Trying to maintain a groove . . .

Steve_Lee

I haven't played the drums in quite awhile and have been having trouble getting a balance of the kit levels and maintaining my tempo so I played around with this all night - thought I would post it just for kicks.

[https://dropbox.com/s/rd2fhn4ljq9wl6x/SJL MIDI Drum Test - Grooving Around-01.flac?raw=1]

6thplanet

Sounds really good. Did you just put the drums to that or you did the whole song? Either way, drums sound excellent, full mic'd kit or? Also, what DAW for you use? Welcome back to playing🤘🏼

Steve_Lee

I played the whole song through without stopping after about 4 takes and got that one take the 5th - finally relaxed into the groove.

This is a Yamaha DTX Edrum kit I have had for around 15 years that I have upgraded and use MIDI out to a laptop driving Native Instruments Studio Drummer VST (Virtual Instruments) and is where I spend most of my speaker/DSP development upon in my little dungeon in the sticks.

I am using REAPER as the DAW.

Thanks, man!

6thplanet

Ok, that makes more sense. I was wondering why the cymbals sounded the same on each hit. That's the one thing that's really hard to mimick with VST's.

Tom_S

My buddie Mark Arnold contributed some kits for the samples on Easy Drummer 2 and tuned & tweaked a few of the kits used in Steven Slate's samples. He's working with a mutual friend here in Iowa to make some more responsive cymbal triggers. I think they have a 3-zone working pretty well that maps velocity to a greater number of individual samples.

6thplanet

I use EZDrummer3, the sound and velocity stuff is pretty good. The problem is repetitive hits/hitting. That's usually where these VST's fall short. They're getting better, I can't speak for Superior Drummer, but there's always room for improvement there.
That's cool, Tom, your buddy is involved with that.

Tom_S

Yeah, I always thought the cymbals in any of the E-kits were the weak link. I've only played around with one of the VSTs back when I was running Reaper live. Better, but still not like the real thing. I wouldn't think it would take much to give you more variety - like a fast CPU and lots of RAM?

dcibel

O Brother Where Art Thou is one of my favourite movies!

Steve_Lee

Is this take any better?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yxs4d5ijysmpnhi/SJL MIDI Drum Test - Grooving Around-02.flac?raw=1

I applied a lot of EQ/to each individual instrument on the drums in Studio Drummer - I may need to boost the over all level of the drums but now I can hear the footwork on the high-hats and more tone and realism from the kit - let me know you critical phux, OK?

Tom_S

That sounds so much better than the Roland kit the drummer was using in the last band I worked with.

BTW - You're already better than half of the bar band drummers around here! Keep on jamming!!

Steve_Lee

Thanks, Tom!
You rock.

At 63 YO there is nowhere for me to go but, UP.
(if I practice it about 30 times it will sound like I own it).