Programming drums in Logic Pro?....

Justin is saying that you could use Autosampler or (soon) Keymap 2 to sample all your D4 sounds and turn them into EXS24 instruments.

However, if you look around the internets you might just find sample sets of popular old drum modules, which you can make into EXS instruments or Ultrabeat kits (eg, I have nearly every drum machine/module around setup as Ultrabeat kits for when I want "drum machiney" type stuff - which, actually, is very rarely indeed, but that's, er, not the point *ahem*)

But if you were talking about something else (eg setting up a Mapped Instrument in Logic with the names of your D4 kit sounds for easy editing), then that's different, and you'll have to do it manually...

I tend to play drum parts in (in various ways) and then sometimes edit them. I don't really regard this as programming.

In the old days, using drum machines, it very definitely was programming, as the only way to do it was program individual patterns, and then chain them into songs to give yourself a basic song structure.

Sometimes (more often in the past) I would construct natural sounding drum tracks for songs almost entirely by programming with the Hyper Editor in Notator and then Logic. and got pretty good at it. This I also regard as programming.

When I had a V-Drums kit, I mostly used to play stuff in and over time, the tighter I got, the less editing I felt I needed - plus I kinda rebelled from all the perfect quantised synthy stuff of the 80's and 90's and did everything purposely sloppy and messy just to get away from it.

99% of the time, I would prefer to just play it in - I know what I want, and spending three evenings constructing perfectly programmed drum tracks is just too much of a chore these days, unless it's absolutely necessary...

The more realtime stuff the better. If I'm doing drum machiney type stuff, one of the things I like about Ultraneat (or Ableton Live) is being able to "jam" arrangements. If you haven't tried playing patterns back on the fly using the low octave of your keyboard in Ultrabeat, give it a try - it can be fun.

Bee Jay wrote:
When I had a V-Drums kit, I mostly used to play stuff in and over time, the tighter I got, the less editing I felt I needed - plus I kinda rebelled from all the perfect quantised synthy stuff of the 80's and 90's and did everything purposely sloppy and messy just to get away from it.

Nonsense. Just quantize it (yea, better do it twice!) and then apply 'serial overload' regions to introduce fluctuation among layers : ^)

For some tracks, I really like the strictly quantized feel, and others I want to be loose - they can coexist (to some extent). I'm the kind of weirdo that samples instruments for 'that' effect (because quantizing audio isn't the same - though it is also employed). I like the oddness of the sound when it is someplace between a sterile/rigid sampled patch and a good live performance - which doesn't work everywhere, of course. It's (to me) an interesting effect to make it unusually 'mechanical' in some ways, and then introduce chaos on other aspects on the same track. It sounds fine, but the astute listener will sense something is out of place... a bit like walking around when your leg is still asleep.

99% of the time, I would prefer to just play it in - I know what I want, and spending three evenings constructing perfectly programmed drum tracks is just too much of a chore these days, unless it's absolutely necessary...

Yeah, I typically hammer something out and work from there. I'm no virtuoso, so I leave some time for editing : ^)

The more realtime stuff the better. If I'm doing drum machiney type stuff, one of the things I like about Ultraneat (or Ableton Live) is being able to "jam" arrangements. If you haven't tried playing patterns back on the fly using the low octave of your keyboard in Ultrabeat, give it a try - it can be fun.

Most of my stuff doesn't have a consistent enough structure for good results (even if the patterns work with the track) - too many meter changes... I'm used to working this way by now, and I tend to have more ideas than I have time to realize or successfully fit into the stereo spectrum. (though I did try it for fun when UB was unleashed).

J

Ah, yes; of course. Well, I'm not so fond of my D4 (or my other drum machines) that I would want to simulate them, so unless the +original sounds+ (rather than samples taken from the audio outputs) were available, I would rather just match appropriate ones already available in Logic.

I have had a look around before now, but there doesn't seem to be anything for the D4 available other than editors & so forth for the unit itself (which is the opposite of what I'm looking for).

If anyone knows of a set of +the original+ D4 sounds ( or, since I'm asking, Roland U-20 or Korg O3R/W or Boss DR-550 ), then I would certainly be interested, since it would save me a great deal of time getting archive material up-&-running.

Otherwise it will have to be manual re-mapping, as you say, Bee Jay, & as I had assumed. Fortunately I had already taken the precaution 15 years ago of mapping each of the 20 drumsets I used to use +on paper…+

I can work out which drumset each Region uses by examining the Program Change. There are probably only about 60 drum sounds in total to map. Should only take a couple of years.

🙂

If anyone knows of a set of the original D4 sounds ( or, since I'm asking, Roland U-20 or Korg O3R/W or Boss DR-550 ), then I would certainly be interested, since it would save me a great deal of time getting archive material up-&-running.

I'm not going to aid you in obtaining this stuff, as technically they are a copyright violation. All I'm saying is they are pretty freely available on public and popular sites around the internets for many if you do some legwork, if it's something you wanted.

im not a drummer but there are many ways i work creating drums.

1 way i find that works for me (its time consuming though but can be worth it) is to find a drum feel i like and want to use and use the audio to midi groove ( i think thats what its called) and make a template out of it.

i then take the midi over to ultrabeat and map it out with a basic kit setup and match it with the original audio file of the drum beat i am copying. i dont worry about the sound of the kit im using just yet, i just want to get it mapped and the feel.

i have lots of groove templates that i have exported into logic so i can quantize with feels from the MPC, SP, etc so that gives me extra to play with.

once i have the feel how i like it i then copy the regions to other tracks and play with getting the sound i want like maybe a kik from stylus and HH's from addictve etc etc. and play in fills myself

its a lot of work but i get some very good results like this

Oops…

Obviously I don't really need to say this, but just to be absolutely clear about it — I'm not looking to infringe anyone's Intellectual Property Rights. Ever. So I won't be looking in +certain places+ for any of this stuff.

I just thought that since some of it might be past its Sell-By Date, the owners might have released the sounds legitimately. This has happened before.

If that's not the case, then I'm not interested. I didn't mean to imply I wanted to pirate anything! And I certainly wouldn't want to entangle you in any web of intrigue, either — so no need to worry about that!

🙂

Well, it's not necessarily that clear cut. If I sample my TR606 myself and offer those sounds on the internet, I am perfectly at liberty to do so. Those are synthesised sounds and cannot be copywritten in that way.

Most of this stuff is old machines that no-one really cares about. Roland - a notoriously litigious company - didn't ever seem to bother about samples from their machines, even ones that used recordings, consequently those TRX0X sounds have almost become essentially almost public domain.

Yes, if someone goes and samples their Motif and puts the sounds on the internet, that's dodgy territory because these are current machines protected under copyright that the manufacturer clearly has an interest in protecting.

But companies aren't really worried about someone sampling a 20-year old drum machine they stopped selling and supporting, it doesn't affect their bottom line.

So I'm not talking about visiting "piratey" sites as you seem to imply with your italics - there are plenty of perfectly legit sites, like, say Harmony Central, offering samples of drum machines, and most of them there isn't a real copyright problem with (otherwise, they'd have been issued cease-and-desists years ago.) Especially if you even own the sampled machines in the first place!

Heck, some sample CD companies used to sell samples of many of these drum machines, and that's even worse from a copyright point of view than offering them up freely, as you are making money of another company's intelectual property! Even those companies mostly got away with it.

Your S612 collection you've uploaded - do you own all the copyrights on those recordings?

So no, I don't mean visiting dodgy areas of the internet, I mean you'll just have to put the legwork in finding them. They are mostly all freely available.

But hey, I was just offering up some relevant information - do with it (or not) as you will...

+"Your S612 collection you've uploaded - do you own all the copyrights on those recordings?"+

According to the PRS — yup!

(The overwhelming majority were recorded by myself using 'session musicians'. I use the term loosely in some cases…! There were also about 40 taken from CDs which clients brought in, but we were very clear in advance exactly what could & could not be permitted. I was keen & scrupulous about following the PRS guidelines, even as they were being debated.)

+"Most of this stuff is old machines that no-one really cares about."+
That was my take on it, too. Unfortunately, it might be better for me personally if more people did care!

+"I'm not talking about visiting "piratey" sites as you seem to imply with your italics"+
I only meant that I wouldn't be looking to download large archives without provenance.

+"I mean you'll just have to put the legwork in finding them. They are mostly all freely available."+
Well, that's encouraging. I've been looking for some time without much success, but since you're confident, I'll try harder.

Thanks for this, Bee Jay. It's funny how the more one tries to be clear, the less clear one becomes; very Zen, really. But I'm sure you realise that (as I said right away) it was just clarity I was after, with no hidden implications one way or another. I'm not a 'hidden implications' kind of guy! Except when joking — in which case, I try to always use a 😉

-----

P.S.: I did find this site — [Drum Machine Samples|http://samples.kb6.de> — which lists the two modules I'm looking for, but I don't know what to expect or how much to donate (since I don't know what to expect!) …& what kind of 'donation' is it anyway, if you have to pay first?

Yeah, no worries. The same here, I was just trying to clarify and be specific.

Funnily enough, sometimes the harder you try to be specific, the more people hang on every word and bring further ambiguity and interpretation in... 🙂 (I don't exclude myself from this, either...)

I was still editing my post when you replied. Quite often I can manage to get away with that, but not this time. So now I have to reply specifically to point out that I had added a P.S. above…

Why do you have to pay first? Just download the ones you want and try them out.

*Oh, I see, the asterisked ones are not available for download by the looks of it.

Personally, if all he is doing is hosting files sampled/sent it by other people, I'm not sure what he deserves much of a donation for. Web hosting is ridiculously cheap, bandwidth is essentially free, and he didn't author the content. For about 30 quid a year you can get effectively infinite bandwith accounts, so it's hardly breaking the bank... and I'm sure if the bandwidth was too much for him to deal with, any number of internet angels would donate some webspace.

But hey, if you like the stuff, find it useful and are grateful, then that's down to you...

I'd probably look elsewhere though, unless I was desperate...

Tricky, isn't it? He says he has the Alesis D4 & the Boss DR-550, the two I might be interested in. But then I have no idea what I would be getting; if they're just recordings taken from the outputs of the modules, then — hey! I already have the modules right here & could do that myself.

OTOH the situation makes me curious.

+"If you like the stuff, find it useful and are grateful…"+ well, exactly. How would I know until after I've already paid? If I was grateful, I might pay a reasonable amount, even though I actually only want two sets out of all the ones available. And what's an unreasonable amount? Would he unlock them for just €1? And if not, what happened to my Euro?

😉

The whole thing is bizarre. It's probably just a culture thing. But perhaps this might turn out to be the only store in town. Ramble, ramble, blah blah, yadda…

if they're just recordings taken from the outputs of the modules

Yes, of course they are - what else would they be?

You can do it yourself, although it's work, as your have to sample, then trim the samples, then map them into an EXS instrument etc. And of course you have to own the original instruments to sample them as well (which you do, in your case of course.)

+"what else would they be?"+

Well, the original sounds would have been encoded onto a chip. Either the sounds used in that process ( pre-chip ), or the sounds resulting from that process ( post-chip ), might theoretically be available. In the latter case, reading them digitally directly from the chip would be a distinct advantage over recording from the audio outputs of the module ( post-module ), for many reasons ( D/A & A/D conversions, quality of connections, variation in recording levels between samples, normalisation, etc. )

There certainly are people about who read directly from chip. I even tried it myself, once (on a Barbie keyboard), although I don't really want to sacrifice my modules in an attempt to do it again!