Need to know how others compare
Hello,
I currently use drum tracks put together on a friends PC using Reason 2.0’s ‘Redrum’ software.
I want to get some software myself, but it would be silly to pay for Reason when I have no intention of ever using any other aspect of the software other than the drum machine.
Can anyone recommend some software that I would find similar (and hopefully a lot cheaper too, being dedicated to drums).
With this ‘Redrum’ software in Reason 2.0, a light clicks along a timeline at the bottom of a bank of buttons and 16 LED’s light up in sequence as it goes along (I think it’s 16, I have not used it for a little while). You simply select the part of the kit you wish to program in and then press the button corresponding to the LED when you want that part of the kit to play. You can select from a large number of drum kits in the Reason software, but I don’t really need a great range as I only tend to use 1 or 2 of the ‘heavy rock’ kits anyway.
Any recommendations are much appreciated.
My only other experience with drum software is when I paid $30 for something called PC Drummer about 4 years ago… only to discover later on that it was pretty poor overall.
Any advice is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark
ps. If there is nothing similar to ‘Redrum’ available… I wonder if there is a legal way to buy an old version of Reason 2.0 cheaply now that Reason 3.00 has been released. Is it legal for people to sell their old software on ebay?
do ACID man it’s really great for coloring your drum tracks…sounds great is fully editable acid pro or try their free acid express got acidplanet .com you won’t be sorry.
Cheers
Cruiser
Thanks for the link. 
I will give the demo a try, although a quick glance at the website makes me think it might not quite be for me.
I saw a lot of references to loops… and this is going to make my lack of knowledge all too obvious… but I get the impression that when dealing with loops you take pre-recorded drum tracks and select the ones you like and record your music over the top.
With my primitive knowledge of Reason 2.0 (Redrum is the only part I have a clue about… the rest is just a whole pile of funny looking knobs and buttons to me) I create the drum parts beat for beat and make sure they fit my bass and guitar parts 100%.
Is this possible with the Acid software?
I do very little with music in a digital sense.
I create drum tracks with reason (just 4 so far… completing the rest of those 4 tracks is plenty for me to be getting on with)… and then I record by bass and guitar parts over the top. That’s it… if something goes awry then I record again until I get it right. I am keeping digitial manipulation to an absolute mininum (save for necessary FX to make the whole thing sound half decent).
I know this is very ignorant of me in truth… but I hear ‘loop’ and I think of techno type beats and repetition.
Of course I might have completely the wrong end of the stick and acid might be ideal for me.
Cheers
Hi,
Acid has its plusses and minuses but is very easy to work with and very interactive. While loop based is usually seen as techno & trance oriented, The first two things to understand with Acid - 1 is that a loop can be any sample (or a PART - nondestructively - of any sample) including a single drum hit - 2 is that acid also handles single shot events that can also be any sample.
My impression is that you can slice, dice and twist stuff in a zillion ways in Acid. I have barely scratched the surface myself.
Peace,
TrackGrrrl
Please take a look at LeafDrums. It is a sample based sequencer which lets you use any drum samples (a simple trap set is included to get you started) you have, or can get, and is dead simple to use. I still can’t believe I wasted $50(US) on FruityLoops, which, while much prettier than Leaf, does almost nothing Leaf does not - and will NOT let you create shuffle beats - and makes you jump through hoops just to do 32nd beats. LeafDrums will do 64th beats, let you change tempo or time signature from one bar to the next, lets you edit individual samples, and place it’s own (decent) built in effects on any sample you use (EQ, reverb, compression, delay, etc…). You can export your drum sequences as a single wav file, or as seperate wav files for each drum, allowing for unlimited mixing possibilities. I keep it open with nTracks, and when I need to change a drum beat or section just make the change, save it, and then write over the exisitng wav file. nTracks seems to have no trouble recognizing that the wav file is changed (after you click on the file, that is!). I have been using it since the first beta release, and it has gotten better with every subsequent release. Plus, Sam (the author) is very good at responding to problems you may have - a regular Flavio type!!! 
'til next time;
Tony W
Razor , trackgrrl is right. I started using Acid Music Studio for my drum tracking. Couldn’t be easier. Also depends on the loops ur using. I use Betamonkey. They sound great and are perfect for me. There are “one shots” in their library which can be used to build ur own track, beat by beat, but u’ll find that there are many loops in betamonkey at different bpms to use with a minimum of effort. I’ve barely scratched the surface of Acid myself, but I don’t think I have to go much deeper than what I’m doing now 
since I just use it for drums. All I have to do after is render it down to a .wav file and import it into N and add my other tracks in N. Hope this helps!
Bob
P.S. Acid does have a freebie to use I believe, called Acid Express, (anybody? correct me if I’m wrong). It can be used to create drum tracks but don’t know how extensive its tools are. Might be worth checking it out.
Thankyou all for the replies… once again the help on this message board is awesome.
I think leafdrums sounds right ‘up my street’.
I will give that a try tonight before I do anything else.
Cheers
I’ll also give Acid high marks. I tried using FL studio for a couple of years but could never get past the mechanical sound of the drums even though the samples are real drums. Acid is very different in that most of the loops are in measures so you get more of a “real” sounding drum track. I use the Discrete drums 1 and 2 from Sony and also use drums on demand. It’s very easy to use and a huge difference over FL studio. I’m not trying to knock FL studio but to me, Acid is just so much easier to use.
My .02.
Mitch
nubs, leaf is also based more on working with measures, and can use pre-created loops (just set them on the 1). And it is easier than FL. So many seem to love Acid, and it is awfully successful, so my bet is that either of these proggies could do a great job for Mark, or anyone else.
But I am wondering why nobody has mentioned doing your drums with the midi built right in nTrack. I have just begun building test tracks for an upcoming project using nTrack’s midi, routed to the sfplay plugin with nskitfree7(large), and am really happy with the early results. Piano roll programming seems very intuitive to me; notes/drumbeats start here, end there, are this loud, and this note/drum all on a simple grid. With cut and multiple paste it is a moments work to get a swinging click track. Then record your basic instrument tracks, or try out new ideas. You can go right back to the midi track/s and add new beats and rolls and cymbals - build drum tracks that grow with the song, rather than sitting static while the song changes about them. And all without leaving dear, wonderful nTrack! How cool is that?!!
'til next time;
Tony W
nTrack is not a cult.
Hi Wynot,
I’m certainly not going to knock you for using the piano roll for creating drum tracks. For my taste, using the piano roll is just too time consuming and still is too “perfect”. But I have certainly heard some outstanding drum tracks that were midi. I just can’t get mine to sound that good.
Mitch
Sounds to me like the perfect solution for all of us is to use what sounds best and is easiest for each one of us to use! I love it when we have so many choices out there ! 
Liking Leafdrums very much.
In fact it’s going to make a lot of things easier than in Reason’s Redrum.
Still need to find some nice sounding samples. The defaults are just for practice… and the ones I have downloaded so far aren’t quite as good as those I am used to in Redrum.
Will get there though.
Thanks again for solving my dilema.
I will be beginning my next track composition next week and will try to use leaf drums for it.
Cheers
Mitch, this is actually something a little new to me; I always thought midi drum tracks lifeless and stultifying. But when you can use real samples, with all the dynamic changes midi allows, midi seems way more lifelike - after all, sequencing is sequencing, and I am convinced half the ads on television are using sequenced drums, yet they usually sound great. I figure what someone else can do, I can figure out if I try! But give the demo of leaf a try - razorback obviously likes it!
'til next time;
wynot
it isn’t a cult. n isn’t a cult. n isn’t a cult, n is^!^!^!
Razorback
Just downloaded Leafdrums as an alternative to using an Alesis SR16. I wonder if you have found any sources for decent samples yet to bring into Leaf?
What is the best way of using Leaf with N ?? Any ideas?
ct, I usually start by creating a click-track in leaf, writing it to a .wav and importing that .wav into n. I make a pass or two at a guitar and bass track to provide a bed for the song. Then I open (or switch back to) leaf, open a new song, and create a kick and snare track to match the song. I write those to a new wav, import to n. If there are any mistakes, I go back to leaf and fix them, then write over the existing wav (n does not seem to mind, as long as you click on the replaced track once you switch back so n can see that it has changed and create a new .npk file for it. Then I make the toms and the cymbal tracks the same way - creating a new leafdrums file for each instrument or set (toms, cymbals) of instruments. Takes a while, but it comes out with each drum having it’s own track, so the mixing possibilities are just about endless.
As for the problem of samples, you cannot go too wrong with the Natural Studios nskit7free, 198MBs of great sounding drum samples you can download here.
You may find other, better ways to work with leafdrums and nTrack, but this has been a good technique for me.
Good luck!
'til next time;
wynot