Do you hate electronic drums?

[Dan South]

I hate electronic drum tracks that have been poorly or unimaginatively programmed. I hate acoustic drum tracks that have been poorly or unimaginatively played.

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by phaetown: [b]I have neither drums nor a drum machine... yet, i've spent many a night [i] miking myself using bic pens and chop sticks to beat on a makeshift trap set made of a 5gal bucket (kick drum), soup cans (toms), a coffee can with beads strung under the lid by a rubber band (snare), a wooden stick with two hard drive platters (highhat) and a small piece of sheetmetal suspended from wire (crash/ride, depending on where you hit it).[/i] No i am [b] NOT [/b] making this shit up, and while we're on the subject all my `bass tracks' are really one of my guitars run through a cheesy Detuner. I feel rhythm but i have nothing, so i make do. [/b][/quote]Are you kidding me? That's GREAT! Now THERE's an adventurous spirit! I and a drummer I used to play with, used to do something really similar on his 4 track reel to reel. I lived in a tiny guest house in L.A. and we had no room to set up a kit, nor would the neighbors have stood for the noise. So we would mic up cardboard boxes, buckets, crinkling cellophane wrap, whatever was around. I thought it was great! As for the bass, I don't know if you ever heard the band Treat Her Right, but they were great... their major label releases (RCA) were done in a guy's basement on an 8 track deck, the bass was an electric guitar through a cheesy octave divider and the drummer played a cocktail drum. It was awesome! Then there's the STOMP production - eight drummers playing nothing but found objects. I love it! Seen it four times! Stop thinking you're being compromised and start thinking of what you're doing as a real art form! I'd MUCH rather hear the kind of thing you're doing than a freakin' drum machine, hands down.

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by Super 8: [b] See, this is what I love about Lee! She makes me feel like a MAN!!! :love: :love: :love: [/b][/quote]You know it baby! :D

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by DJDM: [b]I just don't think that the use of programming and great drumming has to be mutually exclusive.[/b][/quote]It doesn't have to be in theory, but in my experience, most of the time it is. [quote][b]Ever seen a drummer playing on Space Muffins? Or using a trigger pad that is attached to their acoustic kit to add additional FX sounds to their playing?! Very cool![/b][/quote]I've seen that work ocassionally so long as there's real drums or percussion in the picture somewhere. In other words, I don't mind it is a bit of coloration but if it's the whole enchilada, I rarely like it. Trigger pads and electronic drums just DO NOT respond to physical touch in the way acoustic instruments do. [quote][b] I for one can appreciate the drumming on Credence Clearwater's track "Who'll Stop The Rain" (very cool skinning) and then listen to some Amon Tobin with equal delight. I just simply think that they are different crafts. One is no less inspired and or exciting to me than the other.[/b][/quote]Totally respect that, like I said... I just don't get the same delight that you do out of electronic music most of the time... whereas there is plenty of non electronic music I hear (from all around the world) that I do like. So I became less inclined to wade through all the crap you have to wade through to find something good. If I just happen to hear something electronic that I like, fine... but I don't go looking for it, there is already plenty of music in the world that gets me off where I don't have to look for such a long time to find something I like!

[phaeton]

[quote] [b] Originally posted by phaetown: I have neither drums nor a drum machine... yet, i've spent many a night miking myself using bic pens and chop sticks to beat on a makeshift trap set made of a 5gal bucket (kick drum), soup cans (toms), a coffee can with beads strung under the lid by a rubber band (snare), a wooden stick with two hard drive platters (highhat) and a small piece of sheetmetal suspended from wire (crash/ride, depending on where you hit it). No i am NOT making this shit up, and while we're on the subject all my `bass tracks' are really one of my guitars run through a cheesy Detuner. I feel rhythm but i have nothing, so i make do. Are you kidding me? That's GREAT! Now THERE's an adventurous spirit! I and a drummer I used to play with, used to do something really similar on his 4 track reel to reel. I lived in a tiny guest house in L.A. and we had no room to set up a kit, nor would the neighbors have stood for the noise. So we would mic up cardboard boxes, buckets, crinkling cellophane wrap, whatever was around. I thought it was great! As for the bass, I don't know if you ever heard the band Treat Her Right, but they were great... their major label releases (RCA) were done in a guy's basement on an 8 track deck, the bass was an electric guitar through a cheesy octave divider and the drummer played a cocktail drum. It was awesome! Then there's the STOMP production - eight drummers playing nothing but found objects. I love it! Seen it four times! Stop thinking you're being compromised and start thinking of what you're doing as a real art form! I'd MUCH rather hear the kind of thing you're doing than a freakin' drum machine, hands down. [/b] [/quote]and [quote] [b] Originally posted by Super 8: See, this is what I love about Lee! She makes me feel like a MAN!!! [Love] [Love] [Love] [/b] [/quote]This is what EYE dig about Lee... She's pretty much got something positive to say about everything. Even if she's disagreeing, she's being positive. And even open-minded enough to say she'd even try to listen to my ghetto drums, much less citing similar personal experiences!! Even though my drumming skill-level is in its infancy, and i pretty much don't let anyone else hear this (in fact, i think this is the first i've mentioned it to anyone) i have a great deal of fun with it. STOMP production.... hrmmm... i saw something once where there were 2 kids in highschool doing something similar. 55gallon drums, PVC, crates, bottles, disc brake rotors, etc. It was actually pretty neat to watch/listen to. I guess what makes me uneasy about the whole thing is i'm not playing rhythm on stuff like Stomp does, just to do something different and be cool. I think it's more in i'm trying to pass off the sound of a bunch of battered refuse as a real, live drumset :D I'm not even getting into the "music boxes" i've made out of my Legos, or stuff like rubber band guitars and harps i've built for kicks. Now that the secret's out, ponder that and just imagine what sort of shit i put my parents through growing up. in the meantime, ph33r my Folgers Rimshot!

[DJDM]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b][QUOTE] As for the bass, I don't know if you ever heard the band Treat Her Right, but they were great... their major label releases (RCA) were done in a guy's basement on an 8 track deck, the bass was an electric guitar through a cheesy octave divider and the drummer played a cocktail drum. It was awesome! [/b][/quote]I love Treat Her Right! Great album. I got to meet their harmonica player when I was living in Boston in 1987. The manager at the store I worked at was the girlfriend of one of the guys but I was underage so I could not get into the shows. The CD came out just after I got back to Seattle. You know that Sandman went on to form Morphine but what I did not know was that at one point he and Chris Ballew were in a band together and when Morphine played here in Seattle Chris showed up and they had a jam session that was pretty cool. OK that's all of my THR stuff. Lee: I am down with everything you have said in the previous posts :) - DJDM

[Lee Flier]

Phaeton, I would bet money that the STOMP folks weren't just trying to be cool either. Most "cool new sounds" start off because ghetto kids make do with what they've got. In fact, the drum kit itself was invented by poor musicians in New Orleans who stuck together bits and pieces of whatever drums and percussion they could find. They were probably trying to imitate the sound of a marching drum corps with only one drummer, and thought a drum kit was nothing but a poor man's substitute, until they realized it sounded pretty cool in its own right. :) I personally would MUCH rather hear a bunch of tin cans recorded on a crappy 4 track than a perfect sounding drum machine. I'd rather hear someone crinkling plastic wrap because it kind of sounds like a snare drum than a sample of a pristinely recorded snare drum. I think it's more human and yes, more adventurous. Be proud of what you're doing dude! :thu:

[Gtoledo3]

Sometimes one is recording a performance, other times the recording IS the performance, if you know what I mean. If all of the instrumentation suggests "reality" yet there is a boring machine drum going on, it can leave something to be desired. But, some songs/recordings are like collages; in that case I don't give a fuck what was used. Take Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan." The electronic drums MAKE the song. Or Prince's "When Doves Cry." the static drum loop MAKES it. Whatever it takes, y'know. Sometimes you want a "cold/canned" sound! Now if you had to listen to Allman Brothers "Live at The Fillmore" with a drum machine replacing the drummers, it would royally suck!

[Steve LeBlanc]

Yeah I mostly agree with what Lee said here...this is another old tired topic so I'm not gonna bother repeating a bunch of stuff. It's just really sad that so few musicians/producers can tell the difference anymore...that's what I really hate...that the majority don't seem to have ears or the ability to recognize great feel anymore. Hence they just don't care what was used to make the record, if it was quantized, loops, drum samples, synth drums or real drums...who cares it's just a canvas for my bar chord wanking and bandwagon vocal stylings. [i]yeah, I'm [b]really[/b] bitter [b]this[/b] week[/i] ;)

[phaeton]

Lee, That's pretty cool though, a major label release from a set of 8-track basement sessions. Sure they go on and on that Nirvana only spent $600 to record the album Nevermind, but i think that might be slightly off-truth. I wasn't trying to say that STOMP or ghetto kids were playing alley objects JUST to be [i] cool [/i], but more that they made do with what they had and [i] made it cool [/i]. Something tells me that i could really get into and appreciate some neo-60's British skiffle music, (consider it the zygote that grew up into the birth of the British Invasion), but it's hard to say if any of it ever ended up on wax!! I'll have to check out the crinkly cellophane concept. My original "snare" was alternating layers of wax paper and alyewmineeum foil, but it `wore out' quickly. I've recently found a big plastic bowl that can work as a kick, but it's vastly quiet compared to the Folgers Snare. I'm trying to reduce the volume level altogether, since i live in an apartment and most of my inspiration comes between 11pm and 4am.

[Jotown]

[quote]Phaeton, I would bet money that the STOMP folks weren't just trying to be cool either. Most "cool new sounds" start off because ghetto kids make do with what they've got. [/quote]That is exactly how digital drums came into the mainstream. Those so-called "Ghetto Kids" got hold of the first wave of Drum Machines and Samplers and made music on them. Mostly for street performances. Going into the studio, and hiring muscicians was not feasible. So as you say, "they made do with what they had". What they did was every bit as valid as Stomp. It's not the medium, It's the music that matters.

[midispaceho]

I love electronic drums. I prefer the wilder ones. They are a cornerstone of industrial music. It is fun to take a standard electronic sound bank and mutate it into something evil and rhythmic. Fun fun fun.

[Lee Flier]

Jotown, yes I know that it was ghetto kids who first made used of beat boxes - I lived in a ghetto in L.A. during the initial rise of hip hop, so I heard it first hand. I've said about 3 times now in this thread that I think the use of electronic drums is a "valid" artistic pursuit. The original question though, wasn't whether they are "valid" but whether we like them. I like the sound of a lot of "found object" percussion like what STOMP did; I don't like the sound of electronic drums in most cases, and they just don't agree with my own aesthetic.

[Felix_dup1]

I really like hearing new sounds utilized as percussion, whether it's snippets of vocal samples or metal being struck as used by Depeche Mode, or snippets of noise as used by the Boards of Canada. And I don't have a problem with drum machines - I think the robots should have their chance to play just like us humans, and there are times that that mechanical feel is cool IMO. As for the sounds - I'd rather that electronic percussion create the sounds that acoustic percussion isn't capable of rather than limiting its sound palette to what we've already heard so many times before.

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by phaeton: [b]Something tells me that i could really get into and appreciate some neo-60's British skiffle music, (consider it the zygote that grew up into the birth of the British Invasion), but it's hard to say if any of it ever ended up on wax!![/b][/quote]Some of it did - check out Lonnie Donegan. Skiffle was pretty cool, definitely a "poor man's" genre that incorporated a lot of found objects, but it was a fad whose appeal wore out very quickly because most people were just trying to jump on Donegan's bandwagon. Then these guys called the Beatles came along and made everybody forget skiffle in a hurry anyhow. :D Skiffle is all right, but a little hokey - I prefer more visceral stuff. [quote][b] I'll have to check out the crinkly cellophane concept. My original "snare" was alternating layers of wax paper and alyewmineeum foil, but it `wore out' quickly. I've recently found a big plastic bowl that can work as a kick, but it's vastly quiet compared to the Folgers Snare. I'm trying to reduce the volume level altogether, since i live in an apartment and most of my inspiration comes between 11pm and 4am.[/b][/quote]Heheh... yeah I hear ya... that's pretty much when my former drummer and I would do our thing too. Cellophane is VERY quiet, but mic it close with an LD mic, compress the crap out of it and put some reverb on it and it can sound convincingly like a snare. Flicking a piece of paper with your fingernail can too. For kick, cardboard boxes rule. We even used to record them with a regular kick drum beater. That stuff was a blast - this one tune of ours would probably sound really good with some of those things added and I might just have a bunch of drummers over one day to record a few tracks of crazee pseudo-drums! You know I don't mind having a bunch of drummers in my basement in any case! :D

[Lee Flier]

[quote]Originally posted by DJDM[b] I am not pointing any fingers but I will say that dismissing technology out of hand because you are happy in your own sonic realm is not really the mark of a true adventurer. [/b][/quote]For me, the adventure is simply a different one, and usually more subtle. A big part of the adventure for me is the physical aspect of music - the fact that it's a moment in time and space, a decision made by your mind, body and spirit at the same time, at the exact moment that you strike the drum. How hard you hit it, where on the head or rim you hit it, whether you hit it right on the beat or a little behind it or a little ahead of it, how you tuned it that day, whether the humidity is affecting the sound or feel of the drum and how you're compensating for that if it is... these and hundreds more little things affect the ultimate result at that moment. No matter how much you mangle a sample or a programmed drum sound you will never equal the amount of variation that nature has, nor is the result of a pre-meditated programmed sound ever quite as mysterious as the instinctive, split-second decision of a live drummer. I think the main problem I have with the increasing popularity of electronic drums over the past 20 years, is that it has produced a lot of people - hell, a lot of even engineers and even drummers - who are no longer capable of hearing (let alone playing) these subtleties of timing, dynamics, and acoustics. It's a little like the office-bound urban businessman who stands in the middle of a forest and proclaims that he might as well cut down all the trees and build a golf course or a strip mall because the tress all look alike anyway. :D I don't blame the technology for this, I blame the people, but the end result still sucks! So it really has nothing to do with a lack of adventurousness, for me. It has to do with a particular aesthetic I have, to which electronic drums are pretty much diametrically opposed. I'm all for experimenting with new and different sounds but if the realtime, human element is entirely missing, it tends to leave me cold, and I won't sacrifice that for the sake of some "new sounds." There are plenty of those to be had by other means like Phaeton's little homemade contraptions. :)

[Rick K.]

[quote]Originally posted by Tusker: [b]What kinds of equipment are you using? Our usual set up is a Roland V-drums.[/b][/quote]He's using a Yamaha DTXtreme kit. [url=http://thebullseyeband.com/state%20fair0003.jpg]Here\'s a pic of it.[/url] I'd like to see him move up to a Roland V. I know they're superior. Rick

[Dan South]

One more casual observation. In *[b]some[/b]* cases - please note the qualification - it's easier to program what you want than to explain it to a drummer. Many drummers go on automatic pilot and slip into the grooves/fills that they can play comfortably. If you want a live drummer on your track, it might help to program a demo track to show him the general direction that you want to go. If your drum programming truly sucks, he has the option to blow off your ideas and come up with something else. Occasionally, a drummer - or any instrumentalist - will cop the attitude that a non-whatever-instrument-player has no business telling them what to play, but tough luck, Charlie! If it's your song or your session, they need to at least consider your idea, and that idea is best communicated via a demo, even if it's automated. I don't understand why technology that enables people to do things that they couldn't do via other means is to taboo. Snubbing a drum machine or a sequencer-based drum track is like snubbing multi-track recorders because they allow one guy to play all of the parts in lieu of a group tracking "live." I don't see the conflict. If you don't like electronic drums, don't use them. If you don't like what's on TV, change the channel.

[phaeton]

[quote][b] Some of it did - check out Lonnie Donegan. Skiffle was pretty cool, definitely a "poor man's" genre that incorporated a lot of found objects, but it was a fad whose appeal wore out very quickly because most people were just trying to jump on Donegan's bandwagon. Then these guys called the Beatles came along and made everybody forget skiffle in a hurry anyhow. [Big Grin] Skiffle is all right, but a little hokey - I prefer more visceral stuff. [/b] [/quote]I'll have to look into some Lonnie Donegan. Doesn't mean i'll throw away all my other CDs and jump straight into Skifflehood with reckless abandon though- i'll agree that viscerality or str8 up "oomph" is pretty necessary. Yeah.. them dang Beatles.... My dad says that his dad told him once "In 5 years nobody will ever remember who these guys are." [quote] [b] Heheh... yeah I hear ya... that's pretty much when my former drummer and I would do our thing too. Cellophane is VERY quiet, but mic it close with an LD mic, compress the crap out of it and put some reverb on it and it can sound convincingly like a snare. Flicking a piece of paper with your fingernail can too. For kick, cardboard boxes rule. We even used to record them with a regular kick drum beater. [/b] [/quote]Yes, i have to compress the crap out of everything as it is, plus reverb, and even just a super-light touch of some distortion. It kinda adds a little `grit' that somehow helps it in the mix. Speaking of boxes, i have a big computer monitor box and computer case box in my closet that i'll have to try out. Maybe even fabricate a kick drum beater out of legos if it won't destroy them. I've mostly been just tapping the side of the bucket with my shoe. Sheesh.. this is nuts. :thu: [quote] [b] You know I don't mind having a bunch of drummers in my basement in any case! [/b] [/quote]heh :p [quote][b] Jotown, yes I know that it was ghetto kids who first made used of beat boxes - I lived in a ghetto in L.A. during the initial rise of hip hop, so I heard it first hand. [/b] [/quote]How fortunate for you.... i think... :eek: :p

[The T Dot]

Originally posted by Dan South: [b]If you want a live drummer on your track, it might help to program a demo track to show him the general direction that you want to go.[/b] I do this all the time! :thu: [b] I don't understand why technology that enables people to do things that they couldn't do via other means is to taboo. Snubbing a drum machine or a sequencer-based drum track is like snubbing multi-track recorders because they allow one guy to play all of the parts in lieu of a group tracking "live."[/b] I totally agree.

[Kaz]

[quote]Originally posted by Dan South: [b]One more casual observation. In *[b]some[/b]* cases - please note the qualification - it's easier to program what you want than to explain it to a drummer. Many drummers go on automatic pilot and slip into the grooves/fills that they can play comfortably. If you want a live drummer on your track, it might help to program a demo track to show him the general direction that you want to go. If your drum programming truly sucks, he has the option to blow off your ideas and come up with something else. Occasionally, a drummer - or any instrumentalist - will cop the attitude that a non-whatever-instrument-player has no business telling them what to play, but tough luck, Charlie! If it's your song or your session, they need to at least consider your idea, and that idea is best communicated via a demo, even if it's automated. I don't understand why technology that enables people to do things that they couldn't do via other means is to taboo. Snubbing a drum machine or a sequencer-based drum track is like snubbing multi-track recorders because they allow one guy to play all of the parts in lieu of a group tracking "live." I don't see the conflict. If you don't like electronic drums, don't use them. If you don't like what's on TV, change the channel.[/b][/quote]Who said it was snubbing? Isn't it possible to make an educated open minded decision? I tried multitrack, and I like it, I tried drum machines, and I don't. Just because someone doesn't like a drum machine, doesn't mean they're snubbing all modern living, and eating rocks in a cave. I don't think there's a conflict either, and if someone said, "I don't like acoustic drums for this or that reason", I wouldn't accuse them of having a closed mind or not being adventurous, I'd just think, okay, that's what you're into, viva la difference.

[Anderton]

I like electronic drums. I like acoustic drums. I like electric guitars. I like acoustic guitars. Remember, machines don't kill music -- people do!

[Jotown]

Lee Flier wrote: [quote]I've said about 3 times now in this thread that I think the use of electronic drums is a "valid" artistic pursuit. The original question though, wasn't whether they are "valid" but whether we like them. I like the sound of a lot of "found object" percussion like what STOMP did; I don't like the sound of electronic drums in most cases, and they just don't agree with my own aesthetic. [/quote]I hear you Lee, I appreciate your opinion and your aesthetic. Just making a point. [quote]I think the main problem I have with the increasing popularity of electronic drums over the past 20 years, is that it has produced a lot of people - hell, a lot of even engineers and even drummers - who are no longer capable of hearing (let alone playing) these subtleties of timing, dynamics, and acoustics. [/quote]I totally agree, but thats more about the programers, engineers, and drummers, not the medium. Dan South wrote: [quote]One more casual observation. In *some* cases - please note the qualification - it's easier to program what you want than to explain it to a drummer. Many drummers go on automatic pilot and slip into the grooves/fills that they can play comfortably. [/quote]Thats why I always sequence the drums first; to define the groove. I can print out a chart, or just play it for them, but that way I get what I am looking for. It's called arranging. Most musicians are very insrument-centric. They really don't pay attention to what the other instruments are doing. One has to study great drummers to be able to progaram drums well. Most people don't, hence you hear alot of bad drum programming. As the Bob Seger song says, "we were players, not arrangers". Everyone musically talented is not an arranger, just like everyone who has a DAW is not an engineer. Duke Ellington had an arranger. Most people who cannot program drum parts just aren't arrangers, and they should get someone who is. That is not a slam, just an observation. [quote]I don't understand why technology that enables people to do things that they couldn't do via other means is to taboo. Snubbing a drum machine or a sequencer-based drum track is like snubbing multi-track recorders because they allow one guy to play all of the parts in lieu of a group tracking "live." I don't see the conflict. If you don't like electronic drums, don't use them. If you don't like what's on TV, change the channel.[/quote]Well said. Anderton wrote: [quote]I like electronic drums. I like acoustic drums. I like electric guitars. I like acoustic guitars. Remember, machines don't kill music -- people do! [/quote]There you go. What more could I possibly add to that. :thu:

[Oiled]

The Dude minds, man.. this agression will not stand.

[phaeton]

[quote] [b] The Dude minds, man.. this agression will not stand. [/quote][/b] DEWD!!! Yer gettin a DELL!!

[Master Zap]

Get me a drummer who can give me subsonic frequencies, repeat a sound exactly (sample accurate) at any given BPM with zero (none, nada) stray from what I tell it to do, shuts the fuck up, plays when I hit play, shuts up when I hit stop, can be pitched up, cut in to pieces and reassembled, has twenty arms and fourty feet, and does what I tell it... then I'll consider a drummer. Personally, for the kind of music I do, I have rarely (I could almost venture to say [b]never[/b]) come into a situation where I would ever preffer a real drummer. A sampled loop of one possibly... but wanting the drummer? Never. I used to hate real drums with a passion. I'm not quite like that anymore, but I hated the crappy sounds (cardboard box city, no punch, no power, just sticks on shellac tubes with dead pigs strapped over 'em) and the fact they were not repeateble exactly. In some musical styles, exact repeatability is prefferable. In some musical styles, an electronic sound is prefferable. I'm of the school of thought who see real drums as a rather tiny and primitive subset of the entire palette of rythm sound. In my particular genre, so tiny and insignificant that I don't even bother with considering it. Besides, anything that makes sounds at my command is a "real instrument" by definition. (I nearly slapped a teacher that asked once when I told her I played synthesizer "yes but don't you play a [i]real[/i] instrumant". Well duh, as opposed to what, my make believe imaginary one!?) /Z

[The T Dot]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Master Zap: [b]Get me a drummer who can give me subsonic frequencies, repeat a sound exactly (sample accurate) at any given BPM with zero (none, nada) stray from what I tell it to do, shuts the fuck up, plays when I hit play, shuts up when I hit stop, can be pitched up, cut in to pieces and reassembled, has twenty arms and fourty feet, and does what I tell it... then I'll consider a drummer.[/b] Bingo! But many of the electronic drum criticizers don't understand why this would be desirable, since it just ISN'T for their music. [b] In some musical styles, exact repeatability is prefferable. In some musical styles, an electronic sound is prefferable. [/b] True. But, you can't teach an old dog new tricks as they say. Obviously someone who is focused on 60's music who doesn't give a shit about electronic drums will have trouble understanding this. Not to say 60's music doesn't have it's merits, but I find that people who place so much focus and belief in one style of music can't open their ears to the reasoning behind methods used in other types of music.

[Brakka]

[quote]Originally posted by Lee Flier: [b]Then there's the STOMP production - eight drummers playing nothing but found objects. I love it! [/b][/quote]Eight? It seemed like at least 40 when I saw them :) Man I'd love to sample that shit :o I don't hate electronic drums, or the other kind. If it works, it works.

[Kaz]

[quote]Originally posted by Chris Himself: [b][QUOTE]Originally posted by Master Zap: [b]Get me a drummer who can give me subsonic frequencies, repeat a sound exactly (sample accurate) at any given BPM with zero (none, nada) stray from what I tell it to do, shuts the fuck up, plays when I hit play, shuts up when I hit stop, can be pitched up, cut in to pieces and reassembled, has twenty arms and fourty feet, and does what I tell it... then I'll consider a drummer.[/b] Bingo! But many of the electronic drum criticizers don't understand why this would be desirable, since it just ISN'T for their music. [b] In some musical styles, exact repeatability is prefferable. In some musical styles, an electronic sound is prefferable. [/b] True. But, you can't teach an old dog new tricks as they say. Obviously someone who is focused on 60's music who doesn't give a shit about electronic drums will have trouble understanding this. Not to say 60's music doesn't have it's merits, but I find that people who place so much focus and belief in one style of music can't open their ears to the reasoning behind methods used in other types of music.[/b][/quote]You can do all this with real drums (except the shut up part). Editing, chopping up with Recycle, reversing, layering, doubling, lining up to a grid, pitch change, distortion, whatever the fuck you want, if you want. Why the need to think that those who don't like drum machines don't "understand" why the people who do, is amusing. And not everyone who doesn't like drum machines is stuck on 60's music. Is everyone who likes drum machines stuck on 80's music? It really seems that the likers are more close minded or snubbing or stuck up or whatever the problem is. I don't really know what the point of this thread is...

[ECBRules]

I saw a band with En Esch(KMFDM) and trixie Reiss (sang on crystal meth stuff)play with a drummer who was wearing headphones and they had an adat playing some sequences the drummer set up. It was really cool because they had the best of both worlds. I can't remember what club it was but it was in NYC. Why does everybody look so cool up there. Around here all we have is nike's and blue jeans. WaaaaaH. tOg aka scooch aka keny