tedly Nightshade]

I'm highly entertained by this. And definitely championing human drumming. Drummers sound three ways- the way the sound in the room, the way they sound on tape, and the way they sound in their imaginations. A number of developments have taken place in the drum world this century- *going from rope tension to lugs bolted to the shell, stifling the sound of the shell. *Going from animal skins for heads to plastic heads, which also eliminates the necessity of tuning a drum like any other instrument- often *Micing and recording drums *The emergence of the drum kit, from a collection of individual pieces of percussion to a ready to buy model available in various colors and styles so we have a paradigm shift- what worked for ten thousand years at least is replaced with something new, as live acoustic music is basically replaced by sound reinforced and recorded music. In short, acoustic drum sounds have gone to hell, and with enough clever micing and EQ, it's possible to make them sound like something they are not. So how the kit sounds in the drummer's imagination and the hyped mic'ed up sound bear some resemblence to each other, perhaps, but the way the kit sounds in the room is often most distressing. Especially with the bass drum, which has taken on a prominent up front role, as compared to the first half of the century, just as the calf heads have been replaced with plastic ones, and lots of metal bolted to the shell, typically including a heavy tom mount. The upshot? The compromised drum sounds in the room that we've ended up accepting as normal and acceptable are now confronted with sampled sounds that reveal something about what we would actually like the drums to sound like in the room (especially bass drums). We're finding very often that the samples are closer to what we had in mind than the actual noises produced by the kit. In the short term, a lot of kick drums etc. are going to be sound replaced. I hope, in the long term, that acoustic kit drumming will get it's head out of it's collective ass and realize that the status quo is not what we've been pretending it was. Our drum kits just do not sound as good as we think they do, for the reasons I outlined above. Our drums can sound better and have sounded better in the past, for about 10,000 years at the absolute minimum. So we're seeing two bass drums used end to end, free floating hardware (back to no hardware on the shell like rope tension), etc. What inspired my insane move to a 32" bass drum? I heard some very satisfying bass drum samples and recognized that I could not get that sound with a normal bass drum without racks of gear all tweaked to perfection. It may not be necessary to go all the way to 32" if calf heads are used, but sampled bass drums are putting the little plastic headed impaled with a tom mount ones to shame. It's becoming hard to pretend they sound like the samples, which reveal a lot about what our desires for bass drum sounds are really like. So to sum up, the ball is in the court of the acoustic drummers. We can get our drums to sound as good as the samples, or go around begging for sound replacement. When the kit gets sounding so good in the room that gates, EQ, compression, etc. are entirely optional, acoustic drums can just smoke the samples. Not a lot of kits sound that good- yet.

[KHAN]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]ends up being some horrifying lowest common denominator that doesn't showcase the best of either, but the most banal of both. [/b][/quote]Stop it Lee, you're making me [b]HOT[/b] ! ! ! :love: :love: :love: :eek: ;) :p :thu:

[DC]

That's some cool observations Ted N. Just thinking back to being a kid and those 'Indian' drums you got at tourist trap shops. They had a kind of rubber head stretched with leather cord but to be small trinkets, they sure sounded deep and resonate.

[Bobro]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b] [quote]Originally posted by Bobro: [b] On the other hand, I heard some popular new "rock" the other day. "Real" drums, but very edited and sound-replaced/enhanced, to the point where you wonder if the kick and snare are a beat-box and the rest of the kit is played more or less live. [/b][/quote]Yeah, and this is fucked up. :D There are drummers who try to PLAY like drum machines too... mainly because they've been told to. There are lots of things real drums and drummers can do that drum machines and samples can't. And there are things you can do with drum machines and samples that real drummers can't do. That's all cool. But trying to make a drum machine sound like a drummer, OR for a drummer to try and sound like a drum machine, ends up being some horrifying lowest common denominator that doesn't showcase the best of either, but the most banal of both. Yet you're right, that's what I hear most of the time on the big hits. State of the art my ass... state of the watered down and boring is more like it. --Lee[/b][/quote]Hehe. I'm not referring to the current state of compromise- which is how I hear it, it's not a value judgement because that music isn't mine to judge- that currently exists with both electro and "real" drum recordings as "state of the art", but to another potential, which I have yet to hear fully realized. What I percieve as "state of the art" would intail morphing. Fully organic drumming, seemlessly moving to completely electronic percussion, through a changing hybrid "morph state" (or vice versa). Been working on this with varying degrees of success. For instance I hired a percussionist to play Udu and my kitchen utensils; he layed down the percussion for a couple of tracks, one mic in a decent room, no fx, no edits, no nothing. Then he continued to improvise, and from the improv I made a short loop which repeated mercilessly, then made another song over that loop. Successful in that both the organic and the artificial tracks stand on their own, but only I experienced the pleasure of the morphing process, so that part of the artistic process is really a failure. On another tune, I was reading some heavy-duty websites and grabbed a guitar, swearing that whatever came out at that moment would be a final product, willy-nilly. Improvised a little tune until it hit a riff that I knew would loop, stopped then looped out that measure robotically, improvising a whole song over that loop. Whatever people may think of the tune, artistically it was a pure success. Those are crude examples- state of the art would be real-time on stage, and it's taking time and practice to master the technical aspects, improvising melodies and riffs is no problem. Working with a real percussionist is a must- with this guy I hired, I sang the "tuning" of what I wanted as he jammed and he glided into it instantly and perfectly with both the Udu and the pots and pans and such, awesome! "State of the art" would showcase the best of both, making use of the currently dominant hybrid compromise as a transitional state. -Bobro

[Lee Flier]

Ted... even though I actually do love the sound of a good acoustic kit, I think you're definitely right on. I've always been into the idea of "non traditional" kits in a rock setting. And it's hard to top the sound of an Odaiko! I definitely love the biiiiggg drum sounds, and IMO samples are a pretty piss poor substitute. Still, a lot of the magic is in the player too. Our drummer uses a little 20" kick with plastic heads... but I swear there are certain songs when he can knock me over with it. It's not so much volume and resonance that knock me over in those cases - although there's plenty of that, more would be too much. It's the placement of the note, and the energy in his foot, and the air being moved. A couple of songs I can think of, even when we've played in tiny places where we have to really cut down on the volume, the kick drum still knocks me over with its power... again as distinct from volume. Can't really define it, but that's OK, I just stand there in front of the kick and grin like an idiot. :D --Lee

[Tedly Nightshade]

No doubt, the culture and finesse of drumming is a casualty of the same process. When so many things can be faked, not many take full advantage of what they have. Tuning is another almost lost art, and it makes a much bigger difference with plastic than with calf. Tone production is the name of the game, combined with timing. Dropping a well-placed BD bomb in a hole just the right size can get great results, as can getting the BD pulse right in there with the bass to where they amplify each other. Those are all microscopic arrangement details, and they make such a difference. A lot of times the arrangement is neglected and gates, EQ, and compression are applied to keep the instruments out of each other's way or help them lock. The marketing of the music manufacturers is not oriented to this kind of teamwork, but to fragmented submarkets like guitar players, drummers, bassists, etc. The players of each seek to get together a killer sound for their instrument, often without any regard to what the instrument sounds like in a specific ensemble. I was a retro fat tubey guitarist getting buried by a punchy SWR modern bass sound. You hear this kind of thing all the time. It's rarer to hear an instrument tone chosen for how it sits in the mix. I'm fascinated by Bobro's offbeat rhythmic concoctions, not that I've heard any. I won't be suprised when that's where the missing link is found.

[Steve LeBlanc]

Interesting discussion...I don't have much to add just a thought... I listen to a lot of music made by Drum Sample users...based on my ears' interpretation, most of the artists doing this don't pull it off. Every once in a blue moon someone will really impress me with their ability to simulate a drummer with samples but it's so rare I often wonder why so many people try. Live drums aren't that hard to record IMO, well at least it's not difficult to make them sound musical...drum samples on the otherhand...I just don't know. I've had a guy tell me he spent 3 days constructing a drum part with the latest samples to be perfect...well when I listened to his work I thought it sounded less real than my old Roland R8 demos.

[Sylver]

I remember playing with a real drummer. All I have at the moment is the computerized version. I need to join a band. Oh well, work with what you got.

[cerebralborealis]

Interesting topic, good for discussion. Drum triggering etc. has been done since the 80's - sometimes artfully done, sometimes not. Remember triggering gated white noise on a snare way before drum machines and primitive samplers? Unfortunately fewer and fewer people ever get to hear what a well-tuned, unamplified acoustic drum kit really sounds like anymore - even in a live setting, let alone on a record. Lee stated: "There are drummers who try to PLAY like drum machines too... mainly because they've been told to." Yes, a very weird evolution: man imitates machine designed to imitate man (sort of). Recently encountered a great modern jazz drummer who was fooling around after the session and played this unbelieveable drum n' bass hyper groove. He said he heard something like it on a CD and just wanted to see if he could really play it, knowing full well it was a ridiculously speeded up machine-made sequence. The bionic drummer?

[Curve Dominant]

A drum machine IS a percussion instrument. It's not meant to "replace" a human drummer, any more than a snare drum is meant to "replace" a tabla drum. It's all drums. Once you skin an animal, and stretch that skin over a wood shell, you've created "synthesized" percussion. Doing the same with silicon and electrons is no different. The choice between using an electronic groovebox verses a humaniod trap drummer, is no different than the choice between using a bongo player verses a spoonman. [b]It's all drums.[/b] There's lots of different drums. What do you like? What works? What's affordable? What are you adept at? What fits the context of the genre? All of these considerations will figure into what sort of percussion solution you choose. To view any of them as exclusive is narrow-minded. To paraphrase Ted: I'm highly entertained by this. And definitely championing [b]electronic[/b] drumming. Drum [b]machine programmers[/b] sound three ways- the way they sound in the room, the way they sound on tape, and the way they sound in their imaginations. The funkiest thing about a drum machine or a sampling groovebox is that it DOESN"T sound like a humaniod banging on a trap kit. Some of us composers and producers of modern music seek to escape from the limitations, the clichés, or just the sheer pain-in-the-ass that goes along with procuring a recording of a humaniod banging on a trap kit. All of that set-up, the micing, all the noise, the rehearsal time, tuning the f*ckers, timing issues, ego issues, etc...and for what? To have a drum track that sounds like every other drum track ever recorded over the last 4 decades??? A sampling groovebox = freedom. Freedom to "sculpt" the sound of the rhythm to your imagination's limit. Sample trap drum hits, congas, bongos, tamborine, African drums, timbales, finger snaps, cabasas, tablas...and sculpt some delicious grooves. Let your imagination run wild (having imagination helps in this regard). You can always hire drummers and percussionists to play that stuff if and when you go on tour. I sample and sequence the drums and percussions for my tracks. Does it sound "real?" Hopefully not. Rather, it should sound "un-real," and that's the whole point. We are in the business of illusion. Anyone who plays an electric guitar, and yet tries to disagree with this, is a hypocrite. Once electrons are introduced into the equation in ANY capacity, all bets are off, and anything goes. My guess is you ain't seen nuthin' yet. YMMV...

[philbo_Tangent]

I have to agree with Curve on this - - Every instrument has it's place, even the sh*tty sounding drum machines that dominate pop & hiphop. I've read that when Jackson Browne recorded the 'Running on Empty' album, he miced a shoebox to get the kickdrum sound - even crappy sounds have their place in music. On the other hand, if you listen to some of the jazz drummers out there who can use every part of every surface of their kit in extremely artful ways, it is plain that there is no way this could by done by setting the same guy behind a set of V-drums, or pounding it out on channel 10 of a midi keyboard, or whatever. The point being, each has it's place... Electronica/Trance would maybe not work well using the jazz drummer approach (though it'd sure be a fun & interesting thing to try...), and using an el-crappo TR-xxx drum machine for country or jazz would (probably) cause the audience to rain empty beer bottles on your head. The only way to stay open-minded is to avoid closed-minded approaches... Phil Koenig Tangent Studios

[Bobro]

[quote]Originally posted by philbo_Tangent: [b] Every instrument has it's place, even the sh*tty sounding drum machines that dominate pop & hiphop. [/b][/quote]The first thing I said on this thread was that what I'm hearing in pop and rock music is NOT shitty-sounding drum machines and NOT "real" drums. The real-drums/beatbox argument is what, about 30 years old now? Not what we're talking about. [quote]Originally posted by philbo_Tangent: [b] On the other hand, if you listen to some of the jazz drummers out there who can use every part of every surface of their kit in extremely artful ways, it is plain that there is no way this could by done by setting the same guy behind a set of V-drums, or pounding it out on channel 10 of a midi keyboard, or whatever. [/b][/quote]Never heard anybody claim that such a thing could be done, although manufacturer's ads seem to imply it. What we're talking about is that a drummer with V-Drums and one of the current sample sets with its masses of recorded information being triggered CAN lay down a drum track that is audibly and measurably closer to a "real live" performance than a "real live" track that's been massively treated. Sample-replace every kick and snare hit, snap them all to a grid, effect the hell out of the whole kit... at some point you will come full-circle to a beat-box. [quote]Originally posted by philbo_Tangent: [b] The point being, each has it's place... Electronica/Trance would maybe not work well using the jazz drummer approach (though it'd sure be a fun & interesting thing to try...), and using an el-crappo TR-xxx drum machine for country or jazz would (probably) cause the audience to rain empty beer bottles on your head. [/b][/quote]Electronica works great with real-live ripping drummers and percussionists. I've heard it done live, guys playing mile-a-minute breakbeats in the style of highly computer-tweaked samples live-awesome! There are other people on these forums who can name the bands that are incorporating live drumming with electronica. Don't know about country and jazz, how much you can do to a well-defined historical musical style and not create an entirely new genre is a question for musicologists. Certainly I wouldn't mind hearing Hancock jamming to a beatbox, maybe a real "jazzhole" would. :D Anyway like I said, that debate has been done a million times and is not what we're talking about. The whole point is, the days of a dichotomy between robotic "fake" drums and entirely human "real" drums are long gone. You can use samples to create something "almost real" and with sound-replacement and grid-snapping, turn an acoustic kit into something "almost robot". What I hear when I do listen to the radio or browse through the listening stations at the Virgin Superstore is things that lie somewhere along the continuum, hybrids and compromises. Like I keep saying, that's not a value judgement, it's just a description. And my point is- we've got the whole continuum now, there's no law that says you have to pick a point on that continuum and stay there. The tools are here, and widely available, to move along the continuum in real time. Jerry "Tusker" hit precisely upon the reason so many groovy possibilities that should fall right into our laps aren't happening more- organic movement doesn't do well in viciously compressed everything-loud environment. A contemporary "radio-edit" leans in the direction of a whole string of square-waves. I think it is somehow poetic that many pop recordings when viewed in an audio editor look just like a bar-code. Never done anything but really real and completely artificial, my new-found fascination in the hybrid states is based entirely on the idea of transitions and morphing. Ted- I'll fly you some stuff once I figure out more things to do with the hybrid states and get beyond juxtaposition/contrast. Patently synthetic sounds in a huge pile of velocity layers are turning out to be good for getting a floating state that's both robotic and humanly playable, but isn't pretending to be either. A "squishy beatbox", ready to ooze over in either direction. Anyway, enjoy your own trip whatever it may be. -Bobro

[Max Ventura]

Anyway, this one of those typical issues we insiders trouble ourselves about and the end-user (the masses) will never hear anything of , much less notice it.

[aeon]

[quote][i]Bobro said:[/i] [b]...my new-found fascination in the hybrid states is based entirely on the idea of transitions and morphing.[/b][/quote]Bobro: You might be interested to know there is an excellent physical-modeling synth for the Korg OASYS PCI that allows you to set up differing drum models and then morph between them based on performance parameters. It is called MorphingDrums, and was written by Harm Visser, a 3rd-party developer for the OASYS. He has also written some other excellent percussive physical modeling synths that address cymbals, tuned metallics, etc...and they all have a range of parametric control that allows you to walk the line between what is “real” and what is “surreal.” There is also a collection of physical modeling engines for drums in the Elektron Machinedrum SPS-1. Given the real-time control the MD offers, as well as the step-based parameter locks, you can realize some nice imitative synthetic percussives that also morph between acoustic-esque and DSP madness tones. Another thing I have tried and gotten good results from is taking two samples that I want to morph between and then doing a spectral transform in Prosoniq Sonicworx PowerBundle. This does a true harmonic remapping and interpolation of the two samples, so it is not a simple crossfade. The results are very much like what you might get out of a Kyma when doing harmonic resynthesis and cross-morphing. By doing this to the two samples at a few levels of interpolation, you can export a nice group of samples to layer in your sampler of choice for performance-controlled expression. I am no drummer but I have a Roland SPD-8 Octapad, and when I use it to drive the Korg OASYS models it feels like I am in some netherworld where my admittedly-limited human performance element has perfectly fused with an algorithmic tuned delay-line model. Real playing and deep synthesis all-in-one...what more could I ask for? :D

[cerebralborealis]

Bobro quote: "Patently synthetic sounds in a huge pile of velocity layers are turning out to be good for getting a floating state that's both robotic and humanly playable, but isn't pretending to be either. A "squishy beatbox", ready to ooze over in either direction." That concept should yield some interesting results especially when freed from the constraints of a tempo grid. For example: funk seems much funkier with an elastic tempo (squishy beatbox?). I like the idea of continuously "morphing" unnatural sounds to a natural drum performance. There are so many drum sounds possible you could try to never repeat the same drum sound twice for an entire song - maybe just a stupid, interesting exercise, but it's possible. While I lament that fewer people get to hear a really good acoustic drum kit anymore, I guess the same can be said for harpsichords.

[Bobro]

Thanks aeon, that's some great information. cerebralborealis, I've been fortunate to have heard a great deal of really well-played harpsichord. Never heard a recording that comes near the feeling in a room though- it's really physical, especially in the rooms here that date from the age when the harpsichord was a hip ax. Good acoustic kit playing...ever more seldom, I need to start going to jazz clubs.

[Tedly Nightshade]

I look forward to hearing that, Bobro. I think it's cool that your head is quite a way ahead of your recorded reality. I can relate to that. Although I can really appreciate what Curve is saying, especially valuing the surreal as it's own rightful thing, there is something about the concussion aspect of percussion that I have never gotten from samples. A really revealing example is that peculiar percussion instrument, the piano. I have tried all the latest and greatest piano samples, and you know some of them sound a lot like a piano, but none of them FEEL like a piano- there just is not that sense of the action, of things being struck, and with that goes some drama. The pianist I play with has a very percussive piano sound, and that kind of stuff invariably falls very flat on the sampled ones. Smooth ripply arpeggios however sound much better. So we use the acoustic piano, and the sampled ones get used for the blatantly surreal- backwards, manipulated, et al.

[philbo_Tangent]

[quote]Originally posted by Bobro: [b][QUOTE]Originally posted by philbo_Tangent: [qb] Every instrument has it's place, even the sh*tty sounding drum machines that dominate pop & hiphop. [/b][/quote]The first thing I said on this thread was that what I'm hearing in pop and rock music is NOT shitty-sounding drum machines and NOT "real" drums. The real-drums/beatbox argument is what, about 30 years old now? Not what we're talking about. Sorry, Bobro, I apparently went off on a wild tangent and totally missed your point....

[Curve Dominant]

[quote][b]Sorry, Bobro, I apparently went off on a wild tangent and totally missed your point.... -------------------- philbo[/b][/quote]Yeah, Bobro, the Curvo adds to Philbo's apology for skewing the thread for lack of sensitivity to its nuance. That's the second time this month I made that mistake - the first was on the broken beats thread. Aeon: can you explain that bit about "true harmonic remapping and interpolation of the two samples"? I've been doing simple stacking of organic and synthesized samples up until now, and your post made me feel a little bit Barney Rubble-ish. [quote]posted by Max: [b]Anyway, this one of those typical issues we insiders trouble ourselves about and the end-user (the masses) will never hear anything of, much less notice it. -------------------- Argomax[/b][/quote]This is an excellent point, and one worth bearing in mind as we work. I believe our audiences appreciate the results of our experimentations much more than we realize sometimes. They LIKE the freaky-deaky stuff we come up with. They don't necessarily care HOW we come up with it, and they ESPECIALLY don't care if it's "real" or synthesized. They just know what they like, and if it sounds good, it IS good. That's just my own experiences from the responses we get here in Philly from the stuff we produce. People appreciate the overall vibe of a work, period. If the vibe is compelling or intriguing in some way, in ANY way, common peeps respond to that vibe. It is only us lab techs who will tend to self-consciously agonize over the nuances of each individual element down to a single drum hit - NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT! It can be good to be obsessive about what we produce, if that obsession compells us to create great works of art. But I've been in situations where I'm collaborating with a guy or a couple of folks who will obsess for weeks over, say, the sound of a hihat...but nothing significant results from all of that obsessing. We have to balance our desire for the perfect sound with a kind of Rock&Roll attitude that says, "Just throw that sh*t down, and move on to the next thing" if the vibe happens to be right. My $0.02US.

[Bobro]

Hey you guys I didn't mean to sound prickly. Just tripping on the potentials available- and there's more than I realized, aeon mentioned specific real-life tools that I didn't know existed and only came upon as ideas by pondering over the possibilities. I've been using Samplitude's non-realtime convolution to blend synthetic and organic sounds, but it's slow going and doesn't always work, have to check out Prosonix- Kyma isn't in the budget at the moment. :D The best thing about working with "fake" and real IMO is how well it showcases what is real. With reecording, we're gardners, not foresters- forestry would be live music.

[aeon]

[quote][i]Curve queried:[/i] [b]Aeon: can you explain that bit about "true harmonic remapping and interpolation of the two samples"? I've been doing simple stacking of organic and synthesized samples up until now, and your post made me feel a little bit Barney Rubble-ish.[/b][/quote]Sure thing. When you stack (add, mix) any two samples, you don’t get a true blend between them...you get, well, the sound of two samples stacked togethter. Sometimes this is great, but sometimes you want something deeper, something new that has the genetics of the source sounds, but is its own baby...enter harmonic mapping and interpolation. OK, here comes the theory bit: any sound can be represented as an additive group of sine waves - the fundamental and its overtones, harmonics or partials. We can derive the values for these sines by doing a Discrete Fourier Transform (often referred to as a Fast Fourier Transform, or FFT when coded) on the sound. So what the plug-in does is this (very simplified - for example, I am not addressing differing fundamental frequencies): it does a FFT on each sound, and then compares the first harmonic in sound A to the first harmonic in sound B, and derives a value by interpolating between the source values...hence, harmonic interpolation. This continues to the extent desired based on time and computing resources, and how accurate we want the “morph” to be. It is pretty speedy on a modern desktop computer, and specialized platforms like the Kyma can do it in real-time. Of course, we need not limit ourself to drum sounds...we could morph between a piano and voice, two voices, etc. Harmonic mapping comes into play when we do not map the partials from sound A onto B in a 1:1 fashion. Needless to say, this can result in some wild timbres that may seem to have little to do with their source sounds. “But aeon,” you say, “the thing you have failed to address is that a FFT might work fine on a sound that has a clear fundamental and ordered harmonics, like a nylon acoustic guitar or oboe, but many percussives such as the snare drum, cymbal or even a steel drum may have a weak or even seemingly nonexistent fundamental, and a boatload of inharmonic overtones that are not related to the fundamental. How does the plug handle those sounds, and what is the result?” To which, aeon replies, “You just have to load up your samples and experiment. There’s gold in them sines!” :D I hope that helps. cheers, aeon

[Jedi]

[quote]Originally posted by Curve Dominant A drum machine IS a percussion instrument. It's not meant to "replace" a human drummer, any more than a snare drum is meant to "replace" a tabla drum. It's all drums. Once you skin an animal, and stretch that skin over a wood shell, you've created "synthesized" percussion. Doing the same with silicon and electrons is no different. The choice between using an electronic groovebox verses a humaniod trap drummer, is no different than the choice between using a bongo player verses a spoonman. It's all drums. There's lots of different drums. What do you like? What works? What's affordable? What are you adept at? What fits the context of the genre? All of these considerations will figure into what sort of percussion solution you choose. To view any of them as exclusive is narrow-minded. To paraphrase Ted: I'm highly entertained by this. And definitely championing electronic drumming. Drum machine programmers sound three ways- the way they sound in the room, the way they sound on tape, and the way they sound in their imaginations. The funkiest thing about a drum machine or a sampling groovebox is that it DOESN"T sound like a humaniod banging on a trap kit. Some of us composers and producers of modern music seek to escape from the limitations, the clichés, or just the sheer pain-in-the-ass that goes along with procuring a recording of a humaniod banging on a trap kit. All of that set-up, the micing, all the noise, the rehearsal time, tuning the f*ckers, timing issues, ego issues, etc...and for what? To have a drum track that sounds like every other drum track ever recorded over the last 4 decades??? A sampling groovebox = freedom. Freedom to "sculpt" the sound of the rhythm to your imagination's limit. Sample trap drum hits, congas, bongos, tamborine, African drums, timbales, finger snaps, cabasas, tablas...and sculpt some delicious grooves. Let your imagination run wild (having imagination helps in this regard). You can always hire drummers and percussionists to play that stuff if and when you go on tour. I sample and sequence the drums and percussions for my tracks. Does it sound "real?" Hopefully not. Rather, it should sound "un-real," and that's the whole point. We are in the business of illusion. Anyone who plays an electric guitar, and yet tries to disagree with this, is a hypocrite. Once electrons are introduced into the equation in ANY capacity, all bets are off, and anything goes. My guess is you ain't seen nuthin' yet. YMMV... [/quote]Kick ass Post, Curve! I apologize for coming in a little off-topic, but just recently I have had to deal with the Real Drummer vs. Drum machine debate. My drummer came over a little peeved with me for spending so much time in my BatCave. He's a big organic drum snob, and has gone so far as to say he wouldn't put his name on a project that has programmed drums. Don't get me wrong, I love my drummer, he's a great guy, and yadda yadda, but he's an extreme pain in the arse sometimes when it comes to me doing program drums. Mind you, I've been sequencing tracks before I could even play guitar(my main instrument of ten years) so it's kind of like homecoming when I'm in the Cave laying tracks. Curve just struck a chord(guitar player everything is about chords) with me, because he hit it right on the head. It's about Fucking Freedom. Just to express myself, without all the shit of another ego in the room. I know there are good rewards from the tug of war of creating with a collaborator, but who wants to make all their music with a steady amount of bickering. Forgive me Bobro for the rant. Curve, thanks. Jedi

[Tedly Nightshade]

Aeon, that harmonics interpolating business seems like it has some potential for sure. I'd very much like to try that with my own samples, and see what an instrument halfway between a trumpet and a cymbal sounds like...