using a laptop live a drum machine and setup queries?

[Doom Monk]

Hi sneapers,

Since my band is sick and tired of looking for drummers for almost 2 years, we decided to go live using a drum machine or more or less using a laptop as a drum machine...well since its the only solution left and hopefully this might also help us find a drummer we are still opting for going live with it. Normally we used to record using Ezdrummer's expansion, drumkit from hell through sonar with a little EQ and compression here and there if necessary, but since that for recording and not for live purposes. I wanted to ask your honest opinion regarding this matter.

The current initial plan is go one day before the show to do a sound check, try to get a decent sound by doing the usual EQing, raising levels or compression, save the file into wave format and simply play it on media player or so (is that a good idea)..well is there like a tutorial for setting up a drum machine for live use or so, if not can u guys give an opinion in this?

cheers

 

[Moonlight_Seeker]

Well around here small bands cannot just go in the venue a day before and do a sound test.

I guess it would work like any sequencers would work but I have never done it but I am interested.

But I will say that I saw one metal band play with a digital drummer live, the energy was a bit lessened but the sound was good! I would even dare to say it sounded clearer then the real drummer of the band playing after. And I think it is a good way to find a new drummer.

 

[ParsonsMatt]

Good luck! I did this once, will NEVER do it again. The sound guy didn't put any drums in the monitors, so when we started to play, no one could hear anything. We barely managed to make it through the first song, and as soon as it was done we asked for the drums to be up in the monitors. He wouldn't do it. So we played the show without being able to hear the drums.

He also didn't even turn on the mic on my halfstack... So it was all one guitar.

A complete nightmare of a show!

 

[rainkaos]

My band has played live with a drum machine for about 3 years. I basically mix down the outputs of DFH to 4 seperate tracks, Kick, Snare, Toms, and Cymbals. Load them up into Sonar and thats it. You can mess with the levels eq etc in sonar. If you've got a soundcard with multiple outs then send the kick and snare out separately to the sound guy if you can. We also invested in a small PA to run on stage where the drummer would be. It fills out the stage sound a lot. The other thing that comes in handy is a remote control that you can use with sonar, such as the one in the link below.

http://www.frontierdesign.com/Products/TranzPort

We're actually playing our first gig with a real drummer this friday, supporting Morbid Angel in Sydney, no pressure hey!

 

[Torniojaws]

Yep, that's how I do it with my band too (plus other one-off shows), where in addition to the backing tracks, I play the lead/rhythm guitar and we have a vocalist:

Laptop -> REAPER -> 4 tracks of drums, 1 electronics/FX track, 2 DI tracks with rhythm guitar and bass -> Fireface 400 (ADAT out + 2 x 6.3mm line out for reamping) -> ADA8000 (5 x XLR line out) -> FOH & reamp boxes

The drums are kick, snare, toms and overhead, all in mono .wav tracks. The DI tracks go to the amps on stage and work as a backup monitoring setup if the place doesn't have monitors for following the drums. Works nicely and is very quick to setup Just plug and play

But as for using drum VSTi's, DO NOT DO THAT! The more complex the setup, the more stuff that can (and will) go wrong. Keep it as simple as possible! That's why I render the drums into .wav tracks instead of using the actual drum software (Superior Drummer 2.0 in my case). Same thing for the synths/FX.

 

[Omega_Void]

I used to gig with an SR-16 which went through a Mackie 1202 mixer (along with synths etc.), which went through a BBE 462. I set the SR-16 up so the drums went out it's main outputs, and the cybals out the aux outputs - the idea was I could re-balance the two if necessary during soundcheck, but in practice I never actually had to. I guess if you get the balance right it shouldn't need messing with.

I don't like to use computers live - my first ever gig I was using an Atari ST, it crashed about 12 times in a row during soundcheck before it finally booted up properly.

That project was intentionally industrial, the SR-16 wasn't intended to have the feel of a drumkit. You're almost certainly better off with tracks made using EZdrummer to mimic a drumkit than any drum machine I've encountered. I'd say use little or no eq and compression on the tracks, let the front-of-house guy fix it if it needs fixing.

Most likely the FoH guy will mess up your sound just as badly as he'll mess up everyone else's drummer or no drummer.

Playback from a sampler would work if it has enough storage to hold all the tracks I guess, and if it has balanced outs that's even better 'cos you won't need any DIs - but if this is a semi-temporary arrangement until you get a human drummer the advantage probably isn't worth the expense of buying anything more flash than an iPod.

Make sure the venue has a big enough PA - you'll need a lot more headroom if the drumsounds are coming from the PA. If you use an mp3 player make sure the venue has at least two (working!) DI boxes (take your own if you can). Include these in your technical rider, and if possible get confirmation from the guy who'll be doing the sound that the venue has/can provide these things.

 

[Doom Monk]

yo, thanks alot for the opinion and the help guys..alright so im working on getting DFH to work with Sonar live, connect it to a digital mixer and assign 4 tracks to each out and send them to the sound guy...but if im unable to get a digital mixer, i'll just do the EQing through the mixer on DFH and then risk sending just one out to the sound guy...thankfully all the venues here have PAs so im not gonna worry much about that...once i get the right sound, i'll export each track into .wav and send them to their respective outs so i'd avoid sonar crashing in the middle of the set or so....yo rainkaos, torniojaws and omega...thanks a mil for the advice im working on getting a good sound live and hopefully this might attract a drummer to join

cheers

 

[OctoberRust]

Oh how I would love to be part of your gig pretending to play those drums!