Re: Laptops, Drum Loops, etc.

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

----- Original Message -----
EDWARD YUHAS  wrote:
> You guys/gals (there are others on the list I can't think of now) always
> have such rich, deep sounding drum tracks with world beat influence, or
> tweaked, with ambient sounds, etc. What programs are good for this, and 
>how
> simple to use are they, and how do you trigger them on/off, or add drum
> parts from files if you've got hands on a guitar, ebow, etc.?


For live work I avoid drum tracks. But for recordings, and even for
finalizing of live recordings, I sometimes add drums in-the-box. When
the ambition is to create a drum track that has an organic feel to it
I prefer Spectrasonics RMX. This is a loop playback software and
plug-in that has a unique "semi intelligence" for musical random
variation. I have recorded my own loops of Berimba, Udu etc to use
with RMX. In order to import custom loops into RMX you first need a
way to create REX files (ReCycle can do this). But you don't have to
create your own loops; Spectrasonics offers very good libraries, of
which I own most, especially in the realms of world, dub and
breakbeat.

Although I don't use drum tracks live I have experimented with adding
that to a laptop live setup and my finding is that plugins like RMX,
the Native Instrument stuff or Logic/Mainstage's UltraBeat, Guru/Geist
are too CPU intensive for today's (laptop) computers.

However, there is one drum solution that seems to work well and that
is iDrum. I've owned it from versioin 1.0 (well even beta I guess)
since I was a big fan of the sample slicing beat maker pHATmatik PRO
created by Art Gillespie who is a "musician that looked into
programing and software developing". iDrum was his second big piece of
software. It is a drum sampler with built-in step sequencer and the
great thing for us laptop live looping musicians is that it has a Song
Mode. This means you can set up a long sequence of drumming pattern
changes that just plays on and on without you having to manually
"switch patterns". The second good point with iDrum is its low CPU
intensity and the good sound and pattern/song libraries available (for
example the XRB kits). Today iDrum is sold by
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/idrum/

When speaking combined sampler and pattern based step sequencer there
are of course more advanced solutions than iDrum, but they are all too
heavy for live work and better at home in the studio environment. The
one I like most is Geist, the newest thing from fxPansion (that
replaces their previous Guru). If you like to produce modern sounding
Drum n Base, UK house, techno etc Geist is just awesome. It is the
only combined solution I know about that also incorporates live
sampling. Unfortunately you can't sample live and instantly have the
snagged audio snippet played back by running sequence patterns - you
need to first hit a key on the laptop to save the live sample from RAM
to DISC before  it can be assigned to a pad that is driven by the
sequencer. I have written to fxPansion to wish for a full live
sampling/sequencing work flow to be controlled by MIDI foot pedals,
but it is not here yet (but oh so close...)

If you can use Ableton Live as the plugin host for your looper you may
set up as many drum loops you like in Live. Live has a quite good
random variation system. Not as musical as RMX but on the other hand
there is no limit of how many alternative loops you can set up for the
random jumper to pick on. So Live can be tweaked to sound quite
"un-stiff" ;-)  Live is also rather stable. I don't use it live though
because I like to set the global tempo by my playing and looping and
for this sync scenario Live is not as stable a host as Bidule or
Mainstage (with the stuff I do). With a fixed host based tempo though,
Live rocks in stability.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com
www.looproom.com internet music hub