Drum Samples are quite commonly used these days. This is no surprise, as there are some good software packages out there such as BFD. This and other high-quality drum sample software features extensive sampling of a wide variety of drums, in different rooms, with different sticks/mallets/brushes. I did the brush samples for the BFD FXpansion and played a plethora of sweeps and hits.
So clearly there is no problem with the individual samples within such software. They are amazingly thorough in terms of capturing great drum sounds individually. The problem is that they are only useful in a compositional sense. They are not useful in terms of a good end result. Why? Because there is no natural flow, no matter how much time you spend putting all these samples together to sound like a real performance. And the listener can tell something is amiss, even if fooled that the succession of samples constitute a real drum performance.
If you really want your music to sound professional and not to sound “canned”, then you have to have custom drum tracks performed for your song.
Make no mistake, if you use drum samples instead of a professionally recorded session drummer you will severely limit your music’s potential. How do you accomplish this on a budget? The solution lies in the use of an online session drummer.
This article is for the benefit of you, the songwriter/composer.
Undoubtedly you need professional sounding drum tracks for your music. But how to get great drum sounds without breaking the bank?
Many folks see the solution to the problem in drum sample software, such as the BFD premium drum module.
People feel this is the solution because, admittedly, the drum samples involved in the software tend to have drum sounds that are very good. Generally, the drums are well-tuned and recorded well. But there are drawbacks.
The biggest two drawbacks to using drum sample software are:
1)“Canned”, uninspired results — drum tracks that sound disconnected from your music.
2) Large amounts of time being wasted putting together “custom” tracks slice-by-slice with individual-hit drum samples.
Most of these drum sample software packages give you pre-made loops you can use. Most also give you the option to construct your own beats using separate, single-hit drum samples.
Lets talk about the loops for a minute.
You may be able to occasionally find a pre-made pattern in the package that basically fits your song.
But even if a pre-made drum pattern works partly, there are inevitably parts of your song that could use a little bit of variety. Certain parts may benefit from a change in the bass drum pattern, for example, or maybe looser hi-hats or some extra “ghost notes” on the snare. At any rate the chances of drum sample software containing a loop that has exactly what you need for that situation are very slim.
Confronted with this situation you are likely the think something like “I need my drum tracks to sound more organic than that”, or perhaps “this loop or that loop won’t cut it because I need the drum part to highlight the vocal rhythms on the third pre-chorus”.
Of course these are legitimate concerns as you want your music to sound alive, not contrived.
And at this point you may decide that you need to construct the drum parts yourself, hit-by-hit, slice-by-slice, using single-hit drum samples. Admittedly, you’ll probably get a better result this way as you at least have control over specific cymbal crashes, adding bass drum notes, fills, etc.
There is a big problem to this approach however: It takes up huge amounts of your precious time.
If you have been through this before, I don’t need to tell you: putting together “custom” drum tracks using single-hit drum samples will take up so much of your time that you are likely to compromise your artistic needs in the end anyway. You will put in so many hours, and the tracks will sound better than just using factory loops, but you will probably give up realizing that they will never really, truly sound and feel like custom drum tracks that were played by a real person for your song.
You would look at how much time you have put in to them, and settle for your cobbled-together tracks because you couldn’t bear to do such tedious busy work anymore. You wouldn’t even end up with the result you wanted . It would only be closer to that goal than the factory loops — closer, but no cigar!
They say say time is money, which everybody knows is true. It seems like you’d save money painfully cobbling a drum part together slice-by-slice from a drum pattern /sample software package, but in reality its just not worth the time you’d waste, and the frustration you would feel.
As you look at it that way, its obvious that approach would really end up costing you.
A much better idea is to take advantage of a recent development, the appearance of online session drummers.
You can now get real, custom drum tracks from session drummers over the Internet and save a whole lot of money over conventional recording methods. Conventional recording methods tend to involve having to pay several people (rental of the studio for every minute of usage including setup and teardown; carting the drums there; paying the producer, the engineer(s), drummer, etc.). All that can really add up.
With an online studio drummer you only pay one person, which obviously saves you a bundle.
Be sure to shop around — all online drum track providers are not equal. Of course you should base your decision on which session drummer would musically fit your project best, but you must also compare the actual sound quality provided. Compare the sound quality of tracks on the websites, and compare the gear being used by each online studio drummer.
You will see that some sites are providing noticeably better sound quality than others, so choose carefully. [For more tips on choosing an online drum track provider, see my article titled “Online Drum Tracks – Tips For Success”]
Remember, using drum sample software will make your music sound very stale. Pre-made loops won’t sound like they were for your song, and piecing a drum part together from sample slices will drive you mad with wasted time yet still sound uninspired and “canned”.
Don’t go with drum sample software– samples are “canned” goods! Go for fresh, custom drum tracks online.
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