DesertHare Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 Me: Old geezer guitar player System: iMac 27,Catalina, Logic Pro 10.7, Scarlet Duo, Alesis midi, various mics, acoustic and electric guitars. I've had Logic for about a year. I mostly used it for recording my guitar and vocals on one track, until a few months ago. I've been trying to produce tracks with more instruments - like basic pop songs. And the TROUBLE begins whenever i try to add drums! First off, I'm not a drummer. So, my first step is to try to add the Apple Drummer to my guitar and vocal tracks. No matter which of all the numerous choices available, they never even remotely match my track. I've tried everything i know to set the tempo settings, etc. but all these drummers are too complicated for simple songs--too wild, too offbeat (pun not intended). I've wasted so much time trying to add simple drums to my tracks.... it just consumes all my energy and nothing good ever comes of it. Questions: 1. Does anyone find these Drummers effective and useful? 2. If I'm doing a simple pop song cover that has a simple 4/4 shuffle, are any of those Drummers useful? 3. Almost all the pop music i listen to has VERY simple drumming, yet all the DAW based drum things are crazy and wild. I must be miss understanding something, but i just don't know what? I don't even know what i don't know, you know? I mistakenly thought all drums were supposed to lock onto the tempo setting. They sure don't seem to! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninecows Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 Just checking: You have noticed the small “follow” check box under kick and snare right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertRatt Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 Check box? Uh oh! I'm going to go look right now to see if i ever noticed a check box. I hope that this is the key! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertRatt Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 Check box!!! Wow! And then you can choose which track it follows!!! OMG! I am so stupid! I just have it a quick spin and yes, i can now imagine being able to use this! Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninecows Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 It’s not perfect, though. Sometimes it will give me something that’s just spot on. Sometimes it’s like playing with a drummer that’s on a different planet. There’s a quite a bit of apple magic involved. I will usually do one of the following: 1) Make a groove/cue track for drummer to follow with acoustic guitar. Making downstroke on low strings for kick and upstroke for snare. 2) make a basic midi region/track with drum synth with just kick and snare 3) record with a mic myself saying boom / click for kick/snare (like one of those rappers). Then I’ll “audition the different drummers take” on it till I find something I like. But it can be a very tedious process and with mixed results. I really wish that rayzoon and his jamstix worked better on Mac. It has a very clumsy interface and steep learning curve, but it gives you max control over details and great drums. There is a Mac version but I find it very unstable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninecows Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 And theoretically you can make your groove/cue track (without singing!) and get logic to create a tempo map of that by analyzing the transients. So tempo will not be constant throughout the song, but you’ll still get a grid for drummer to lock on to. Again there’s a bit too much Apple magic involved and it will often create too many tempo changes or guess completely wrong with a factor 2. You can adjust it afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertRatt Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 I almost always start with a scratch track of guitar and vocal. I can't wait to apply my new found "check box" magic! In the last year i must have wasted 100 hours fishing through those Drummer settings! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninecows Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 Probably best to keep the follow track as simple as possible so try to have guitar alone. And without too much noodling. Just plain and simple Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninecows Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 Ok… according to the manual it should be an audio track. So guitar will do fine. A midi based drum region needs to be converted to audio first it seems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertRatt Posted January 22, 2022 Share Posted January 22, 2022 I tried a few different guide tracks and had better results, but it was still not in the groove. So, i tried the obvious which was to record my scratch track on top of a drum track. That was much better result. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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