I have a Pintech Edrum kit mated with an Alesis Trigger IO I purchased used a few years back. For certain projects it's quite useful when utilizing modern samples like Superior Drummer 2.0, Steven Slate Drum Samples, or more techno-type pursuits.

I've found it difficult to tame drummers I've groomed for years to beat the living shit out of their real drum kit as if it were a [insert sexist comment here] woman to suddenly treat my plastic gadget as a UPS employee is SUPPOSED to treat his deliveries. In short, they blow through the triggers pretty quickly.

The Bad News

At first I thought I was just screwed. Luckily, replacement triggers are available for about $20 a pop from the Pintech guys. With drummers who have issues with the estrogen gender and plastic, I've found it doesn't take too many sessions to render these triggers useless. On the worst cases, that can get about as expensive as buying drum heads for a real kit. Yuck!

Even worse, nothing evokes that crapped-your-pants feeling in a drummer like when they hit something and it doesn't make any noise. It's a violation of their instincts. So the last thing you want is missed hits due to bad triggers.

The Good News

It turns out that these edrum gadgets are WAY simpler than anyone may lead on. In fact, there is almost NOTHING to them. They use a piezo, which is basically that buzzer/beeper thing you hear when a computer starts up. It's essentially the worst speaker on earth (a buzzer thingy that looks like a thin coin from the old west and two wires). Since it's a speaker, it's also a microphone. Let me explain.

As you may be familiar with the Yamaha Subkick or equivalent, microphones and speakers are more or less the same thing except for one is optimized for sending sound out and one is ideal for bring sound in.

So you've got Doc Holiday's soda money, some foam dampening the shock between the mesh head and the piezo, and that's about it. It's much more primitive than I had realized.

Saving Big Bucks

That $20 piezo from Pintech can be found at Radio Shack (piezo transducer part #273-073 http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062402) for a whopping $2. I'm re-using the foam that game with the edrums when possible, but when those break, I simply use some foam I found around the house. So instead of trigger swapping for the entire kit being a $100 enterprise, it's now $10. (AKA WELL worth my time!)

The only downside with the Radio Shack version is it comes with a plastic shell you have to pop the piezo out of and it won't come with the little wired lead. Once you figure it out, it takes about 45 seconds. You'll have to splice the two wires in. So it does take a few extra seconds and a little electrical tape.

I have this little hypothesis that cutting the foam in half and taping a quarter in between them so the shock of the stick hitting the head, the foam, then the quarter, the foam, and then the piezo may add significant life to the head. It may screw with response a bit. I'm not sure about that. The principal is the same as adding various, isolated layers when sound proofing a room. We'll see. If anyone has tried it, let me know.

On the drums I've used dramatically larger foam to cover the trigger, I've not noticed any downsides. So far, it appears that placing just a little foam underneath the piezo helps to reduce vibrations from the kit, which have been problematic for me in the past. I expect my setup to last longer. We'll see.

BS Theory Time

You could probably do the same exact thing using cheapo dynamic mics. Yeah, I'm serious. Some $20 dynamic mics with foam on them to protect them and running that into a module might even work. It's the same thing in concept. (I'm not sure about the levels going into the module.) When the foam-covered mic is struck, a signal will flow out of the mic, into the module to be converted to MIDI, and into your computer rig. The results would be similar if the module could handle it.

The Fancy Rimshot Mechanism

A big selling point of the Pintech drums is they offer the rimshot possibility. If you hit the rimof the drum, you can use that signal to trigger an actual rimshot sample. This seems like a cool feature (and is most of the time). However, I didn't realize that all they had done was clipped a piezo to the "shell" of the drum. Of course, this "shell" is metal. So when you hit the rim, it vibrates and this piezo picks it up. This tells me that if a person really wanted to, they could just attach these piezos to metal pots and pans and have a functional edrum kit (the feel of the drum may not be up to par, but I've not had anyone comment on the EXCEPTIONAL feel of my Pintech mesh kit either). I suspect there is some way to use sheet metal, cover it in something dampening to get the feel closer, and a person would never need to replace their piezos again. Of course, it would look like something from Mad Max.....(Yes, that IS a good thing.)

So Why Not Build Your Own Edrum Kit?

Now that I know how simple this edrum stuff is, I now know that I can swap out the triggers myself in a short amount of time. Even better, I know that I'm not dependant entirely on what the kit came with. When stuff breaks, I don't feel the extreme need to order factory replacements. For example, when the remaining cymbals of mine break, I have big plans of buying plastic plates that belong in a kitchen, attaching the piezo and seeing what happens. I expect it to work just fine with a little monkeying.

Note: The whole purpose of this blog is to pass on just how simple of a technology this whole edrum trigger business is. I'm not exactly attempting to sway you away from buying a kit. I just wish I would have known that the edrums were THIS simple. It may have affected decisions in the past.

The truth is it is going to be time consuming to develop your own edrum setup that is fully adjustable from scratch and feel good to you.....unless you already have a cheap old drum kit you don't mind tearing up (HINT HINT).

The hihat functionality probably wouldn't be too hard to figure out, but I'd rather just buy a ready made solution.

There is something to starting with the solid foundation, already soldiered jacks, etc of a good edrum kit.

Building Your Own Edrums

Use the ol' Google machine for this one. When I first set out on my edrum quest, I didn't realize just how comprehensive the world of DIY edrum construction was. There are tutorials out the wazoo and tons and tons of people who've put together incredible setups for dramatically lower price than the fancy, high end kits out there.

I just assumed that these things would be clunky or wouldn't have the feel of something on the high end like Roland or Pintech. I can tell you that a trigger gadget is a trigger gadget at least when it comes to mesh.

Conclusion

The article kinda went all over the place. Basically, I have a few points.

EDrum triggers are $2 to replace
Edrum technology is not nearly as complicated as everyone says it is.
Building your own edrums is not nearly as complicated as you may think.
There are numerous tutorials and instructions for building your own edrum kit.

Party On!

Brandon

If you are in need of realistic drum samples (or want an amazing platform for your electronic sounds such in Electronic EZX which we used in the upcoming Toontrack Mixing Wars: Techno contest) I think Superior Drummer 2.0 is THE way to go.

The only thing is, I always thought it was a $300-400 sample set. It appears now that you can snag it for a measly $149! That's crazy!

Superior Drummer For $149

On top of that, a crossgrade from competitors gets you into Superior Drummer 2.0 for only $99!

Check out the crossgrade.

Brandon

The drums sound outstanding right out of the box, the room sounds are incredible, and the system is so damn flexible that pretty much every genre is covered. One thing I love about Superior Drummer 2.0 is the fact that it's extremely reliable. It doesn't suffer near the hiccups of other sample drum libraries do. It loads RAM incredibly quickly and I've found the included MIDI loops to be way more useful than I had ever expected.

In fact, I really can't think of anything negative to say about Superior Drummer 2.0. (Something I'm usually exceptionally skilled at.) The Toontrack guys got it right.

And now they are have Superior Drummer 2.0 on a ROBO sale. If you've been tempted to snag Superior Drummer in the past, it's STUPID cheap right now. Check it out!

Then along comes Kitcore. Kitcore isn't really intended to be as comprehensive as Superior Drummer 2.0 and it's price reflects it's simplicity ($99 @ Musicians Friend ). How does Kitcore, costing a fraction of the price, stack up?

Installation
The install for Kitcore went extremely well. It was as simple as clicking on their installer, choosing a custom location for the samples, and off we were. The install went perfectly.

Ease Of Use
Like most of you, I don't consult the manual until I feel a real need to. While I'm hardcore about pushing beginners to utilize the manuals for their recording software, everything was so simple in Kitcore that I didn't ever feel the need top open the manual while using it. Since I'm reviewing Kitcore I decided to take a look and I have to admit that I really didn't learn anything new. Of course, I am very familiar with my own recording software, MIDI, and several other drum sample packages.

Using Kitcore was simple. You load up a drum kit. If you want to use a loop, you click on a loop. You hit the “Play” button to hear what that loop sounds like. If you like it, you drag it into your recording software making sure to route the output of your MIDI track to Kitcore. Done. It really was that easy! Kitcore automatically adjusted to the tempo with my recording software, so that made life easy too.

Big Name Loops
Kitcore comes with loops played by drummers that I knew the name of and I don't know too many names of drummers. I was given access to a few expansion packs and being the kind of guy I am, I installed them all at once. So I really can't say for sure what comes in the basic package and what doesn't. Regardless, it was cool knowing that I was listening to high energy tracks by rock drummers like Matt Sorum, Matt Cameron, and John Tempesta. There were other dudes in there that I've heard of as well.

Then again, any idiot can get permission to use somebody's name. Fortunately, even though I'm not a big loop guy I found these drum loops to be highly usable. Scratch that. They were FUN to use! There were zillions of loops. I don't like trying out 10,000,000,000 loops and never actually achieving anything. However, I found these loops to be a great way to stimulate creativity. The cool part is all I had to do what drag them into Cubase and I could manipulate them, if I so choose (which I didn't). I could even run the loops to other drum samples if I chose to.

While I could program loops if I so choose, it was nice already having the groove already figured out. I didn't have to worry about pushing or pulling the snare and all the boring busy work that comes with making MIDI drums sound natural.

I think they did a great job selecting the loops / performances. You had your basic kick, snare, kick, snare (which I naturally gravitate towards) and there were loops where I said “What the hell is this???”. There were plenty of loops in between.

Routing
While Kitcore does not deal with bleed in any way and it doesn't have a fancy mixer like Superior Drummer 2.0, it does allow you to route each drum to it's own output. This is great because it allows processing of individual tracks within Cubase which I'd be lost without. So for the beginner, this may be preferred. If you don't want to do deal with all sorts of crazy mixing techniques to squeeze sounds out of samples, don't. Just use Kitcore.

The Sounds

What I like about Kitcore is it sounds big in that big-without-much-ambiance kind of way. The Kitcore tracks sound like they would chew up a big spectrum in a mix which I would expect would allow them to cut through a dense mix with ease. They don't sound overly hi-fi or overly pretty, but they sound good in a mix. I've heard people complain that Superior Drummer 2.0 is hard to get right in a mix. I can't say that I've ever had that problem. I think it's more of an issue that Superior Drummer 2.0 is meant to be hi-fi mid scooped right off the bat while Kitcore is meant to be chunky. I believe that some guys will prefer the sound of Kitcore.

I found that Kitcore had a meat and potatoes kind of sound to it when I first fired it up. It was good meat and good potatoes, but it wasn't anything too flashy. The more tracks I added to Kitcore, the more I liked it. I don't think I would be happy if this was my only drum sampler simply because I like the mid-scooped big room sound way too much. However, not everyone is into that sound nearly as much as I am. I can say that since I already have Superior Drummer 2.0 and Steven Slate drums, the Kitcore sounds are a VERY welcome addition that would be get their fair share of us.

In terms of tone, the kicks and snares remind me more of what I often hear with the BFD2 stuff. The BFD2 stuff has a big-without-ambiance kind of sound in it's midrange for its kicks, snares, and toms. The BFD2 stuff is known for its outstandingly pretty sounding cymbals which I don't think that Kitcore quite matches, but the vibe I get is the overall sound of Kitcore was intended to be more in line wtih the BFD2 stuff. Not bad for 1/4 the price!

I did find that some drums did have plenty of ambiance on them. The Matt Sorum Kit had a gigantic sounding snare that would work very well in a Guns N Roses style tune. The ambiance didn't strike me as being as “rich” or natural as what I'm used to with Superior Drummer 2.0, but regardless of how it was achieved I could see it getting the job done for sure.

I get the vibe (and my experience shows this) that Kitcore was designed to work within a mix. The drums were tracked to sound great within the context of a mix and aren't quite as impressive when you hear just the drums. In the end, the sound of the drums in the mix is the only thing that matters, so I'm not complaining. Job well done!

Sound Examples
Here are few little pieces of ruckus I threw together using Kitcore.

Acrylic Drums - Basic Rock HOHH Groove
I used a bit of SPL's Transient Designer to increase sustain on the snare. I applied basic 2bus processing of compression and a bit of high shelf followed by a Waves L2 brickwall limiter
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/004.mp3]

John Tempesta 007 Drums - John Tempesta JT Brx Groove
I used a URS 1980 Compressor 0.1ms attack, 76ms release, 10:1 ration, 12dB or reduction max as parallel compression for the kick and snare followed by the usual 2bus processing.
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/007.mp3]

Matt Cameron MC Rock 01 BOR Rd 02
No drum processing, just the usual drum bus processing.
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/011.mp3]

Conclusion
For $99, Kitcore gives you a ton of drum sounds and a ton of loops that can get you going in no time. The program installed perfectly and was super simple to use. While the sounds are a bit drier than I generally prefer they worked extremely well in a mix. I could see myself layering the snare from Kitcore with my other sample libraries for more midrange chunk.

I highly recommend anyone in the market, for a low-cost, good sounding drum sample package with loops to check out Kitcore.

Users who aren't so experienced at MIDI Sequencing and drum programming will love the loops!

In the default setup, Superior Drummer 2.0 actually comes with it's own mixing software with EQ, compression, transient designer, and a handful of other things. All of these combine within Superior 2.0 and are ran into a single stereo track within Cubase, but can be routed to individual inputs in your recording software.

At first I was a bit concerned that this mixer wouldn't do what I wanted. I thought I would be stuck with so-so plugins, less control, and basically be less happy than with the methods used on DFH Superior 1.0 where each drum track was routed to an individual track in Cubase.

The Plugins Are Great
First I must say that I've been very happy with the EQ, compression, and other effects built into the mixer. The way that Superior Drummer 2.0 tracked and the way the busses are setup in the mixer, the possibilities are enormous.

Actually Usable Presets
I've not been shy about my disdain for presets. Presets can take the attention away from tweaking to find the sound to scrolling through endless menus. Presets can take the emphasis away from listening and put you in some dumbed down state.

In DFH Superior 1.0, I have to admit that I seldom thought the stock sound was exactly what a given song called for. In fact, it only happened a few times. I was always going for something else. It takes a while to play with EQ, compression, levels, etc to squeeze new sounds out of drums. It was very possible to do with took quite a bit of time. This was time I did not have when I wanted to create. Superior Drummer 2.0 has solved all that.

The new mixer has allowed Toontrack to create drum samples that are very natural and neutral if you want them to be or very processed. The cool part is they can do the processing for you if you choose to use their available presets. In more primitive sample libraries, you were stuck with either natural sounds or the processed sounds in the library. If these processed sounds weren't ideal for the song, you had to compromise.

Take A Listen
Here's the default kit in Superior Drummer 2.0 (which sounds GREAT!) where I've went through and simply selected a mixer preset. It needs to be said that all I've done is used different mixer presets and nothing else. The raw audio from the triggered samples is exactly the same. You still have numerous options with the drum kit (different kicks, snares, toms, cymbals, etc). Of course, no one says you can't tweak. I like the idea of selecting “X” preset that gives me very close to the sound I'm looking for and then tweaking from there.

Check out this sound clip on the Home Recording forum Superior Drummer 2.0 Mixer Soundclips.

Educational Benefits Of These Mixer Presets
The beginning dude in the world of audio engineering may not be comfortable with parallel compression and various advanced mixing techniques. That person will be very happy with the mixer presets in Superior Drummer 2.0. I think it's cool that when the person is willing to dig a little deeper, they can see exactly what the Toontrack engineers came up with to get a sound this way or that way. “How did they add so much attack and crack to X sound”. Now you can simply solo individual busses until you find the bus with the tremendous attack. Take a look at what they did and you instantly learn a huge audio engineering lesson.

The Current Soft Synth World
These days there is a greatly diminished need for a mixing console in the typical home recording setup. The software synth world is all the rage and for good reason. You can do incredible things within the computer and the synths sound great in my opinion. These days the MIDI sequencer, synths, samples, and mixer are all within the computer and I can't think of any good reason for a person starting from scratch to head down the old hardware synth path. The software based system works extremely well. Just add a MIDI controller (keyboard) to a laptop and you can begin creating masterpieces on the beach or playing live shows.

Combining Hardware and Software Synths
The situation becomes a bit more complex when a person wants to use their hardware synths with their recording software or computer based MIDI sequencer. The process is basically the same, at first. We enter MIDI data onto a MIDI track by playing a keyboard or entering dots with a mouse. That part is the same. When we hit play, that MIDI data is sent from the computer to the output of the MIDI port. That part is the same. When this MIDI data enters the hardware synth, a sound is triggered. This is also the same. What differs is what happens with the audio output of that hardware synth? If we were to route that MIDI data to a software synth, the output would automatically be routed to a channel in the software mixer. (Some recording software would require Rewire for this). However, there is no channel automatically created for the output of the hardware synth. The audio output really has nowhere to go. Not yet anyway.

It needs to be clear that we are still in the composing stages. The second we are ready to commit the output of the hardware synth to the wav file, we can simply record it into our recording software the same way we record a vocal or whatever to an audio track. However, we aren't ready to commit because we are still building up our tune.

Our Options
External mixer – I don't recommend an external mixer often these days. Why You Don't NEED A Mixer For Home Recording Current audio interfaces and modern ways of working with recording software have pretty much eliminated the need for external mixers. Working with hardware synths is one exception. We could build up our tracks in our recording software by running all audio already in our recording software through the stereo outputs and into our mixer and combine that signal with the outputs of our hardware synth in the mixer, send that the studio monitors, and be off to the races. When we are ready to commit, we simply route the outputs of the hardware synth to our audio interface and hit the record button.

Standard audio inputs – Your recording software allows you to monitor the signal through it. For example, when I record vocals, the vocal flows through the mic > preamp > audio interface and into a channel in my recording software when I add compression and maybe reverb. Then the signal is sent out of the audio interface and into both my studio monitors and the headphones of the singer so they can hear what they are actually singing. We could use a similar setup by arming a track and running the output of the hardware synth into the input of the audio interface. This would technically work, but it has some drawbacks.

A big problems is it uses up two channels of your audio interface. If you only have a 2 channel audio interface, you won't be able to record anything with a microphone without first committing the MIDI stuff to wav. This is no good. Even if you did have extra channels, the fact that the audio track is always armed would mean you would constantly be recording to that synth track from the output of your external synth even though you only really want to be recording vocals. This is a very poor way of dealing with our hardware synth. Let's dig deeper.

External Bus – I can't speak for all recording software, but I was able to setup a system to allow the use of external synths in about 2 minutes (I had never done this before) in Cubase SX3. Cubase allows the creation of an external bus. This external bus means that the signal from a given set of inputs in the audio interface are permanently routed into the Cubase mixer just like we were using an analog mixer. I can apply effects real time, adjust levels, and do everything like you would expect with an analog mixer. The only real difference is that when we render down the mix, the mix must be done real time so that Cubase can record the incoming audio from the external synth and combine that along with the other tracks.

When I was sure I was finished composing, I'm sure I would go ahead and record each separate sound from the external synth to a separate track in the recording software simply because I may want to apply different effects and automation to different elements from the external synth.

I'm sure that Cubase isn't the only recording software out there to have this sort of functionality. However, few recording software companies go out of their way to make a big deal about this feature. It's becoming increasingly clear that more people are still using hardware synths than I had originally thought. Personally, I'm very pleased with the quality, ease of use, etc of the soft synths and I wouldn't hesitate to use them in a live situation with a laptop (and I'm not exactly cutting edge on this).

Conclusion
It is possible to merge external hardware synths with soft synths within recording software if your audio interface is has enough inputs and you have a bit of creativity and willingness to crack open the manual. If your recording software doesn't have the ability to route external audio into a channel/bus constantly you may have a problem.

Either way, I'm of the opinion that soft synths are the way to go. If you are about to invest big bucks in a modern hardware synth, take a look at the soft synths beforehand. I think you'll be impressed. If you are vintage synth junkie, there is no hope for you (just like there is no hope for me and my vintage guitar amps). Ha ha

The guys had Toontrack have taken care of the big room sounds and just about everything else I would want in a drum sample package. The video from the NAMM show looked very exciting! It's possible that this may even be the very last drum sample package I need to buy. (Yeah right!)

Upgrades
While Superior Drummer 2.0 costs $350, an upgrade from DFH Superior only cost me a $130. An upgrade from EZ Drummer costs $250. With the low price of the upgrade there is no way I could have waited. I had to jump on this immediately.

Note: I do not have any intention of singling out the guy who made this mix. My goal is not to make fun of him or single him out. He just happened to stumble on a situation where this anti-math drum programming concept was illustrated EXTREMELY well. Please don't take offense. Instead, be thankful that such an awesome illustration is available and a lesson is so easily learned.

Head over to this song in Recording Reviews
http://forum.recordingreview.com/f11/where-can-i-improve-here-6426/

Listen to the song (you may need to be logged in for this to work). We've got a fast, punk rock style tune going on with distorted guitars and drums from DFH. The mix doesn't sound too bad. However listen up to 0:20 seconds. The snare feels WEIRD! It makes the whole part (which is quite rocking) feel out of place. We aren't firing on all cylinders here. What's going on?

I don't know anything about official musical terms, but I know one thing. If a good, real drummer had played that song on an electronic drum kit, we could immediately fire up the MIDI file and see that his snare drum hits would not land exactly on beat 2 and beat 4. They would be ahead! To people in their early 20s and younger this may seem a bit wrong. Modern music is so perfected to death (That's a whole other chapter) that many people just assume that using the quantize button to perfect snap the kick onto beat 1 and the snare onto beat 2 is right for every song. This is simply not the case. Mathematical perfection and musical perfection are entirely different things.

Smash Your HD TV
When we take this quantized approach to drum programming, we lose “resolution”. Think about it. The masses are all running out and buying TVs with 1,000 lines of resolution so they can see every detail in Friends, Everybody Loves Ramon, and all the other “brilliant” shows out there. We we approach this drum thing from the perspective that kick drums land on 1 and 3 and snares land on 2 and 4, we've reduced our 1,000 lines of resolution to 4 lines. Uh. This sucks! Why filter out all the detail and all the possible human expression and potentially emotional intensity?

Note: It's very possible that if our human playing the drums isn't the best at expressing emotional intensity that we could be better off with quantizing. In this regard you have to use your best judgment. In this articles, my goal is not to make crappy playing a little better. My goal is to make great music sound great!

Fire up five of your favorite songs. Pick songs that it is safe to assume were played with a real drummer and weren't edited to death. Really listen. Start tapping out the beat with the snare drum. Go for maximum precision here. It's important that you perfectly match the groove with your tapping. 99% of the time in a natural drum performance played by a real drummer, the kick drum will lock in very tightly. However, the snare is a different weapon altogether and plays by a different set of rules.

The snare has the ability of total mind control. The snare can take a listener, throw out what he would be thinking about the song, and replace it with a new intensity. As you tapped out the song, you would notice that the parts that are mean to feel slow, relaxed, etc pretty much land on 2 and 4. The slowest parts (quiet breakdowns with rimshots on 2 and 4, for example) meant to sound the “saddest” or at least the “slowest” will have the snare land behind 2 and 4. The parts that are meant to feel fast, busy, over powering, and intense will (like clockwork) land ahead of 2 and 4. Sometimes what sounds perfect to the ear ends up being pretty far in front of 2 and 4 when we take a look at the screen. (Another case where putting too much emphasis on the eyes can hurt us when recording music!).

Going back to our example, the song feels wrong for the first 0:20 seconds. Then, at 0:21 there is a fill. The feel of the song has changed. There is no need for the snare to push here. The song feels good again. Then, we jump back into our fast punk thing and the song gets weird again. Our “racing down the interstate” vibe is gone. There is a conflict.

It's clear that these drums were programmed (either by the user or by a preset groove) to land on 2 and 4. The song is calling for something else that a natural drummer would have picked up subconsciously. We could fix this issue by going in and sliding the snare drums forward just a bit. (Make sure snapping and quantize are OFF!). You need to experiment with this. It's just as easy to go to little as it is too go too much. Every song has different requirements. To take it further, every snare hit may have different requirements!

The Exceptions
There are exceptions to this human, anti-math drum issue we are confronting. Most hip hop and techno songs still work with a quantized beat. I listen to quite a bit of electronic music myself. The music is effective. The music is effective because the music was created with a quantized, ruler perfect drum beat as the foundation. The writing of a synth part in techno works a bit differently than the writing of a punk rock guitar part.

Of course, not all songs are meant to speed along. Some songs should sit back and take their time. There is a big difference between Otis Redding's “Sittin' On The Dog of The Bay” and anything on the Offspring “Smash” album. To take it further, there are certainly tunes in electronic music that do speed along at breakneck, race car speeds. Sometimes, these songs will be programmed with the snare pushing, but this is the exception. In the mega fast techno type songs, the “feel” used to imply speed and intensity is replaced with raw BPM (beats per minute). In techno, you don't have to worry about a human being actually being able to play a given part. You can record a tune at 120bpm (or draw in the notes with a mouse) and then change the tempo to 240bpm if you really want to. Also, the fast feeling techno also uses other tricks to make songs feel faster. (The snare drum pushing trick is just one of a billion tricks to make a medium tempo song feel fast). The most popular technique in techno (besides the 1/16th or even 1/32 note hi-hat) is the use of arpeggiated sections.

Conclusion
Sometimes there is no excuse for a human drummer. If you are using drum samples like DFH, BFD, Addictive drums, etc and playing music where a human drummer is required, you need to be aware of as many drummer tendencies as possible. While I don't have a clue about monkeying around on a ride cymbal and I've never found a use for rudiments on the kind of noise I like to make, I think every drum programmer could benefit from understanding “feel”. Few factors have a great effect on the feel of the song than the snare drum!

I love BIG drums! I don't hear a bit of cheese when I hear Power Station drums or Mr. Mister drums. (Shut up! I'm serious! Those drums are AWESOME!) It would have been nice if DFH Superior 1.0 would have gave more options for making the big drums quickly. In an ideal situation, I wouldn't have to make a weak attempt at big, real drums by using stupid reverb plugins. I want REAL room mics and I want them big.

It looks like the guys at Toontrack got serious when they began working on DFH Superior 2.0! It appears that DFH Superior 2.0 has no limits! I'm impressed!

There are three different stereo groups of room mics! These room mics sound INCREDIBLE! Some of these room mics have already been compressed with 1176s. Great!
On top of that, they even have a distorted track. This something I've used in the past. GREAT!

It's going to be hard to hold back from buying DFH Superior 2.0!

Of course don't take my word for it. Watch the DFH Superior 2.0 video from NAMM!

Brandon

In most cases, problems with MIDI are not technical problems that need to be fixed by a technician. In fact, MIDI problems almost always result from the person simply not understanding how to route their MIDI controller to their recording software / sequencer to their synths and samples. That's what this article is about.

Read the Member's Only article here:
MIDI Troubleshooting 101

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