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Which drum app is best for which drum type?
Some of you may know me as the one that has pretty much zero knowledge or respect for the whole drum thing. But, now and again, drums are called for. And I’ve got some apps for that. Not all of them, but I surprised myself by counting up a few drum apps that I’ve got and finding that it’s actually more than a few.
Now, there’s types of drum app.
Some are no more than sedate reimplementations of the old traditional drum machine (and I used to own a few of those in my time — a Roland TR-808; TR-606; TR-505; DR-55; Korg S3; pair of KPR-77; Oberheim DMX; …and probably a few more I can’t remember, e.g. some smallish synth drum pad things you hit).
Others are more modern and esoteric, acting as banks of little specialised synths. Of those, I find listening to their demo sounds and songs are all as far away from traditional drum sounds as is possible, and also as far away from a nice experience as is possible. Top marks for technical achievement and synthetic acrobatics, and all that, but they’re too weird and spiky and jarring, to the point that the ‘drum’ sound and sequence itself becomes the main star.
Then there’s some positively interesting experiments, but not necessarily either accessible; comprehensible or successful at the intended objective.
It occurs to me that some drum apps might work best on some drums and others on others. If you know what I mean. I’ll try and give an example. Take Different Drummer. I like the theory of it, hate the UI and total affront to usability, but as I actually understand the objective (but not how it’s trying to be implemented and consequently occluded), I persist with it. Now, Different Drummer might well produce some astounding results, but probably not on every single drum. There might be some drums that you really don’t want Different Drummer drumming different. Bass drum or kick drum is a case in point. Don’t let different drummer do the stuff on that — keep it simple, regular and basic. In which case, don’t even have Different Drummer have anything to do with it, and leave it to do other more flighty fancy percussiveness instead.
Same with Beakseats. It’s always trying to impress, but rarely gives something that can support other music. However, Seekbeats does have some use, but (again) not when used on every single drum.
So, what I’m saying is that some of these drum apps shouldn’t be let loose on the whole drum kit. If that’s a valid hypothesis — and it might not be, I’m not a drummer and nor do I know much about drum reasoning — what would the assembled here nominate to be the various apps + the drums + the purposes that could be assembled together (perhaps through an iOS mixer)?
Comments
Different Drummer can also do the straight bits.....just go into grid mode for the track and you can get quantized to the beat and put out very standard rhythms.
I get what you're asking @u0421793
I think it's a useful way of approaching the drum parts if a track too.
I think our views on drums are probably diametrically opposite - I just love using drums in my music and feel they are almost certainly the most important part. But I enjoyed your bit about the drum synth acrobatics and the too spikey results (often true!). Getting it right comes down to a subtle balance of synthesis and using compression to take things IMO.
Anyway - I think about different drum layers and different apps / methods for different purposes - as you describe.
Kick: needs its own track so it can be mixed separately, rarely has a particularly complex arrangement so I normally just draw it into a midi track (in Gadget, Auria, MTS etc) and use a sample (or a few different samples that I vary between) - there's a whole mini science and industry around perfecting the kick. If you want to make your own, synthetically, try SeekBeats, iElectribe or Drumkick (an app dedicated solely to the kick drum).
Snare: similar to the kick in its importance and need to be on a separate track etc. I like to get quite creative with the snare drum and maybe use a few, use heavily for fills and builds etc. It's as much about what effects you put on the snare (reverb, delay, crush etc) as it is about the original sample to a certain extent. There's a million ways to sequence the snare drum, but by hand in the midi piano roll is often a reasonable one. A good alternative is jamming or varying / adding to the snare part in something like Patterning.
Hats: usually more than one sound (eg open/closed). I'd generally settle on a few different snare patterns and mix and match them. You could manually draw them in the piano roll but to get less boring results you could try sequencing hi hat midi into your piano roll from Praxis Beats, DrumJam or Patterning. They all send midi out (with proper varied velocity) and let you mess with patterns live. Keep jamming them and when you get something you like you'll have it in midi to then duplicate, vary, make gaps in etc. (although you could work with audio loops).
Other Percussion: depending on the track, for me this (along with maybe the snare) needs the most variety and is kind of the 'tune' of the drums. I've enjoyed playing live percussion along to an existing kick, snare, hat (and other music) sequence using the pads in DrumJam when tightly synced. DrumJam pumps out nice midi to trigger percussion samples in your DAW (how I usually use it) or you can use it to record internal loops. Other apps to do the same thing with include Patterning (by messing live with the circles and the different random and sequencing patterns and controls as well as mute/solo - you'll get percussion that is consistent but yet changes a bit each bar or two). 'LiveJam' in Elastic Drums and 'Flutter' in iElectribe are also good for this - although neither send midi out so you'll need to create internal audio loops.
Patterning, iElectribe and Elastic drums are all now Link enabled. This is amazing. So to be honest, now, you could lay a music track down in Gadget (also Link), maybe stick your kick and snare in Gadget tracks, and then jam away switching things up in perfect sync in either Patterning, iElectribe and/or Elastic Drums and record the results via AB. Then chop up the audio and go from there.
Lots of nice possibilities now, this year, because of those apps, AB Remote and Link.
@Matt_Fletcher_2000 Good thoughts, and much as I like Link I haven't been using it for too much that I couldn't do without it, but the mongrelization of various purebreds into a single beat makes plenty of sense...
very good (and useful) explanation, Matt, thank you
Really? You're welcome.
(I thought it was a little rambly!)
Yes, it’s definitely opened my eyes to ways of working I wasn’t aware of — I’ve no real awareness of best practice in this area.
@Matt_Fletcher_2000
very usefull post, really nice explanation!
@Matt_Fletcher_2000 great, informative post & I couldn't agree more about having separate tracks for Bass & Snare drums. I tend to record two tracks of each to get a fuller, more beefy sound (but that's for my punk stuff). Thanks for all your thoughts on @u0421793 question. It was not a ramble, it was excellent info & advice.
I'm just replying to say I'm jealous of your former 606 and DMX ownership. All I ever use are super-high quality tape samples of those, the Linn, Drumtraks, etc in Patterning.
As far as technique, all I care about is an impeccable snare. I usually layer two samples, each panned a bit left and right.
More than anything I'm coming to realize how far behind the game I am. I just make a beat I think I like and shove it wholesale on a single track and move on. Guess I should see this as a good opportunity...
Good stuff Matt.
Couple of adds: for layering kick and snare, you might think about the sound over time instead of as a single layered sound. Like an initial attack sound and then a 'body' or ring out sound. For instance, it's really common to layer a super short 'bip' type sound on top of an 808 kick. Like a rim shot tuned down 12 steps and cut very short.
On that note, one way to get a kick sample to 'punch' is by opening it in a wave editor and purposefully truncating the start off of the zero crossing. That's normally the source of glitchiness in digital editing but with a kick sound it can add just the right initial attack to cut through.
On hats and percussion... It obviously depends on the style of music but I find that with set-and-forget type loop programming, having different longer bar lengths for these can keep things interesting. Say you have a 4 bar kick/snare pattern that loops over and over. Adding a 7 bar hi hat pattern loop over top of it is going to keep the entire rhythm from sounding too samey over time.
Specific to the original question... There are indeed lots of drum apps and obviously it comes down to personal preference but my drum app usage generally looks like this (when it's not just nanostudio):
Synthetic drums where drum sound variation over time is key: Elastic Drums (runner up: seekbeats). If I'm not going to mess with the sounds I'd rather just use samples and save the resources.
Live traditional drum kit: Drum Perfect if I want to program it all, Rock Drummer if I just want something that sounds reasonable and want it right now.
General sample based drumbeat making: Patterning. Was diode-108. Was was DM1. Still DM-1 on iPhone.
Classic beatbox samples without a lot of pattern variation (including scratching the 'right now' itch): Funkbox.
Percussion and live fill type stuff: drumjam, natch.