Prague Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 I play bass and keys. I hated programming drums, but I liked the (good) samples of real drums. So, I eventually ended up with a complete trigger kit. There are 5 "cymbals", 6 "toms", 8 misc. percussion pads, a snare pad, and double bass Axis pedals. All Gibraltar hardware. I spared little expense. All anyone has to do is sit and play. I am having trouble getting drummers to use it live. What is it going to take to get drummers to explore this and add to their abilities? Keyboardists use digital pianos, guitarists are using modelers, etc. I could understand a hat and a ride, but I like the sonic control of everyone going direct as much as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coyote Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 As a sometime drummer, I like the sound & feel of real drums. There's a huge variety of sounds you can get from a single cymbal depending on how you play it. Even the best e-cymbals manage only a couple of zones, and have a uniformness of sound regardless of how hard you hit 'em. A real cymbal changes both volume AND timbre as you hit harder. So do real drums. I'd love to have electronics for effect though. A couple pads to get synthy-drum sounds and some percussion samples would be very cool. I used to think I was Libertarian. Until I saw their platform; now I know I'm no more Libertarian than I am RepubliCrat or neoCON or Liberal or Socialist. This ain't no track meet; this is football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeq Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 A lot of drummers may feel like I do about electronic drums- been there, done that. The more you listen to samples and and models the more you realize how far the technology still has to go. When samplers came out back in the 80's I went whole hog for the electronic sound. It just didn't do it for me or for most of the people I played with. No matter how good the sample, it is coming out of a speaker not radiating out of a real drum 360 degrees. The cymbals as Coyote points out, suck big time. There is very little nuance available - imagine a keyboard with only two velocity levels- hard and soft. The sameness of every hit is fine if you are doing some kind of disco or techno, but most of those people don't even want a human drummer anyway. I ended up installing triggers in my acoustic drums. I could use the samples to "augment" the sound of my acoustic drum and give me slight modification from song to song. I tried leaving my toms at home and just using kick, snare and some pads and my singer yelled at me!! She wanted the real toms. The upside of triggering real drums is - one you have some real drum sounds as a starting point and two you can compete in volume with loud guitar players. The downside to triggering real drums is that the triggered sounds are IN ADDITION to your acoustic sound so you can't use it in anything other than a loud band. The other downside is that you are carrying around a drumset AND a small PA system to every gig. For what its worth, most of the guitar players I talk to think that modeling sucks and that nothing sounds like a tube amp except a tube amp; most the of the keyboard players I know would rather play a real piano assuming it is working and in tune than a digital piano. And they didn't have to lug it. When they hit the big time and have roadies that's just what they end up doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funkwave Posted April 12, 2003 Share Posted April 12, 2003 I have electronic and acoustic sets. I love the sounds of the electronics but I must tell you, nothing beats the feel of an acoustic set. Acoustic sets also give alot more expression, tone, and dynamics too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clatterdrums Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 5 years ago I sold my acoustic set and bought a set of Roland V-drums. They were a great writing tool, hassle free to record and sounded pretty cool. Live, at least for me, they were a bit of a let down. They functioned/sounded great, but for some reason I didn't have the same satisfaction I did when playing an acoustic set. I sold them last year and replaced them with a new acoustic set. I do augment my sound with a Roland spd20 run thru an Akai mpc4000 sequencer. I still like the idea of electronics, but not as a main rig. www.clatter.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prague Posted April 13, 2003 Author Share Posted April 13, 2003 Yea, it seems like the same story when the electric bass came out. The upright players couldn't get them to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coyote Posted April 13, 2003 Share Posted April 13, 2003 Nice little bit of sarcasm lol. But there are a number of differences here. First, the electric bass guitar descended from guitar while the acoustic bass is part of the violin family. Second, you still have incredible sensitivity on electric bass.... a more apt comparison would be to look at the percentage of guitarists who have embraced MIDI guitar. It's very low, and for mostly the same reasons. I think the real root of the issue is something you posted in your first post on the subject: I like the sonic control of everyone going direct as much as possible. Are you perhaps being too dictatorial in your endeavor? I never like working with someone telling me what to do and how to do it - unless they are paying me very well. Originally posted by paostby: Yea, it seems like the same story when the electric bass came out. The upright players couldn't get them to work. I used to think I was Libertarian. Until I saw their platform; now I know I'm no more Libertarian than I am RepubliCrat or neoCON or Liberal or Socialist. This ain't no track meet; this is football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prague Posted April 13, 2003 Author Share Posted April 13, 2003 Oooops. Sorry about the sarcasm. My words didn't come out right. The sonic control is purely technical. There is no bleeding from live microphones. I have 12 direct outputs from the sound modules that allow for tailoring individual sounds. Also, the setup sounds the same today as it did 3 months ago. Like a keyboard, once you get your piano sound, you save it and recall it at any time. I have 30 different kits that have been set up by myself and other drummers. I do know drummers who successfully use this technology. They are not in my genre, nor do they live in this city! If you, a drummer, were on a desert island and this is all you had, would you quit playing or could you make it work? Over 90% of the drums you hear on commercials, soundtracks, etc. is digital percussion (or so the industry tells me). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brakka Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 Originally posted by paostby: ...What is it going to take to get drummers to explore this and add to their abilities? Carry your set over to their house/apartment and play in their living room while their kids are asleep. It's actually a good question, and I can see both sides. "Organic" and "Natural" are very strong and important words to musicians, especially drummers. But like you, I find it hard to understand how many drummers can be so unaccepting of sampled sounds and pads- especially when no one is telling them to stop playing acoustic drums. I think time will change peoples' perception of drum electronics. If you visited recording forums 7 or 8 years ago, people were chastised for mentioning digital recording. Today though, the format is as accepted as the electric guitar. Maybe the best thing is to not try to change anyone's mind. If they like what you do musically on your kit, that should speak for itself. If not, then you might have to wait 7 or 8 years to say "I told you so." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captain54 Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 Originally posted by paostby: All anyone has to do is sit and play. It's not that easy.... I was using v-drums live for a while and finally went back to the acoustics cause the v's were just as much work to get sounding right than it was getting the acoustic's all miced and sound good.. there was too much fiddling with the module, the pads, the sensitivity settings, the velocity settings, tweaking the samples, etc, then additional signal processing before it hits the board, the issue of monitoring,....with A's you just play....it never was as easy as plug n' play for me.... now in the studio its a different story....v-drums are fantastic...I can record a midi performance into my sequencer, and plug in samples from some of the best sounding kits in the world...I can make a snare sound like a dog barking, a cymbal sound like 15' gong, all by plugging a sample in an triggering it..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prague Posted April 14, 2003 Author Share Posted April 14, 2003 Oh, I know the setup issues! It's a lot like keyboards. But, once it's done, it's rare to have to do anything else. Yes, new samples are tried out and tweaked, but the keyboardist usually does this. When you setup at a gig, hit the power and away you go. I use the same in-ear/headphone monitoring system live and studio. But, it is all paid for. It really only requires bringing sticks (and I have those, too). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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