Drum machine with velocity sensitivity necessary? / Ed Friedland Groove book

joegrant413 · #1 10-10-2010, 04:11 PM

Hey folks,

I'm pumped up as I start working through Ed Friedland's book on Bass Grooves, you can peek at it here...

http://books.google.com/books?id=ElX...page&q&f=false

To work through this book, Ed instructs you to lay down a drum groove first using a drum machine. Not only that, but he advises doing so using a velocity sensitive drum pad.

It makes sense to do this I suppose, but how important is it to go to this extent? I have a half dozen software / iPad / iPod Touch things that will exactly do the drum groove quickly, and I'm anxious to get going on the bass grooving part.

So I'd like to hear from anyone who's worked at drum machine, and to what extent you relied on the machine doing most of the work for you.

Cheers
-- Joe

lunarpollen · #2 10-10-2010, 04:35 PM

Velocity sensitive just means "analog," i.e., it is sensitive to how hard you hit it and will responds soundwise, accordingly.

joegrant413 · #3 10-10-2010, 05:02 PM

Cool.

Do you think it's really all that helpful for a bassist to "hit" the drum machines with velocity pads?

For example, Ed's first exercise has you laying down hard-hit open high-hats on the beat, and lightly hitting the high hat on the 1/8 note in between. So you practice both timing and touch.

I could program that groove trivially with software. But I'm wondering if I should go the whole nine yards according to the book.

Thx,
-- Joe

behndy · #4 10-10-2010, 05:13 PM

i think he was just talking about having a feel for the groove. and being able to do light hits on some samples and harder on other would help that.

and perhaps that was written when a drum machine/hardware sampler was the only way to go. doing it all in a DAW or soft-synth should be fine.

dave64o · #5 10-11-2010, 09:06 AM

I don't use my drum machine often just for practice and, on those rare occasions I do, I just use the canned rhythms and maybe string a few together to make longer sequences. I find that suffices for me.

However, when I'm programming a drum track I *will* adjust velocities of individual hits, and I do that in a variety of ways, to make it sound more natural. It takes some practice to figure out some of the tricks to make it sound right ("air drumming", as in "air guitar", is my secret. seriously!) and actually doing it can be really tedious, but I think the results make it worthwhile.

But, again, for practice? I don't bother going through that kind of trouble.

joegrant413 · #6 10-11-2010, 12:50 PM

Thx. I'm leaning towards just creating the right drum tracks -- as expediently as possible -- and focus on the bass.

Cheers,
-- Joe

HeadyVan Halen · #7 10-11-2010, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joegrant413

Thx. I'm leaning towards just creating the right drum tracks -- as expediently as possible -- and focus on the bass.

Cheers,
-- Joe

Good idea..just for practice, I don't think it is that important. I have noticed through many years that for most of the 'canned' loops, the 'high hats' are to loud and maybe the 'kick' is not solid enough (i.e. not defined, or 'round' enough as bass players like to say) but for just practice, you should be fine...don't be like me, wasting 45 minutes EQ'in the snare or Ride Cymbal when you could be practicing.

mambo4 · #8 10-11-2010, 01:45 PM

It's about creating expression via volume control. Which should be easy to edit on any PC based drum sequencer.
Velocity sensitive pads are beside the point if you get in an edit the volumes(velocity) of drum hits manually, after building the pattern.
On a dedicated hardware drum machine, editing after the fact is harder, so velocity sensitive pads are desirable.

behndy · #9 10-11-2010, 03:09 PM

yep.

think Mr. Friedland just thought the result was important, not how you get there.

edfriedland · #10 10-14-2010, 08:17 AM

Frankly, while I have nothing against software-based drum programs, there is something to be said for the tactile experience of controlling the dynamics yourself and "playing" the rhythms on the pads of a drum machine. It's the next best thing to actually learning to play drums.

The point is to make the drum patterns a physical experience, not just a fuzzy "I think I got it" mental thing. But... whatever you do, as long as you are taking the time to program the drum beats and not just relying on canned beats, you'll get something out of it.

behndy · #11 10-14-2010, 09:14 AM

so he'd still be going the same direction you wanted if he stayed with the software setup but picked up a cheap bank of triggers? Korg has an 8 pad mini sized pad thing that's designed for laptops. not the sturdiest of buggers, but it's only about $80 i think and it'a very portable.

i come from a more IDM/Electo place with sequenced drums, so i've tried doing pads and stuff and it's just way quicker and more intuitive for me to grid program, but i see your point.

as an aside, how awesome is it that somebody as busy and renowned as Mr. Friedland takes the time to drop into a thread like this?

you rokk sir. like BIRDS.

edfriedland · #12 10-14-2010, 09:40 AM

I guess I'm not as busy as you might think!

joegrant413 · #13 10-14-2010, 09:48 AM

Hi Ed,

GREAT to hear from you... love your book. The groove metaphysics chapter is pretty inspiring, really!

Actually, I've been using iGog or i808 on the iPad, going into Garageband. Your book's mp3 track is on another track, and my bass is on another.

The iGog actually is velocity and touch-sensitive... as much as you can get from a piece of glass, I suppose. The i808 has 16 steps, but you don't play or tap it in real time.

Another drum machine I really like is the iPad iElectribe, from Korg. You can play it and use 16 step over 4 measure, if you wish. I'm tempted to use that, but there are no traditional drum kits for it.

Cheers,
-- Joe