That's true but, as I have said numerous times, drum machines by Prince and other artists in the 1980s sounded totally different than these for the last 15 years. The 1980s drum machines beat much harder and sounded more like something unique, rather than just something to play in the background while artists "talk" over them. Today's drum machines are weak "K-Mart" sounding and just barely tap. There's a big difference in sound.

People for the last 15 years select their type of drum machines because they are the "hip hop sound". There was nothing "hip hoppy" about Prince's sound in the early 1980s. So-called artists these days need to move on to bigger and better things like people in the past always have around every 5 years. People these days have been stuck in the shit hop mode for 15 YEARS.
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[Edited 10/19/06 7:57am]

Thank you! It's that same weak shit hop sound and nothing different!

That's a very good point also. These days, it's all about money and nothing about music....and the music is suffering because of it. The worst thing is, things will never change now because a whole generation has been raised on it and know nothing else. Most of them don't even want anything else because they are happy with the dull shit that has dominated so long.

TonyVanDam said:

definitely. in today's bedroom studios with do it yourself production, the appeal of drum machines are obvious

though to me programming a drum machine is like animation. It takes much longer than playing an actual drum part because you have to program every change instead of just feeling it.

vainandy said:

i wouldn't say the music is suffering because of it
the music is suffering because people don't want to be creative anymore
has nothing to do with drum machines or band payouts, or very little to do with it
Record companies are no longer in the run for long standing music
they want to make cheap little diddies that would generate a hit, make some profit, and that could be released frequently...
Drum machines are comotity to the companies because it leaves more money for them... it is really no fault on the drum machine itself,
its juste asier to follow the same formula and generate easy hits. and bribe radio to play it.

saying their is not creativity in drum programming is very fool-hardy, cause its hard work, especially if your an intricate Drum programmer like Peter Gabriel and Prince, it takes hours to come up with decent drum tracks, to make it sound out of the ordinary,
The real problem is no one wants to be innovatve anymore anymore,
its just extremely easy to do a 4/4 drum track on drum machine...
intricate patterns i guess are yesterdays news...

shit i hear the ballad of dorothy parker, which has a drum machine beat, but the patterns are so intricate, its so original, even with all the drum machine tunes now, its still original...

CinisterCee said:

I will admit to having one of these...



...boxed up in my garage.


Drum machines or programs are very useful as writing tools.
It just seems that with the number of drum sample libraries available (made by credible drummers), the choice of today's sounds would be more varied.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

theAudience said:

I think they're instruments in their own right. But just like I wouldn't want to hear only oboe, I don't want to hear only Linn.

And (as you well know) the biggest difference between Linn (or any machine) & a drummer is the infinite amount of nuance that a real person brings to a real set of drums, keeping those 10 or so sounds interesting over the course of hours & hours.
[Edited 10/19/06 11:10am]

NDRU said:

Which is why it's boxed up in the garage.
Maybe in a few years, the sound will become unique again.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

I never had a problem with drum machines until the 1990s rolled around. I've always loved the type of drum machines that Prince, Kraftwerk, Soul Sonic Force, Newcleus, The Jonzun Crew, etc. have used. I also loved the drum machines in house music. It's the hip hop sounding drum machines I hate. They barely tap and people never get past midtempo. I've heard hip hop songs that sound like the drum patterns were done with a double cassette deck and a pause button. They sound very weak and amateurish. It's fine if they want to use them but, damn, don't keep everything else off the radio.

I definately agree about the record companies and radio stations though. Hip hop is very cheap to make and they are going to keep everything else out that threatens it. Hip hop is not just rappers though, it's a sound. Therefore, actual singers must continue that sound with their music or they are not going to get airplay. If someone did anything different and it caught on, it would threaten the hip hop sound, styles might change, and the new style might be more expense to make. The last thing on these corporations' minds is spending more money when they can make a bigger profit with something cheaper. If the music sounds shitty or amateurish, hey, they don't care. They have raised a whole new generation that has never heard better so they won't complain.
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[Edited 10/19/06 11:23am]

vainandy said:

I dig it bro!,
thats exactly why peoplee don't know whats "good"
The Swill Merchants have brainwashed everyone...

Exactly. 99% of the drum machines in today's music sound the same. However, if you let a creative person get airplay, the public is going to want more people to be creative. That wouldn't be as profitable to these record labels. Money matters to them, music doesn't.
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[Edited 10/19/06 11:29am]

paligap said:

Oooh shit. Um,..I'm not sure but uh,....I think somebody just got checked.

blackguitaristz said:

I didn't mean it like that, though...I was just trying to say that Prince was making it a point to distance himself from the unimaginative copycat bandwagon that the industry got into... He wanted to point out that he was an all around musician and put the focus on that, he was trying to create art...but all that most of the industry took from that sound was, "Oh, here's a faster, simpler easier way to get sounds, we don't need drummers in the studio!"



...
[Edited 10/19/06 13:39pm]

All the strong and obvious points have already been made, so uh, I'm not going to stack on top of what's already built. I will state this; Real drums or the flavor of the month trendy ass drum sample is not going to make a song a hit. Or for that matter, a song any good. It still, thank GOD, depends on what's going on in the music. You know, little shit like chord progressions and riffs and coldblooded bass lines. The vocal melody, hook, etc. Little shit like that. I know that might pale in comparison to the mighty sound of a drum machine. Whatever. Point is, the skins (real drums) aren't going to pop unless you've got all that other (little) shit already happenin'. Of course I favor acoustic drums. The machine has it's place as well. Ask Sly and Shuggie. Ask Roger and Zapp. But, to pull that off, u have to be a real musician FIRST, to have that sensibility, to know what to do with the machine. If your music and your musicianship is bangin' in the first place, then you're going to know what to do with the machine and how to use it. It's going to compliment what is ALREADY bangin' in the first place, cuz THE SONG is there. The machine is the just the cherry on the cake. The right clap on an acoustic snare can "enhance" the song. But a cool sounding clap ain't going to do shit, if the song isn't there. Trust me, "Flashlight" and "More Bounce" didn't NEED the clap on top of a natural snare to make the song bang. Did it help? Hell yeah it did. But again, my point is the music, the song, was ALREADY there it's glory. The machine just iced it. Gotta have the goods first. Otherwise, fuck a drum machine. It's not going to save u.

paligap said:

Yes u did!... I know u didn't, man. I just chimed in right there cuz u made a valid ass point. This shit with "it's ironic you all being on a site dedictaed to a man who did this and that with the drum machines...". So what?! As u expressed, P switched gears all the time. Like a lot of other real funksters, before and after P. Hell, take a listen to Lady Cab Driver. The whole 1999 album is "cross bred" with acoustic to machine, all in one song. So,....fuck it. U checked it!

blackguitaristz said:

Like you said, he switched gears all the time...Like he was saying to everyone else, you can sample and program, but can you play? Can You do this?


...

Exactly. And the machine should be just the icing, not the whole damn cake.

paligap said:

yeah, but that argument is undercut by the fact that at the time he was setting aside his drum machine (somewhat; for a little while), he was running into the arms hip-hop/rap, so clearly he wasn't trying to be THAT original when he changed up his style at that time.

vainandy said:

Agreed! Those cheap, $15.00
casio keyboard drums, Should be banned. You know the one's i'm talking about. That plastic piano keyboard where when you press the button, You get four keys that make horrible drum sounds. One does a kick drum that sounds like somebody hitting an empty cardboard box, The second is that snare that sounds like some one hitting a sheet of newspaper while someone else is holding it up, The third is that Hi-Hat that sounds like that toy wind up monkey that hits the two cymbals together repeatedly.4th is that crash cymbal that sound like a cheap china cup breaking when it falls off the counter. That'a what these Hip Hop drums sound like.

blackguitaristz said:

spoken like a true funk pimp !!!!!

blackguitaristz said:

yes indeedy!

A good musician can make good music even with a machine. A bad one can't make good music even with a full orchestra.

That's exactly the keyboard I'm talking about. I have one hanging on my wall, as a decoration, under the oil painting of Prince that someone gave me for Christmas one year.

Anyway, turn on the radio these days and that is exactly how the drums in the songs are tapping....weak, weak, weak. Hell, put some power in the damn beat and speed it up too. A beat should be like a dick....hard, black, and throbbing.
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[Edited 10/19/06 14:32pm]

basslines are damn near nonexistent also.

Scrapluv said:

thats because basslines are hard as shit to develop
especially ones with good grooves
its just so much easier to hit the bass notes of the chord progression
easier means quicker to put out

its really sad...

vainandy said:

I don't think it's just cause of the drum machines...

Weaker soundin drums is another byproduct of the "loudness wars" I'm afraid.
Severe brickwall limiting, which is what's being used to get maximal loudness for cds, chops off the attack transients (spikes in volume) of the drums and generally makes them weaker.

That and recording digitally.
Recording drums to tape is one of the greatest experiences in a pro studio.
Something about the tape works magic on drums! Smooths off the top end and makes them thicker.

But still: You can't beat some hot live drums on an old school track. They aren't being used simply because it's easier to sample IMO. Plenty of artists with the budget (especially pop) to allow live drums.

I'll put on a James Brown record for my friends while we having some beers before we hit the clubs and they'll be blown away by the dynamics of live musicians.

Bring back live drums!
(and live instruments for that matter)
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[Edited 10/19/06 21:18pm]

nd33 said:

i agree to disagree on the "weak drums"
i wouldn't think its a matter of limiting, cause even when you record live drops to tape, and they still surpass the 0 db mark you have to do some limiting
the real magic when it comes too drums is EQing
alot cats don't bother to thoroughly EQ or compress their drums to give em a harder and sometimes bassier presence,
Recording live drums can be a bitch, especially if you don't have a studio built for catching the drums reverb, And when you get that snare that echoes waaay too much it becomes a real pain in the ass to limit that reverb without destroying the complete sound of the drum...
using a noise gate for the drum to deaden it...
Also the drum hitting could be solved by just giving your song more head room from the 0 db mark
set your instrumentation to around -3 dbs and set your drums to -1, that and eqing will make your drums bang.

another reason why drums arent sound as "hard" as they use to, is because pop music and hip hop are now generally using samples that were developed for Elektronika or Bristol, Neptunes started that, Elektronik drums just don't have that uUMP since they're digitally made.. you don't get that POW,
once again thats not the drum machines/digital domains fault, thats the producers choice of samples fault...

their are samples that are very hard hitting, , just not in style now
[Edited 10/19/06 22:20pm]

EmbattledWarrior said:

I'm not sure thorough EQing is the solution. I guarantee that there was much less EQing on drums in the 70's which in my opinion is the era of the best recorded drum sounds (there are of course exceptions). Many people agree with that, hence the abundant sampling of drums from masses of funk, r&b, pop and rock from the 70's. Fast forward to today and it's easy to stack 5-10 eq plugins one after the other but has this made drums on records better?

It is a bit of a subjective thing though...

_
[Edited 10/20/06 0:27am]
[Edited 10/20/06 0:38am]

TonyVanDam said:

I'm not sure I agree with that (I'm going to assume you mean acoustic drums). For a while I was only using an SM57 and an MXL condensor as overheads, and was getting great sounds. (a '57! Seriously!) Now I've thrown in another MXL near the kick and I'm getting killer Lenny Kravitz-style sounds...Thick & slammin'. It's a blast.

Dude, making loops out of somebody else's drum samples...that's not even art. My friends have tried to steer me in that direction (Acid Loops) - I can't bring myself to call that my "music". It's so counterfeit.

And I actually did throw my drum machine away, on eBay of course

Rudy said:

1. Yes, I'm talking about acoustic drum kits. And the hard part with micing-up drums is trying to sound-proof the bedroom studio (which is also the reason why I couldn't have a drum kits even if I wanted to without pissing off the neighbors!). And BTW, set-up the mics for a good sound is time consuming. Therefore, drum machines are needed to speed up the creative process.

2. I never said anything about using someone else's drum loops. In fact (since you brought up....), I use FL Studio (my drum machine/software studio of choice) to create my own drum tracks from the ground up. And yes, I use compressions to make those beats banging!

3. The Akai MPC isn't just from sampling drum loops. It can sample anything. But the average hip-hop producer use it mostly for sampleing/programming/sequencing single drum hits to create their own drum tracks (Read: fresh beats).

The problem with acoustic drums are that they are hard to mic up (as has been stated in this thread). That's why I like using electronic drums for recording. A real drummer still plays them, but the difference is that the sound goes straight into a mixer, it's entirely digital. But, electronic drums sound so lifeless. I am sometimes impressed at how good some electronic kits sound and how close they are to the sound of an acoustic kit, but they just seem to lack something. I've recorded songs using an electronic kit, but used an acoustic for rough demos. The drumming on the demos always sound better to me. But to avoid the hissing and ringing and other noises you pick up when you try and record an acoustic kit, you have to use an electronic kit.

As for drum machines, and drum loops, they really piss me off. They are a cheap, lazy shortcut. A real drummer will always outplay a computer. To create certain feels, I like to have the drummer lay back on the beat, or rush the beat a bit depending on what mood I am trying to create. You can't do that with a drum machine. They are so lifeless and they put hardworking musicians out of work.