Drum Machine vs Live Drums

Man, there is no "both"?

^^^ I would say that it depends on the song. Recently I've been writing tracks that mix, say, a drum machine kick with a snare played live, or drums machine for the verses, live drums for chorus, etc..

Thing is, given the choice between a really shitty drummer and a crappy drum machine, I'd probably rather listen to the drum machine, because stuff that's really out of time annoys the crap out of me.

And at the other end, given the choice between listening to a really super-technical drummer who can play a million drums at once with hemi-demi-semi-paradiddles and everything and a really skillfully programmed, like drukqs-era Aphex micro programmed drum machine? I'd pick the drum machine again.

But it's actually in the middle ground, where you have a drummer who knows who to play something quite simple and elegant and yet make it sound amazing, that is quite complex and probably where I'd prefer a drummer. Like, a drummer has to be at a certain level of competence before I'll listen to them, and yet not go over a certain amount of showing off. Show restraint. And I think, for the most part, drum machines are better at restraint because people don't think to be unrestrained with programming them.

I mean, I can think of ways in which both are used beautifully and ways in which both are used egregiously. I think I'm going to vote "drum machine", because that is what I'd buy to screw around with if I had a couple hundro. But in terms of what I prefer to listen to it totally depends on who's doing it, I guess.

That said, I would still really love to learn how to play drums.

Properly, I mean, not just dicking around and hitting things vaguely in order like I tend to do whenever there's a drumkit in front of me.

I've been teaching myself the basics of rudimentary drumming in my spare time lately. I mean, just in terms of the patterns. I don't even own a pair of sticks.

I have been trying to construct a drumtar where picking the lower strings triggers basskick and higher strings trigger snares/hihat so it is always in time to what the guitar is playing, and i kind of got it working but the latency is so bad i must cry. but this is the future of drum machines!

also that weird metal drumming with sample triggers where the drum machine plays along with live drummer, and when the drummer mops his brow for sweat, that will be the gesture to trigger windchimes and cool breeze sounds.

Allegedly rhythm games with drum kits are excellent primers in teaching ppl to play the drums

also that weird metal drumming with sample triggers where the drum machine plays along

ugh, this was discussed in the metal listening club a few months ago, no-one defended it.

it's hard to tell what do I 'prefer generally', as there are situations where one suits better than another, so I can't really compare them just like that

on the other hand, nothing IMO beats the sound of a properly miced, nicely recorded live drumkit, so if I had to listen to a drum machine track alone or a live drumkit track alone, I'd choose the latter

there is no greater sound than the two together.

except in metal

my favorite thing in all of music is the sound of live drums playing repetitive electronic music rhythms, see "sequenced" on the new field album and "the rip" on portishead3

...and, you know, about 40 years worth of motorik.

both can be awesome or sometimes terrible

but honestly it's kind of a walk for live drums because of jazz

It depends on the context.

xxpost otm, i could listen to the motorik beat nonstop for the rest of my life

Nothing *looks* cooler than a drum machine, mind you.

Especially if it's hooked up to one of these:

http://www.synthgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/oscar_peterson_tb303_tr606.jpg

^^^^^^^^this is my new favourite image in the history of forever

But a drum machine could never have given you the greatest thing on tv ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erE8WTngaAY

both, forever

karen that pic should be crossposted to the 'people who have figured out how to live' thread

you know those drum machines hooked up to robotic limbs that play live drum sets -- how cool would you guys be with drum machines triggering human limbs?

i prefer live drums out of a John Henry-esque romanticism

after listening to the richard d. james album for the first time, i'm a lot less hostile towards the notion of drum machines.

Kate kind of already said this, but while awesome live drums are just as good as awesome fake drums (in different ways), a shitty drummer is about 1,000 times worse than a shitty drum machine part, which, theoretically is at least still playing in time and consistently

do you guys distinguish between drum machines and sampled breaks? I feel like the drum machine companies themselves are fostering this distinction by only allowing preloaded sample banks, when it couldn't be that much more expensive to let you load your own.

this is what samplers are for, right?

smells like a conspiracy to sell redundant electronics!

You know the problem with live drums?

Drummers.

Drum Machine wins. Of course, Steven Morris counts as a drum machine.

i thought you hated drum machines on reggae tunes

ehh how can one pick? I mean I sure as hell dislike hearing drum machines on metal recordings, which some grindcore acts use, but on an industrial tune, I would MUCH rather hear programmed drums to help give it the synthesized, mechanical feel. I also prefer them on rap.

I don't know how one could really make a blanket statement, I mean, real drums sound better to me on most music that falls outside of those two genres but even that isn't an absolute for me.

My vote goes to Dukakis.

why the metal hate for drum machines? is it considered cheating?

well even that isn't an absolute, it's just aggressive, OTT percussion is such a huge part of metal (just witness how much more worship Dave Lombardo got from geeky metalheads than the other members of Slayer), and that often the machine can't replicate it, and sounds goofy (ie, the first Necrophagist album). Some bands pull it off, others it sticks out like a sore thumb. It's more or less better for those groups that write 35 second songs that are bursts of energy that require drumming faster than any human can play.

The 'cheating' aspect would be kind of a silly side to take, given that would make me have to rail against guitar amplification, effects pedals, and all kinds of other things.

btw when I say the machine can't "replicate" it, of course it can on a technical level, it's just that, well, for lack of scientific terminology....THRASH/DEATH METAL DRUMMING F00KIN' R0000LZ.

not cheating, it just sounds like shite.

and every band that uses it sounds the fucking same. Totally spoils a LOT of albums. You have no idea how overdone it is too.

prolly 90 % of metal uses samples alongside what the drummer is actually playing to make the sound beefier and more consistent. maybe closer to 99% even.

quite a few albums on the metal listening club thread got the "sounded good apart from those awful click drum things".
Im not a muso, but even i notice it and hate it. And its bloody everywhere too.

xxpost

yea, and when an organic sounding metal band adds in something mechanical, it clashes. think like Cryptopsy's "None So Vile" played by a machine instead of Flo Mournier.

wow sleepingbag I NEVER KNEW ABOUT TRIGGERS. THANK YOU FOR THE NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT.

I doubt the percentage is that high, I cant see any doom bands using it for instance, lol. But just about every death metal band probably does.

The best metal drumming has a certain spontaneity to it, and part of the appeal of listening to the more extreme forms is (for me anyway) the virtuosity of the players.

xxpost fwiw I don't hate triggers whatsoever, my issue is from a sonic level only, the machines just don't fit the sound. Triggers beef up the sound, which is usually effective.

yea, what chap said. all the watercooler convos about "man did you hear the fills that (so and so) threw in"?

all the deathcore bands do, and they get the piss ripped out of them,ie trigger the bloodshed get called trigger the drumshed or whatever

xps

i was imagining metal rabbis decreeing sample-trigger on a note-to-note basis purely for audio clarity might be acceptable where a full blastbeat triggered by a drummer with flabby calves might be on the level of sports doping.

haha not trying to blow anyone's mind with trigger 'revelation', just chiming in. i'd guess that some people might not know that that kind of mechanical sound might come from an actual drummer and not a drum machine

talking about dave lombardo fan boys, where is bill magill?

Also where are the drummers of ILM?

I thought this thread was for the discussing of drummers & drum machines. Which includes all genres of music.

yea but the thread can't rise to more than 21.3% metal

if a thread takes a turn to something you dont like, usually a poster just takes the convo another direction.

would ilm rather talk about metal or boabies? ;)

You guys are just really gratuitously taking advantage of the ILX bug that means suggest ban isn't working, aren't you?

Personally I can't wait for Bill's top 25 metal drummers list of all-time.

suggest ban is not meant to be for clicking when someone says something you disagree with, it's supposed to be for flaming or nastiness etc

hey bill would you like a Suggest Slayer button?

When you click it, everywhere on ILX Raining Blood blasts out and everyone on ILX hears it

i didn't realize people enjoyed watching the xx play music!

yea. I mean for christ's sake, the metal convo was on topic as it related to the live/programmed drum conversation. there was a brief tangent on Slayer but 'tangents' are pretty much synonymous with ILX.

If you hadn't made the snarky comment in the first place, these replies wouldn't have ever occurred.

Besides, I did actually talk about things like rap and industrial music first.

xxp: they are among the ugliest bands I have ever seen - do they do handstands or something?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBOohuZlAiM

Shit, that's out of sync:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaXCQ_wZidU&feature=related

Voted live drums. A good drummer can carry an otherwise weak band in ways hard to achieve with programming.

I guess the ILM jazz d-bags read the thread title and decided to click on something else.

tell them to pop in then

Personally I can't wait for Bill's top 25 metal drummers list of all-time.

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Thursday, September 16, 2010 9:59 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahahahaha

This feels like the difference between owning your own vacuum cleaner and having someone clean your house for you.
one day there will be a roomba that will make housecleaners obsolete but that day has not arrived?

does Jaki Liebezeit count as a drum machine

there is no substitute for synthesized rhythm.

C'mon Bill where's your list!

There is a little thing called "my day job" that prevents me from putting something like that together.

I think your talents are wasted if you're employed in any capacity other than listing metal drummers.

Bill can do it over the weekend.

Voted drums in the sense that if I had to live with only one existing I'd miss live drums more than drum machines, but obviously I see the value of both. I was going to say that live drums can also be compressed and processed in ways that give drum machine like effects, but we probably wouldn't have drummers and engineers so good at imitating electronic drums if we didn't have electronic drums to inspire them.

I do think that a certain advantage that remains with live drums is the relative ease of variation in dynamics, subtle changes in feel and rhythm, etc. -- things that a skilled live drummer can do effortlessly but take great effort to program in electronic drums. OTOH there is music that benefits from the evenness and consistency of electronic drums, and it's relatively harder for a live drummer to produce the same effect.

I think your talents are wasted if you're employed in any capacity other than listing metal drummers.

― rhythm fixated member (chap), Friday, September 17, 2010 9:38 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

^probably the truth.

"there is music that benefits from the evenness and consistency of electronic drums, and it's relatively harder for a live drummer to produce the same effect."

is there an autotune for drummers that quantizes them to a click track?

100% contextual

is there an autotune for drummers that quantizes them to a click track?

sure...it's not that simple, but there are all kinds of ways to comp together takes, nudge hits around, replace clams, etc.

i dont really get why anyone would dislike either tbh. Sometimes 1 style of music sounds better with one but others are better with the other. I wonder if there had been an option of both, if it would have been the runaway winner?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

yea I mean does anybody really want to hear Neal Peart-esque drum fills on a Skinny Puppy album? or uber-mechanized programmed drums on a jazz piece? too many quantifiers

yea I mean does anybody really want to hear Neal Peart-esque drum fills on a Skinny Puppy album?

YES!

One of the things that drew me in to James Murphy's production is his usage of live/synth drums, more than often on the same song.

RIP Gerry Fuchs btw

Def Leppard guy!

"This is P.E.A.R.T. (Pneumatic and Electronic Actuated RoboT) in development. It is a robot / robotic drummer that uses MIDI inputs to play actual drums. Here it is during a test with the song "6 o'clock" by Dream Theater."

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

those poor drummers of ilx

ability to actually improvise & read glances from ppl they're playing w/ gives this to drummers. plus I like a little bit of chops from time to time. they're also often good at programming drum loops.

Maybe the outcome would have been different if more voters knew about this drummer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpAx9J4lM4Q

those poor drummers of ilx

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, September 21, 2010 4:45 PM (52 minutes ago)

what? it was a pretty close split. Honestly, I don't feel offended or saddened that a bunch of people like hip-hop or dance music that features drum machines. And yeah, a lot of drummers suck and/or are boring.

there was this idea that if you taught your kid one instrument as insurance against starving to death in an alley, it should be the drums, but I guess no more!

now its The Drum Machine

Honestly, I don't feel offended or saddened that a bunch of people like hip-hop or dance music that features drum machines. And yeah, a lot of drummers suck and/or are boring.

― sarahel, Wednesday, 22 September 2010 00:39 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I don't really like hip-hop or dance music particularly, also I own 2 drum kits and a set of MIDI drums, and I voted DM.

Although someone did claim that I was the worst drummer they've ever seen.

buncha nerds on this board

Paul, Mike... play us out...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcpBB4Yy_M

Live drums rule!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZyLGmpghOM