Easiest way to replace drummer with midi on a gig

[Russ Frost]

I'm in a 4-piece band in which the drummer has become, shall we say, unreliable. Ignoring personnel issues for the moment, what would be the easiest way to add drums as a backing track at a live gig? My preferences are that I would be able to have the tracks in the form of a set-list so that I can just start the next song without much fuss, and also that I don't have to spend gobs-o-money on little boxes with 13-dozen buttons and lights. I just want to play bass.

I have access to both Studio One and Ableton, so my current plan is to manually create the backing drum tracks there, export the tracks to .WAV, and then have the files in a play-list on my tablet which I can connect to the mixer and play if needed.

Anybody else gig without a drummer? What is your setup?

 

[Ant Illington]

I'm in a 4-piece band in which the drummer has become, shall we say, unreliable. Ignoring personnel issues for the moment, what would be the easiest way to add drums as a backing track at a live gig? My preferences are that I would be able to have the tracks in the form of a set-list so that I can just start the next song without much fuss, and also that I don't have to spend gobs-o-money on little boxes with 13-dozen buttons and lights. I just want to play bass.

I have access to both Studio One and Ableton, so my current plan is to manually create the backing drum tracks there, export the tracks to .WAV, and then have the files in a play-list on my tablet which I can connect to the mixer and play if needed.

Anybody else gig without a drummer? What is your setup?

I just threw up thinking about the enormous project that you are contemplating 1) setting up and 2) pulling off with an audience present and your expecting them to staying there.

 

[BassAndReeds]

Umm.... fire the drummer. Issue solved.

 

[lz4005]

Anybody else gig without a drummer? What is your setup?

If you can replace your drummer with pre-recorded tracks and have the result be half as good then you need a better drummer.

When I've played without a drummer it's been in jazz and acoustic music formats where everyone else just played more percussively. Essentially the bass and/or rhythm guitar fills the role of drummer.

That said, your plan is feasible. My only advice would be to record the drums in stereo with a click or a count-off on one side that will be fed to monitors-only so that everyone starts at the same time. Feed the no-click side to FOH.

 

[Pug the Pig]

I've done 'industrial' type bands where we've used drum tracks, both on their own, and with a live drummer playing with them too..it was done on a laptop, which went thru the PA
How you sort the tracks was not my thing, I'm way too stupid, but there's doubtless much info on the internet how to achieve this...
You will of course get a bunch of hate over this, ignore it if you want to go this route, it does work.

 

[two fingers]

He can't be the only drummer in Texas, right?

 

[Russ Frost]

Thanks for the feedback. I agree it's not a great solution, I just need a "Plan B" to cover the next few gig commitments until either he can get it together or one of us can be replaced.

 

[Pug the Pig]

I've been involved where it was a stopgap too, but in fact we were agreeably surprised how well it worked in this instance..
(Other times its been a deliberate part of the sound.)

 

[Nephilymbass]

The only bands ive seen really make it work were industrial metal bands where the drums were more of an EDM vibe. Trying to replicate a real drummer is very difficult even with today’s technology. The little inconsistencies of real drummers is tough to replicate. And a lot of people make mistakes when programming drums like programming something they think sounds interesting without considering if it could actually be played by a real human being for example I’ve heard tons of music with program drums where a real drummer could not physically play it without third arm.

My suggestion, go a different route. Either with a more electronic type of sound. Or playing the gigs as An acoustic band with no percussion (I’ve done that and it went over well)

 

[Blissful_Lad]

The only bands ive seen really make it work were industrial metal bands where the drums were more of an EDM vibe. Trying to replicate a real drummer is very difficult even with today’s technology. The little inconsistencies of real drummers is tough to replicate. And a lot of people make mistakes when programming drums like programming something they think sounds interesting without considering if it could actually be played by a real human being for example I’ve heard tons of music with program drums where a real drummer could not physically play it without third arm.

My suggestion, go a different route. Either with a more electronic type of sound. Or playing the gigs as An acoustic band with no percussion (I’ve done that and it went over well)

I just threw up thinking about the enormous project that you are contemplating 1) setting up and 2) pulling off with an audience present and your expecting them to staying there.

This has been going on since the early 80's.

Incredible drum libraries exist. Many with MIDI files (beats, fills) played by Top Session Drummers.

I've used BFD for 15 years. TONS of records have been made that utilize BFD or similar programs.

 

[BassWaffle]

What my band and I have done, and what you might consider doing, is midi-sequencing the drummer. Just run a clock source to their midi-in port and youre good to go.

 

[Frank Tuesday]

Are these cover songs? If so, just search for "'song title' midi". Websites like miditune.com, midiworld.com, freemidi.com and a number of others have midi files already made for you. After you ditch your drummer, next you can ditch your keyboardist and bassist as well. Just you and your guitar playing and singing along to backing tracks.

 

[Bassbeater]

I would consider hiring a session drummer online who plays V-drums to make you a midi-drum recording. You can then render the midi to audio or use the midi source. They will not sound like "pre-fab" loops this way. Unless you want an electronic style of playing, this might serve you well.

 

[rtslinger]

I somethings rehearse to just the drums of the songs I have in midi format on my computer, but I haven't used one live, if our drummer wasn't available to do a gig and we had not had enough to get a back up, I just called the owner see if he was okay with a unplugged show most of the time they were.

 

[Bassbeater]

If you plan on eventually recording the songs, paying a session drummer to record the tracks, then performing and rehearsing to those tracks would cut your cost and combine effort towards multiple goals.

 

[PanRap]

i am doing it with Ableton. even in our gigs i have same set up ready and i just start a sequence (adding some measures of sticks is useful).
but if you want something even close to decent sounding from that, you have to spend hours of making it sound as decent as it gets (and at some times even good). but if your gigs are in a short term, i assume you wan't have time for that.
recording a real drummer (as previously suggested) might be a lot easier.
i suggest doing that if you want to explore the way of making your own beats and benefiting of more unnatural sounds (it depends on your genre obviously)

 

[ddnidd1]

Get a hired gun for a few gigs.

 

[pklima]

Ableton's a good platform for doing this kind of thing live. I would be tempted to do more than just drums. Even if you don't need or want any more sounds, if you have an audio interface with enough outputs, you can do drums to FOH and a click track on headphones.

With the singer I've been working with recently, most of the songs are really exported WAVs, with keys and drums optional - I just mute some tracks live when those musicians are present, and a few songs we do 100% live if enough people are there. A few songs also have guitar effects changes programmed, including one with a delay that has wild parameter shifts every bar during the hook.

I usually play guitar but for the next gig, the singer actually wants me to play bass and wants to do that one as a duo (it's a fashion show and they want only two songs), so I'll get to make new versions of the songs for that. So, the rabbit hole can be quite deep.

Anyway, to actually answer your question, my setup is a big Windows tablet and an Alva Nanoface interface which is not ideal (doesn't have XLR outputs), plus headphones. I've actually been doing this in FL Studio which is not that good for things like tempo changes - I should switch at least to Reaper.

 

[SteveCS]

...

Anybody else gig without a drummer? What is your setup?

Exactly as you describe...
I use Mixcraft Pro Studio to create backing tracks as .WAV files that we play back from a USB stick in the mixer. The tracks might also include strings, tuned percussion, horns etc, but mainly drums.
I start with a 'kit', all parts on the same track. I then separate out the kick, snare, traps, cymbals etc onto separate tracks to enable finer mix control and sample substitution if necessary, which we do together at rehearsal through the PA, along with fine-tune of tempo and dynamics (sometimes I write down what needs to be done and take it away or I do it on the spot) prior to creating the .WAV.
Works a treat, and the drummer is never late...

 

[Ant Illington]

This has been going on since the early 80's.

Incredible drum libraries exist. Many with MIDI files (beats, fills) played by Top Session Drummers.

I've used BFD for 15 years. TONS of records have been made that utilize BFD or similar programs.

Oh, I am aware of drum tracks. And I'm aware of pizza places paying guys using them in lieu of a real drummer. I should have emphasized #2 being the operative part of my post!