Rehearsals with drum tracks and drum machines

belzebass · #1 03-26-2013, 09:38 AM

Hello, fellow lowenders!

Our singer has a broken ankle, and won't be able to go to rehearsal area for at least a month, she proposed her living to rehearse in, so no drums possible :-\

So, drum machine/drum software/drum tracks, here I come!

Any advice/tips/best practices when working without real drummer?
Where can you get isolated drum tracks (soul/pop/R&B covers)?

What kind of software do you use? I'm using Hydrogen Drums for my personal needs, is it enough for rehearsals?

Ktnxbai!

F-Clef-Jef · #2 03-26-2013, 10:05 AM

You might find something that will work here. I believe you can import midi loops into Hydrogen.

Keep it simple, just something to keep the time and pulse, let the "real" instruments make the music.

bound'n'blocked · #3 03-26-2013, 12:08 PM

We did this for a bit while our drummer was recouping from a surgery. We just used one of those chepo Casio keyboards that had alot of drum rhythms in it. Worked fine. Plus is that we could still practice and it was a very constant timing. Cons are that you dont have the dynamics of a real drummer, and it plays thru the little starts and stops but it was benificial to us.

BnB

klokker · #4 03-26-2013, 03:24 PM

Yeah, don't make it a big deal. The drums on a cheap keyboard work good enough to rehearse with. I have an actual "drum machine" metronome that you can program all kinds of crazy stuff with........but why? Just a "click" would work if its loud enough.

If you're playing a show, you'd have to be more complicated, but not for rehearsal, IMO.

belzebass · #5 03-27-2013, 04:12 AM

Actually I was thinking about full drum tracks as well as simple "poom-ts-tam-ts" of a drum machine. Do you know where I ca ind isolated drum tracks?

Blue · #6 03-27-2013, 04:43 AM

Depending on the quality of your human drummer, that Casio with "very constant timing" might spoil you.

Nashrakh · #7 03-27-2013, 04:45 AM

A friend of mine takes drum tracks off guitar pro files, exports them as midi to a DAW for additional processing, I forget which. May or may not work for you depending on the availability and the quality of said files.

Programming yourself is quite tough I hear...

belzebass · #8 03-27-2013, 07:19 AM

The existence of volume knob alone will spoil me :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue

Depending on the quality of your human drummer, that Casio with "very constant timing" might spoil you.

Jokes aside, I was tink of varing the bpm of the tracks randomly (+/- 10 bpm), just not to loose the ability to adapt and not to be locked in one tempo.