anyone else here use beatcraft for drums?

[kernelxsanders]

because i do, and i wanna know what other people think of it, since im the only one i know of who uses it. personally for me, i find it a lot better than reaper's midi because each sample rings out beyond the next hit instead of choking when the next hit comes in, if that makes any sense at all (or maybe thats optional with reaper midi, havent looked much into it)

but i do know that beatcraft absolutely SUCKS for tempo changes, which is anticipated to put a measure of silence between each tempo change. what i also dont like is that it doesnt offer room/ambience like other programs, so they dont tend to sound as real. also doesnt help that trying to humanize patterns really suck.

anywho, my other main point of this thread is to see how i can emulate a room/OH with reaper. would it make sense to throw the drums and cymbals to seperate buses and throw some heavy reverb with little attack on them? ive been trying that lately with just the cymbals and its making the mix sound a little bigger. i know production is all about do what sounds best to the ear, but i wanna know if there are other ways to go about doing so that can render a better/more realistic result

 

[MetalAaron]

I believe the guy from Bloodsoaked uses Beatcraft. He seems to be pretty happy with it. I'm not sure if you're going to find many guys on here that really use it, but I could be wrong.

Ever look into getting Addictive Drums?

 

[TimPio]

Used it million years ago Get Slate Drums or AD

 

[amarshism]

I don't use it. Tried the demo once, hated it, never went back.

 

[kernelxsanders]

yea i looked into it a while back, but beatcraft was free for me, just like reaper. why? im not too sure, but im not complaining heheh, but once i can stir up some money, ill probably invest in some new software, probably SD2 or an actual kit, whichever comes first hahah

 

[kernelxsanders]

I don't use it. Tried the demo once, hated it, never went back.

haha yea i can see why its looked down upon. the samples it comes with are terrible, but when i use different samples, its tolerable, so it works for me at the moment.

 

[Chris_P_Critter]

I used to use it - it's pretty horrible in comparison to just programming MIDI.

Learn to program MIDI - it's not tough and the results will sound 1000 times better, and be 1000 more realistic.

 

[kernelxsanders]

yea, it gets old having to bounce each individual drum and loading it into reaper for every project. but i tried midi one time and it just sounded the farthest from realistic as possible, even after using reapers humanize feature. ill just have to look into it more

 

[BrettT]

I used it back in the day. Seems to have improved quite a bit...can you now load VST's in it?

 

[Chris_P_Critter]

yea, it gets old having to bounce each individual drum and loading it into reaper for every project. but i tried midi one time and it just sounded the farthest from realistic as possible, even after using reapers humanize feature. ill just have to look into it more

I think realism is more than just note velocities, honestly. If you're using one off samples, then you aren't necessarily going to have a cohesive drum mix, especially without a room mic. One way to get around this is to create your own room mic using reverb impulses.

Try getting Reverberate LE - it has a few drum room IR's baked into it, and you can route all of your drums to it to simulate an actual room mic. It won't be perfect obviously, but it will sound a lot closer I think. After that, it's all up to your programming - but even with that, there are free MIDI grooves to be found, or you could purchase some MIDI grooves from Toontrack or another similar outfit.

Good luck.

 

[kernelxsanders]

no i dont think you can load VST into it, though whenever the program loads, it says thats its retrieving all of my waves plugins, so it might be possible.

I think realism is more than just note velocities, honestly. If you're using one off samples, then you aren't necessarily going to have a cohesive drum mix, especially without a room mic. One way to get around this is to create your own room mic using reverb impulses.

Try getting Reverberate LE - it has a few drum room IR's baked into it, and you can route all of your drums to it to simulate an actual room mic. It won't be perfect obviously, but it will sound a lot closer I think. After that, it's all up to your programming - but even with that, there are free MIDI grooves to be found, or you could purchase some MIDI grooves from Toontrack or another similar outfit.

Good luck.

thanks for the info, ill look into that as well.

 

[BrettT]

no i dont think you can load VST into it, though whenever the program loads, it says thats its retrieving all of my waves plugins, so it might be possible.



thanks for the info, ill look into that as well.

It claims you can load 3rd party VST's on the website.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

I agree chris, straight midi is the way to go. Only prob is, how are you choking cymbals in GM. I use control 11, the expression control and go with the value of 127 when the crash cymble hits on, say, beat one, and the value 0 maybe 100 ticks later to choke. You have to do this on channels other than 10, so u don't muffle other drums playing at the same time.