Drum Machine

[ShadowOfDeath]

Me and someone i know want to play a bit of goregrind or try it and see how it goes over the summer. We've been thinking of a really sick names(I grossed her out with Vaginal Putrification, Anal Ejaculation, Anal Cum, Cuntslaughter, Corpse orgy etc). But that's beyond the point. We decided to use a drum machine if we really get this going on. I found a cheap one on musicians friend and was wonder if it was a good idea to try out. It's affordable for us. As she's 15 and i'm turning 14 in couple months and neither of us have jobs. Just about $300 saved up combined which is enough for the little gear we would need. So do you think i should try out this cheap drum machine or look for a more expensive one. I can't find info but someone may know about it here.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...0629989/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/703665/

 

[TwilightSymphony]

Cheap drum machines are great! I bought my drum machine back in 1991 and still use it. I combine samples and run it through effects.

Believe me, you can have all kinds of fun stuff with cheap drum machines. Breaking convention is the hallmark of great music, so don't feel that you HAVE to have an expensive drum machine.

 

[Sex Machine]

i dunno something tells me thats a little too cheap to be good.

 

[Wavebreaker]

Me and someone i know want to play a bit of goregrind or try it and see how it goes over the summer. We've been thinking of a really sick names(I grossed her out with Vaginal Putrification, Anal Ejaculation, Anal Cum, Cuntslaughter, Corpse orgy etc). But that's beyond the point. We decided to use a drum machine if we really get this going on. I found a cheap one on musicians friend and was wonder if it was a good idea to try out. It's affordable for us. As she's 15 and i'm turning 14 in couple months and neither of us have jobs. Just about $300 saved up combined which is enough for the little gear we would need. So do you think i should try out this cheap drum machine or look for a more expensive one. I can't find info but someone may know about it here.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...0629989/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/703665/

Well, I'd suggest another method, if you're willing to take some time to learn how to use this...
If you could get your hands on a program like Cubase SX or something with good MIDI sequencing capabilities, you could map out all the tempo and time signature changes in a song. That gives you a drum map to work with, which allows you to step sequence all the drum hits you want in any time interval you want (including triplets and dotted notes), which is usually too difficult or even impossible to accomplish with just a drum machine.
Just a thought...

 

[ShadowOfDeath]

Well, I'd suggest another method, if you're willing to take some time to learn how to use this...
If you could get your hands on a program like Cubase SX or something with good MIDI sequencing capabilities, you could map out all the tempo and time signature changes in a song. That gives you a drum map to work with, which allows you to step sequence all the drum hits you want in any time interval you want (including triplets and dotted notes), which is usually too difficult or even impossible to accomplish with just a drum machine.
Just a thought...

Maybe that might just work. Tell me more about this. Is it somewhat easy to figure out? I didn't like the fruity loops interface much.

 

[Wavebreaker]

Well, a quick rundown would look like this (in Cubase SX, but applicable to other software with minor variations):

-you set up a MIDI track
-you output that track to a VST instrument capable of playing drum samples (I use Fruity Loops for this, good samples and nice mixer)
-you find, load, and adjust your prefered drum pieces/sounds within the VST instrument
-you create parts, or blocks, on the MIDI track. Within those blocks you perform the step sequencing, i.e. clicking in a losange on the grid depending on which drum-piece you want to hit and when.

You can do this on a basic level (just a bass drum, snare, high-hat, etc... in constant 4/4, 120bpm --- meaning you don't adjust any time settings) or on a more advanced level, which is the advantage to this type of system (16 or more MIDI channels, shifting time signatures and temps, with parabolic ritardandos, playing an 8th note triplet pattern on one ride while shuffling on bass/snare and keeping a straight 16th note pattern on an open/closed hi-hat).

But if you want to keep things simpler, probably best to save yourself the headache and get the machine

 

[Hawng]

try sequbeat www.neztech.com it pretty easy to use

 

[ShadowOfDeath]

try sequbeat www.neztech.com it pretty easy to use

It all seems pretty straight forward, but i don't get the whole [] thing after the drum

snare[1-9] kick[1-9] etc...what does it really affect?

 

[ShadowOfDeath]

It all seems pretty straight forward, but i don't get the whole [] thing after the drum

snare[1-9] kick[1-9] etc...what does it really affect?

I don't mean to sound cheap but is there a way to save these? Other then buying the software.

 

[Wavebreaker]

I don't mean to sound cheap but is there a way to save these? Other then buying the software.

Dude... Pay for the shit you use. Forget my advise on Cubase if you're just going to steal it

 

[NoneSoVile]

A friend and i are starting an instrumental prog metal band but we have the problem od not being able to get a drummer. we plan to either sequnce the drums using sonar or FX music studio. should be a fun experience....much more fun project than what they made me do for my music technology coursework (y).
You can also creat cool synth effects and add live tracks by DI the instruments into your sound card. its alot of fun....only problem is when you want to recreat the music as a live performance and trying to find the musicians to do it.

 

[ShadowOfDeath]

Dude... Pay for the shit you use. Forget my advise on Cubase if you're just going to steal it

I would, it's just i don't feel like spending money on a bunch of shit incase it doesn't work out. Especially with the little money i had...because i idiotically spent some and only have about $15 left.

 

[ShadowOfDeath]

A friend and i are starting an instrumental prog metal band but we have the problem od not being able to get a drummer. we plan to either sequnce the drums using sonar or FX music studio. should be a fun experience....much more fun project than what they made me do for my music technology coursework (y).
You can also creat cool synth effects and add live tracks by DI the instruments into your sound card. its alot of fun....only problem is when you want to recreat the music as a live performance and trying to find the musicians to do it.

We probably won't play live. We met a kickass guitarist/vocalist online and will probably work with him to do a 3 guitar thing and three vocals, we all have different ranges with the growl so it should sound kickass, and we can get lots going on, my girlfriend might decide not to growl, i'll do my BM vocal shit while the other guy does a growl or something. We want to do it as a summer project and don't want to go out of our way to buying shit, just use our resources, hence why i don't want to spend more then a few dollars and nothing when it comes to software itself, why? I'm not too big on spending money for software. Unless i can use it really well and it works perfectly with a demo. You see i want to use the demo to make sure it sounds good with us playing, if the band gets a demo out and we want to take this thing seriously(we take it seriously but in a sense we really want to go farther with this band and release an EP, album, splits, etc) we'll buy more professional equipment or something.

 

[Niklas]

i have a zoom bass pedal, ive not had it very long and still learning how to use it, it has a basic drum machine built in which is very good, but im still learning

 

[USMC0341]

I would, it's just i don't feel like spending money on a bunch of shit incase it doesn't work out. Especially with the little money i had...because i idiotically spent some and only have about $15 left.

My home studio runs Cubase SX 2.0. Any worries you have about it "not working" are unfounded. Cubase is a start to finish production suite and it kicks some major ass. I will point out, that it will probably be too expensive for you if you are looking at $300.00 drum machines. You might want to look at Cakewalk or something else a bit less expensive (Cubase SX 2.0 is around $500.00 - and you still need a good soundcard, not to mention a robust PC or MAC to run the software on).

And don't steal the software - it will bite you in the ass down the road - cracked versions have a habit of shitting the bed right in the middle of a project and you'll lose all your work.

 

[Wavebreaker]

My home studio runs Cubase SX 2.0. Any worries you have about it "not working" are unfounded. Cubase is a start to finish production suite and it kicks some major ass. I will point out, that it will probably be too expensive for you if you are looking at $300.00 drum machines. You might want to look at Cakewalk or something else a bit less expensive (Cubase SX 2.0 is around $500.00 - and you still need a good soundcard, not to mention a robust PC or MAC to run the software on).

And don't steal the software - it will bite you in the ass down the road - cracked versions have a habit of shitting the bed right in the middle of a project and you'll lose all your work.

Righ on the money on all counts.