Home studio/Total n00b

[mayfly]

I have an apogee that I used on our last album. It was great, but to be honest was not any better than the Tascam that I'm using now. Front end stuff makes more of a difference- like mics.

IMHO of course

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

All of the suggestions so far are very viable, and affordable too.
With consideration of your comment about not being a drummer, there are many sample libraries of loops and one shots constructed by drummers that you can just import into your song files, and there you go, a live kit tracked by a real drummer that will time stretch (within reason) to your current tempo.  These include a variety of patters, fills, intro, endings, etc...

I have the Double Bass Mania library and it is more than enough for what I use it for, which is primarily demo's for my drummer, but the nice thing is, that across the entirety of the library, it's all recorded on the same kit, so continuity is preserved very well.

 

[swarfrat]

I briefly played with drum loops. I got even more frustrated. Enough to hit things, so I bought drums instead.

1) You pretty much need to write your song around drum loops. There is no way to search for "I need something with an // /    /    kick, but a triplet feel on the hats. You just have to listen to hundred upon hundreds of them.
2) The loops need to have a lot of appeal, and cover all the bases. This pretty much reduces you to assembling a mad-lib of drum cliches.
3) You need any more reasons after those two?

I had pretty much exhausted the spectrum of sucking at guitar anyway,  so I needed a new field to expand into.

 

[Cagey]

That's been my experience. Drum pads, drum machines, drum loops - all have driven me nuts at one point or another. What it ultimately comes down to is if you want drums, you need a drummer, or know how to play them yourself. Trying to fake it will try the patience of a saint, and assuming you are one, it will eat your life. You'll be step-editing in your sequencer until you're cross-eyed, and it'll still be fulla flaws.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

For recording a full on project, drums, real ones played by a real human being for sure.

For songwriting & demo's, pads and loops are "ok", but recognize it for what it is.

 

[swarfrat]

Yeah, the only way I could enter patterns with a mouse is to tape it to my sticks. My hope is that within a year or so, I'll be able to play 1) well enough that I can play electronic drums, and clean them up in editing software. 2) Well enough that doing so doesn't take a lot of fiddling. 

In the meantime, the boy and I are have the time of our lives. Some people play ball with their kids. Some take them hiking. Some people people read books with their kids. He loves all that stuff too. But his favorite is playing music with dad.

My musical goals are fairly pedestrian. (At least I think so. I always have a knack for starting something because I want to do the very hardest possible thing. Let's get a welder. You know, I could weld aluminum foil into shapes with this thing.... well not really.)  I like hard rock with BIG arresting grooves.  AC/DC. Joan Jett. 38 Special. And a lot of 70's funk as long as it's big patterns and not subdivided into McDonald's chopped onion sized bits).  It's not fast, it may be hard to count, but I generally play by feel. 

I'm getting there. Still not sure what to do with the toms (maybe they're to hide behind), but I'm getting better at filling on the snare with drags and rolls. Given  my stated goal, I might just sell my other kit (and pieces I've accumulated via Craigslist) and just keep a Kick/Snare/Hats/Ride to write with.  I can tell already that I can play stuff that I would NEVER be able to program.  Or perhaps more importantly, think to try programming.  Unless you're a masochist, I'd never think to say "Hey, let's put in a triplet feel buzz roll on 4&e ahead of the next downbeat."  Or follow up snare hits with a kick flam.  Yeah, I can't do 64th notes on the kick drum. I don't want to.  (God help me if the kiddo wants to. He doesn't know that Double Bass pedals exist, but he has already invented the concept using spare pedals he's found around the music room.  Given he already loves Cookie Monster - Cookie Monster + double bass pedals = death metal.)

 

[Pharos]

A different approach, if you are familiar or comfortable with synths, would be to use Reason with the Redrum unit and load drum samples into each bank and program patterns. Works fantastic once you get the hang of it.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Jeezum crow! I was away from the computer for a few days, and this thread really took off. There's a lot of really interesting stuff in here, which leaves me with a lot of homework. :laughing7:

Would y'all believe that for demos I'd been using Guitar Pro until now? Dig that Realistic Sound Engine.

 

[stratamania]

Here's another thought, I use Guitar Pro for writing out parts from time to time. You can also write out drum parts and so on.

But here's something quite useful. You can export the parts as MIDI. Then you can import those parts into your software DAW and asign a virtual instrument and so on.

So some of the stuff you have done in Guitar pro you might be able to use some of it as a base of getting a song going in Garage Band.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Yeah I usually do complete songs (guitar, bass, drums) in GP. I like it for drums because I can program exactly what I want to hear without having to rely on my own (mediocre) skills.

I've exported the files as mp3s (to send to bandmates) but never as MIDI. It never even occurred to me to do so. Very interesting...