[Vince]

I fucknig hate drum machines right now

I'm working on a song that's fast. Fucking fast as ass. 208 bpm. Trying to sequence drums for a tempo that fast is a fucking nightmare. Yeah, I can slow the drum machine down & program at a slower tempo, but sometimes it doesn't line up right as a quality groove when I bring it up to speed.

I think I'm going to lay down some of this by hand. It's like painting. Just put the bass & snare pieces in by hand into the multitracker.

One of those mornings I guess. Thank god the song's only 3 minutes long

[Vince]

yep, I decided to just put in pieces by hand. A snare hit here, a bunch of bass drum 16ths there

This is no fun, but I guess it's a necessary evil.

[keithb]

Which sequencer is that? (just out of curiosity)

[Vince]

no sequencer. It's a zoomed out Vegas Pro.

[7 Dying Trees]

God man! use a sequencer, it makes all that crap so, so much easier! At least you can cut, copy and then paste various drum parts and then edit them!

[distressed_romeo]

Agreed. No-one ever got anywhere by making things harder for themselves.

[Vince]

Originally Posted by 7 Dying Trees

God man! use a sequencer, it makes all that crap so, so much easier! At least you can cut, copy and then paste various drum parts and then edit them!

right, I can do that in there.

[bulb]

hey now the mouse aint so bad once ya get used to it, its way more precise and in any case you would have to edit with the mouse if you input it via midi keyboard or whatever.
One thing, when you play it in, does vegas let you quantize the notes? That might help if you arent doing it already...

[Vince]

Originally Posted by bulb

One thing, when you play it in, does vegas let you quantize the notes? That might help if you arent doing it already...

Here's what I've been doing. I use a Boss DR-770 drum machine to make my patterns & loops. I don't use the sounds on it though. I use it via MIDI to control a set of drum banks I set up in Reason on my PC.

Now, for the sounds, I'm actually using the same kick, snare, & tom sounds that my drummer also uses on this album. We don't have the drummer anymore, so I want to make this still sound consistent with the rest of the album. So, bottom line, the sounds have to be identical.

So what I'm doing, is I have a few different tracks set up. Some parts of the song, I'm crafting the double bass drum parts by hand, because they have to be ultra precise (it's a really fast song). So there's one track specifically for bass drums. I have one track specifically for snare hits that I put in by hand as well.

for the parts where the bass drum is doing solid 8th note grooves, I put in a loop for it. I can cut the loop, stack it, repeat it, whatever I want with it.

That's not the meat of the song though, I have another track set up specifically for kick & snare sounds combined, actual drum patterns made in the drum machine that include the hi-hat as well. Those I've been messing with the most.

Basically, I'm doing it in a complex way, yes, but by having all these tracks and by setting it up by hand on several parts of the song, it makes it a lot easier on me than trying to program the drum machine at 208 bpm, and I can hit the grooves of the song a lot easier.

I hope that all makes sense.

[abyssalservant]

[quote=desertdweller;302658]I'm working on a song that's fast. Fucking fast as ass. 208 bpm. QUOTE]

Since when is 208 fast? . . . First song Deathwalkers threw at me was at 232 . . . and it's got nothing on the new song we're working on. *wiggles butt* yay death metal.

We just need someone (who doesn't already play another instrument in the band) to come in and be able to handle Frank's bloody drum writing . . .