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Do we still need drummers in Logic?


Nunstummy

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With all the new drummer tools and sampler in Logic 10.6 do we still need to record acoustic drums?

 

I’m a bit old school so my home studio has room for recording live acoustic drums. I have a MOTU Traveler and a MOTU 8Pre, giving me 12 pre-amp inputs and 4 more for a total of 16, so there’s plenty of mic’s on the drums. I’m chasing that famous ‘70s sound from the Neve console at Sound City. Other times, I’m just as likely to go minimalist and only use 4 mic’s on drums. But the setup time and effort is huge, and I usually rent or borrow high quality mic’s. Then after the tracking I spend hours making acoustic drums sound good, with compressors, EQ, reverb.... on and on. I learned a trick years ago where I use the acoustic drum track to create midi from the transients, then add drum samples, and mix the 2 to give the kick and snare more clarity. Ultimately, I’m going to great lengths to make a live performance sound like sampled drums. Does anybody notice? Why?

 

In 2005-2009 I worked with a modern drummer who not only was a good player but a good midi drum programmer. He would produce some great drum parts. We would record his acoustic drums and mix both. Not too many drummers have these skills or are open to the idea.

 

Opinions? Do we need to record drummers with acoustic drums, since all the new features in Logic 10.6?

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Setup time for finger drums is zero. But actually programming a stellar drum track takes ages. You'll end up with the same sounds as any other guy.

Setting up for a drum recording takes ages. But actually playing a stellar drum track takes the length of the song. You'll end up with a unique sound.

 

Pick your poison.

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Do we need music? On a survival level, no.

But if I create a lovely drum track in ten minutes, it just feels different than creating one that is proverbially only 1 % "better" but took three days to set up and several hours and a zillion takes to record. The satisfaction of improving ever so slightly by working a hundred times harder is just worth it. And some people will notice. Most will not, but some will, and that is enough.

Needing? No. But do we want it? Yes.

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The question could be transposed on so many levels. Do we need pianists now that we have quality sampled pianos? Do we need orchestras now that we can produce realistic MIDI mockups?

 

I once worked for a producer who spent an inordinate amount of time to program sampled drums to sound exactly like a live drum performance recording. We did a blind test, and no one could tell the "recordings" apart. They sounded identical to trained ears. Does it then matter which one is used, as far as the resulting production is concerned?

 

Our voice, acoustic instruments, microphones, software instruments, analog effects, software plug-ins, analog mixers, digital hardware mixers, software mixers, control surfaces, touch screens, roli boards, guitar synths, drum machines, e-bows, seaboards, breath and bite controllers ... all those are just means to an end, they're just tools to create live or recorded music.

 

Most non-trained listeners can't tell (and don't care) what was used or how it was used to produce the music they're listening to. So in the end as the creator, you pick the tools that inspire you the most, or the ones that make your life easier, or that allow you to work faster, or that keep the process fun and exciting.

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i think we can just do whatever we want... or need to do. or like to do. and most people, as said above, won't know the difference.

 

but doing a midi drum part is one thing; an accordian, a solo violin, a sax (for example); much harder to get 'right', as those instruments are much defined by their nuances.

 

i had a friend who did a song with a sax solo some years back; he sent me an mp3; good song, fake sax. after i listened, he went on about how surprised i must be to find out it was a keyboard sax (i already knew); he spent days getting the 'nuances' right. ha. nope.

 

but again, most people take things at face value. like using a korg M1 piano; no one ever came to me & said 'what is that? why didn't you use a real piano? in retrospect, that sound was awful, not a piano, but piano-like. now, we have piano plugins & samples that blow it away (i've done solo piano with pianoteq, and no one's ever called me on it).

 

anyway, i don't really care how a song was made, i care if the music someone makes moves me in some way. and if it does, the details may be interesting, but they're not important; the music is.

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Setup time for finger drums is zero. But actually programming a stellar drum track takes ages. You'll end up with the same sounds as any other guy.

Setting up for a drum recording takes ages. But actually playing a stellar drum track takes the length of the song. You'll end up with a unique sound.

 

Pick your poison.

 

Truer words were never spoken. I could take hours programming a drum part just to have a mediocre part as opposed to getting my drummer friend to sit at his MIDI kit and knock off a perfect take in five minutes

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i dunno, i still think 'whatever works'.

 

i produced a song for a band a couple of years ago, and the drummer was a trainwreck. so we recorded bass, 2 guitars, reference vocal... to a drum loop. then i used an apple drum kit, and came up with simple part (with a few added flourishes) in an hour (more or less). it worked great, and they were happy.

 

the process is only important to the music-makers, and, again, the music itself is what matters... to the listener.

 

still, great to have options, and make choices. love that...

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I've done gigs with guys using Roland V-drums and I suspect that with a set hooked up to Logic as triggers I could invite drummer friends over to lay down tracks that would sound killer. It's all in the performance...the sounds have been "good enough" for a long, long time.

 

This is a good point. It’s the performance I want to capture the nuances of attack, volume and tempo variations. Electronic drums are a faster way to capture that performance directly as midi information, although the better kits have separate outputs for each drum sound. this is cheaper than all the mic’s, cables and stands and setup time. But, I’ve found a lot of drummers don’t like electronic kits because they don’t get the physical and auditory response they’re used to on their fav acoustic kit. Then the performance suffers.

 

Alternatively, you can program the drums and put a lot of effort into humanizing the performance, with tools in Logic. You can de-quantize in sections, nudge the snare slightly ahead in the chorus for excitement, slightly increase the tempo in the outro (as bands do).

 

What’s most important to capture? the acoustic drum performance, or the sound?

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I've done gigs with guys using Roland V-drums and I suspect that with a set hooked up to Logic as triggers I could invite drummer friends over to lay down tracks that would sound killer. It's all in the performance...the sounds have been "good enough" for a long, long time.

 

This is a good point. It’s the performance I want to capture the nuances of attack, volume and tempo variations. Electronic drums are a faster way to capture that performance directly as midi information, although the better kits have separate outputs for each drum sound. this is cheaper than all the mic’s, cables and stands and setup time. But, I’ve found a lot of drummers don’t like electronic kits because they don’t get the physical and auditory response they’re used to on their fav acoustic kit. Then the performance suffers.

 

Alternatively, you can program the drums and put a lot of effort into humanizing the performance, with tools in Logic. You can de-quantize in sections, nudge the snare slightly ahead in the chorus for excitement, slightly increase the tempo in the outro (as bands do).

 

What’s most important to capture? the acoustic drum performance, or the sound?

 

There is a middle ground. You can use a real drum kit with ‘triggers’ attached to the drums. You will get midi info from a real drummer on a real kit. Then you can use that midi track with any drummer plugin. I find the drum sounds directly from electronic drum kits are far worse than drum plugins these days.

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I've done gigs with guys using Roland V-drums and I suspect that with a set hooked up to Logic as triggers I could invite drummer friends over to lay down tracks that would sound killer. It's all in the performance...the sounds have been "good enough" for a long, long time.

 

This is a good point. It’s the performance I want to capture the nuances of attack, volume and tempo variations. Electronic drums are a faster way to capture that performance directly as midi information, although the better kits have separate outputs for each drum sound. this is cheaper than all the mic’s, cables and stands and setup time. But, I’ve found a lot of drummers don’t like electronic kits because they don’t get the physical and auditory response they’re used to on their fav acoustic kit. Then the performance suffers.

 

Alternatively, you can program the drums and put a lot of effort into humanizing the performance, with tools in Logic. You can de-quantize in sections, nudge the snare slightly ahead in the chorus for excitement, slightly increase the tempo in the outro (as bands do).

 

What’s most important to capture? the acoustic drum performance, or the sound?

 

There is a middle ground. You can use a real drum kit with ‘triggers’ attached to the drums. You will get midi info from a real drummer on a real kit. Then you can use that midi track with any drummer plugin. I find the drum sounds directly from electronic drum kits are far worse than drum plugins these days.

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I find the drum sounds directly from electronic drum kits are far worse than drum plugins these days.

Absolutely. Also, although the guys at the music fairs repeatedly manage to demonstrate the newest and hottest stuff in e-Drumkits to pretty much everyone's amazement, they (the eDrums) still have a frighteningly long way to go.

One thing is dynamics. While these have improved tremendously over the decades, the range between loudest and quietest strokes you can pull from an edrum is maybe a fifth from what a real drum or cymbal can give you. Which is also the reason why real drums are so obnoxiously friggin' loud.

The other thing is response and variance. While you can get away with practically one kick sample, and few tom samples unless you're attempting to play Wipe Out, snare gets much more demanding and once you get to cymbals and especially hihat, edrums have already exited stage left. It's no competition, it's just not. You may be able to lay down a decent AC/DC track with a edrum, but anything more demanding will make you hate the e-nstrument with every stroke because it just can't deliver what is so effortlessly possible and controllable on an instrument as ancient and primitive as a pair of metal discs struck with a wooden stick.

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  • 3 months later...

Apple has worked hard in Logic to separate Drummer (the performance) from Drum Kit Designer (sounds), but my question resulted in 2 different debates. Can we replace the need for acoustic drum sounds? Likely.

 

Can we replace the drummer’s performance? Seems like No.

 

Or can we? Is it a future AI application that analyzes your preferences and style based on previous Logic projects, or browsing through your listening history, to determine what king of drum performance you expect.

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Speaking only for myself, I "need" whatever I want when it comes to music. That said, I switched from PT to Logic pretty much as the pandemic kicked off. I'm deep into the recording of an album that was meant to have my go-to drummer play on it. He's a world-class dude and he enhances any song he's on. Even before the pandemic, he'd been planning to build his own studio at home, but obviously this was slowed way down in the last year. I just sorta carried on using Logic drums (and making drum tracks out of samples of my guy's kit), and by now I have a nearly complete record with great sounding drums all over it and not a real drummer in sight. It's been a great experience using Logic's drummers, and even from the get-go, as I start work on a new song, having the vibe that Logic drums brings - in no time at all, right? - makes a difference. I'm certainly looking forward to making records with real drummers again, but I'm more than happy with my Logic drummer experience.
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Speaking only for myself, I "need" whatever I want when it comes to music. That said, I switched from PT to Logic pretty much as the pandemic kicked off. I'm deep into the recording of an album that was meant to have my go-to drummer play on it. He's a world-class dude and he enhances any song he's on. Even before the pandemic, he'd been planning to build his own studio at home, but obviously this was slowed way down in the last year. I just sorta carried on using Logic drums (and making drum tracks out of samples of my guy's kit), and by now I have a nearly complete record with great sounding drums all over it and not a real drummer in sight. It's been a great experience using Logic's drummers, and even from the get-go, as I start work on a new song, having the vibe that Logic drums brings - in no time at all, right? - makes a difference. I'm certainly looking forward to making records with real drummers again, but I'm more than happy with my Logic drummer experience.

 

Yes one of Logic’s great strength are the drummers. And of course turning it into midi, having them in a track stack as a producer kit, putting effects on each channel separately and layering stuff etc.

This is the greatest thing after having a world-class drummer with a world class drum kit and with the World class recording room with a world class microphones with a world class set up.

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I have worked with some excellent drummers. They can copy any style and add to it. If I say “more Steve Jordan” it sounds like Steve Jordan, if I ask “more Jeff Porcaro” it sounds like Toto. If a good drummer can mimic a range of top notch drummers, why can’t software do the same?
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nothing like the REAL thing... recorded by you.. if you want to sound like everybody USE samples.. and VSTi if you want something with more character and personality.. Record it with a Real drummer...

 

 

Record what? What's the song? Does it need a real drummer? What if a Logic loop or drum machine or collection of samples suits it? That's the thing... music is loose, and rock and roll is built on a combination of tradition and structure and expectation and breaking the rules. I love working with musicians and I love working with machines. There's nothing says that one must do things only a certain way. The song usually dictates, but sometimes so does necessity. And experimentation has indeed killed a few curious cats, but that shouldn't stop anyone from trying anything out. I'm truly impressed by the "drummers" that live in my Logic software. Used with discretion (or with none, depending), they can serve the purpose of the song or album at hand.

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i mean nothing like record the real thing .. a REAL DRUM.. with a real person.. for your song... than using other loops or vsti,,, character.. personality.. no vsti come even close to the real drum in a room.. but hey that is my opinion. of course electronic drums etc.. whatever.. but nothing like using a real guitarist vs a software.. programing loses the feeling... and creativity.. takes time.. and with a human is faster and you always get NEW ideas.. with the impros.. etc... not with a computer... rec. mic.. human. musician = more character and personality than a algorithm.. the human brain is 1,000,000,000 better than 1,000,000,000 computers with samplers.. and a mic. in a room. today if you HEAR one artist you had hear them ALL.. they all sound the same..
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i mean nothing like record the real thing .. a REAL DRUM.. with a real person.. for your song... than using other loops or vsti,,, character.. personality.. no vsti come even close to the real drum in a room.. but hey that is my opinion. of course electronic drums etc.. whatever.. but nothing like using a real guitarist vs a software.. programing loses the feeling... and creativity.. takes time.. and with a human is faster and you always get NEW ideas.. with the impros.. etc... not with a computer... rec. mic.. human. musician = more character and personality than a algorithm.. the human brain is 1,000,000,000 better than 1,000,000,000 computers with samplers.. and a mic. in a room. today if you HEAR one artist you had hear them ALL.. they all sound the same..

 

 

You're absolutely right, there's nothing like working with a real drummer. Even better when the drummer's really good! But there are so many ways to make so many kinds of music and one approach isn't always the only or best one. There are as many reasons to do something one way as there are to do it another. And imagine if someone is just starting out... maybe they're working at home in a bedroom, and don't actually know many musicians. They've discovered Logic or Ableton or such and loops/VST/samples or such are an easy way for them to learn to make interesting, good-sounding music. That's only a good thing. If they're fortunate to find great players to work with - assuming that's what they want for their music - all the better.

 

Just to add, my main go-to drummer is a a guy I've known from my hometown since I was starting out. He's a stunning player and has played on all sorts of great records. He happens to be a great drum machine programmer and is generally very tech savvy, cos, you know, he's a professional. Last time we were in a studio together, he and the engineer and I picked out all sorts of drum samples to enhance his acoustic drum tracks. And the drum tracks we were working on all sat on top of drum machine loops I'd brought from home. There are so many ways to make music, and I'm a fan of embracing as many options as I can.

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Review the Spotify top 50 by genre. Check out Pop, Rock, R&B, Indie, Hip Hop and Country. Just listen to 5 songs from each. How many have real drums? 10% maybe?

 

If you’re recording acoustic drums with a drummer please enjoy it, because nobody is ever going to hear it. There’s no relationship between number of streams (revenue) and real drums.

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