Programmed Drums

david_guitar

New Metal Member
Mar 15, 2010
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What would you guys recommend, as in what program? I was thinking something by toontrack, but wouldn't be sure on which one exactly? EZ drummer? Superior Drummer?
Advise please. :)
 
Well, It wasn't bad for the time they released it... But now with SD2.0 it doesnt have any purpose..
 
For less complex but still great sounding drums I'd definitely recommend Addicitive Drums! Short learning curve, very good drum sounds and (what's maybe the most important feature for me) veeery responsive and realistic cymbals! On top of all that, the dynamic response is great too, I mostly keep "standard hit" velocities at 90-ish and that leaves me with a good amount of harder punching sounds for accenting certain parts...

The most funny thing is that it was designed as a counterpart for EZ Drummer, but it slays it at all fronts and EZD poses no competition for AD.
 
For less complex but still great sounding drums I'd definitely recommend Addicitive Drums! Short learning curve, very good drum sounds and (what's maybe the most important feature for me) veeery responsive and realistic cymbals! On top of all that, the dynamic response is great too, I mostly keep "standard hit" velocities at 90-ish and that leaves me with a good amount of harder punching sounds for accenting certain parts...

The most funny thing is that it was designed as a counterpart for EZ Drummer, but it slays it at all fronts and EZD poses no competition for AD.

+1

For me Addictive Drums cymbals are the best.. SD2.0 cymbals are just as good, maybe a little less... dynamic... Yea dynamic is the word that comes in my mind..
 
Ez Drummer is quite not that great.
I'm using it at the moment, its okay for demos, but for anything more serious i wouldn't use it.

Heard some cool stuff from slate today, pretty real sounding, much better then EZ.

EDIT: Just watched a demo of Addictive drums, soooo much better then Ez Drummer.
 
I've found myself using both Slate drums as well as several of the drums purchased in the Sonic Reality Drum Masters/Ocean Way group buy from earlier this year with Jamstix 3 beta lately to create my drum tracks. I can't state it any stronger than Jamstix is one hell of an assistant at coming up with usable drum patterns from scratch - it is well worth the money and Ralph is one of those developers that knows how to support his product just as well as he makes them.

As for EZDrummer - I think it has it's place, especially for songwriters looking to get some quick usable patterns down, perhaps not the final product, but while writing it can be very useful. Also, the variety it offers outside of the metal realm is pretty good for a low cost solution with the EZX packages that can be found on sale all the time these days. The Nashville kit is a very versatile kit, not just for country but great for rock and some metal. While Superior is a better product in most ways, it can have a steep learning curve if someone was simply using it as a songwriting solution.
 
SD2.0 cymbals are just as good, maybe a little less... dynamic... Yea dynamic is the word that comes in my mind..

:zombie:

I love Addictive Drums n all... but you're crazy haha. S2.0 has the most realistic sounding cymbals out of anything else, that's just from hearing tons of clips of them. Even one person I know from this forum switched from AD to S2.0, even though the AD sounds they were getting were epic - their same shit in S2.0 sounds sooo much more natural and realistic, IMO of course.

S2.0 over EZDrummer indeeeeeeeed.
 
How can cymbals be less dynamic? If you want more dynamics, vary the velocity more :goggly: (though I find the humanization functions in S2.0 to be more than adequate)
 
one of the biggest problems with ezd is the humility you'll be subjected to when you post a tune.
 
To not make a new thread over this, I wanted to ask another subject on programmed drums.

How do you go about programming from scratch on reaper? or any other daw? I´ve always used Gp cause I wrtie my stuff in Gp 99.999% of the time, but sometimes when I´m composing together with my wife or other friends we just preprod by recording the guitars to a click track and then do the drums, so I want to be able to do them along to the record guitars. The biggest problem I see in reaper is that the notes can be seen as "note names" or as "numbers" but I don´t see a way to name them like the midi map on AD (which I´m currently using) so I have to be checking constantly the midi map to be programming them and it´s a pain in the ass. Is there a way to make it easier or am I just being a bitch and should do it like that? Any other tips on programming drums from scratch on reaper?
 
The biggest problem I see in reaper is that the notes can be seen as "note names" or as "numbers" but I don´t see a way to name them like the midi map on AD (which I´m currently using) so I have to be checking constantly the midi map to be programming them and it´s a pain in the ass.

Dude, after programming a few songs you should know which note maps to which drum O.o I'm doing that all the time in reaper...
 
To David - Slate Drums sound great. I have Ezdrummer and the Drumkit from Hell expansion, but once I got Slate Drums I stopped using them. I have no experience with Superior which looks much better than the EZD.

The Slate EX version comes with 10 kits and they have a sale on the expansions until tomorrow. ($30 each or $50 for two). I bought the EX along with "Rock Classics" and "Metal and More" expansions and I have more drum sounds than I could ever use. You can tweak a lot of parameters, but you don't need to. The drums sound great right out of the box.
 
To not make a new thread over this, I wanted to ask another subject on programmed drums.

How do you go about programming from scratch on reaper? or any other daw? I´ve always used Gp cause I wrtie my stuff in Gp 99.999% of the time, but sometimes when I´m composing together with my wife or other friends we just preprod by recording the guitars to a click track and then do the drums, so I want to be able to do them along to the record guitars. The biggest problem I see in reaper is that the notes can be seen as "note names" or as "numbers" but I don´t see a way to name them like the midi map on AD (which I´m currently using) so I have to be checking constantly the midi map to be programming them and it´s a pain in the ass. Is there a way to make it easier or am I just being a bitch and should do it like that? Any other tips on programming drums from scratch on reaper?

Not sure if I understand your questions correctly but you can DOUBLE right click on the piano roll note key and then name the note. ex. Note C4 can become "Snare." Under File click "save note names to file" after you get everything named correctly. Now you have a drum map. You can load it for new projects from File "Load Note Names from File." Also under View there's options to hide unused and unamed note rows. Hope that helps!
 
Not sure if I understand your questions correctly but you can DOUBLE right click on the piano roll note key and then name the note. ex. Note C4 can become "Snare." Under File click "save note names to file" after you get everything named correctly. Now you have a drum map. You can load it for new projects from File "Load Note Names from File." Also under View there's options to hide unused and unamed note rows. Hope that helps!

Yeah this is exactly what I was asking for, thanks! user Masterbeast Pm'd me earlier with this but the other way around, first making a .txt file with the midi map and then loading it into reaper, either way is fine. Thanks man :rock: