What's everyone using for drums?

[Jarick]

Curious what everyone's using for their drums, both for grooves and samples.

I've been using Logic Drummer to come up with grooves and fills, then exporting to MIDI and manually editing to fine tune. I don't love the sound of the Logic kits though. I have EZDrummer 3 which sounds better, but still not quite there. Looked at a bunch of expansions but at $89 not sure I want to roll the dice.

Picked up GGD One Kit Wonder Modern Fusion last night, and it took a couple hours to figure out how to set up Kontakt and the mapping and routing, but it sounds a lot better to me. Not quite as flexible but mix ready. Performance may be an issue though with my M1 Mac.

 

[norminal]

Still rocking EZDrummer 2 here.

 

[sleewell]

my buddy Calvin. he's a good dude.

 

[DrewJD82]

Superior Drummer 3 for the sounds and some grooves/fills, but I write about 90% of my drum tracks because I’m a wannabe drummer who plays guitar.

I haven’t used EZD3, but what me to cross grade from EZD2 was the drums already being EQ’d to hell and back, there’s only so much dicking with other EQ’s and compressors before they’re just mangled and further away from your goal. When I saw I could work with raw kits I impulse bought it and it’s one of the very few impulse buys I’ve made I do not regret.

You basically have Logic’s mixer and a bunch of plugins within SD3’s mixer, they’re powerful and they didn’t skimp on anything, to the point that I’m doing everything but parallel compression with the drums in SD3 and bouncing to a stereo track, instead of running every drum/mic to it’s own track in Logic and treating it with EQ/comp there. At most I setup the parallel comp on the entire kit and a separate room reverb that I often buss out the other instruments into very lightly to give some cohesiveness.

 

[Jarick]

@DrewJD82 are you using any expansions or all stock sounds?

 

[joezlo]

I use an Alesis SR-16 manually.

Meaning, I write out my parts, do each drum piece individually track by track, then mix them together.

All of my releases have been done this way since I don't have room where I live for any sort of real kit.

Most recently used on this cover song:

 

[la szum]

I use an Alesis SR-16 manually.

Meaning, I write out my parts, do each drum piece individually track by track, then mix them together.

All of my releases have been done this way since I don't have room where I live for any sort of real kit.

Most recently used on this cover song:

You must not have any kids!

Seriously, I recall doing that in 1989-90... and it was a LOT of work back then. Very impressive!!

 

[TJontheRoad]

Everything

Logic Drummer for quick and easy stuff.
Superior Drummer 3 for more detail.
Various drum boxes for when the style calls for it.
My Roland VDrums for when I actually practice enough to make them sound good.

 

[DrewJD82]

@DrewJD82 are you using any expansions or all stock sounds?

I’ve got 2 expansions but only use 1, I can’t remember which expansion it is but I got it because it has a Tama Starclassic kit which is my favorite kit in the world, it’s the kit in all the metal stuff I do and probably half the rock stuff. But that was me having a little extra cash and knowing I really wanted THAT kit, there’s PLENTY of kits and sounds to be had within SD3 already, some really great presets, too.

Hahahah I can’t remember who else here bought the expansion I did, it was one of the last ones they released the Meshuggah guys recorded in their studio, 7 or something, it sounds like fucking ass.

 

[la szum]

I hate programming. Ugh! Kill me now!!

I love playing drums. Any time I can do the latter and ditch the former I will.

Now excuse me while I go adjust the velocity on each individual drum hit.

 

[Jarick]

I’ve got 2 expansions but only use 1, I can’t remember which expansion it is but I got it because it has a Tama Starclassic kit which is my favorite kit in the world, it’s the kit in all the metal stuff I do and probably half the rock stuff. But that was me having a little extra cash and knowing I really wanted THAT kit, there’s PLENTY of kits and sounds to be had within SD3 already, some really great presets, too.

Hahahah I can’t remember who else here bought the expansion I did, it was one of the last ones they released the Meshuggah guys recorded in their studio, 7 or something, it sounds like fucking ass.

Looks like the Metal Machinery set probably! I had a full set of Tama Starclassic Performers, loved those things. Tuned up super easy and sounded great. Played by John Tempesta too!

I see there's an EZ Drummer version but the clips sound nowhere near as good as the SDX version. Too bad that would cost like $300 for the upgrade and another $200 for the expansion.

 

[la szum]

I think it was a @TheTrueZoltan! who also bought that pack you are referring to, Drew.

 

[la szum]

It's close enough to Black Friday that I would hold off on any upgrades or expansion packs. Toontracks
are notorious for having some epic sales the last couple of weeks of November, and into December.

 

[dbagchee]

The Progressive expansion for EZ drummer is my favorite - it basically has the Karnivool Sound Awake drum sound in it which is good enough for me!

 

[DrewJD82]

Programming is the only way I’m able to maintain SOME aspect of playing drums, I still program thinking in paradiddles and when I get really creative I have to sit behind my computer and air drum a part to ensure it’s actually possible to physically play. I’m always so cautious of crossing that line. Hahaha then again, some of the damn drummers I’ve seen on YouTube in the last decade have me re-thinking what’s humanly possible.

If I couldn’t think of programming from a playing standpoint, it’d be that much more of a chore. Hahaha and that’s not to say I sit there getting excited about MIDI notes in a piano roll, it’s just the only thing that can make me sit there and tweak velocities for a week straight without losing my mind. So many times it sounds like someone soundchecking a drum kit for HOURS.

 

[Jarick]

Oh man I just checked and I'm actually still using the old EZDrummer 2. So I don't even have the new version. May have to see if that's worth the upgrade.

I don't have a lot of hard disk space so not sure about getting the hundreds of gigs of samples for Superior Drummer...

 

[la szum]

The Progressive expansion for EZ drummer is my favorite - it basically has the Karnivool Sound Awake drum sound in it which is good enough for me!

Good shout! I own that one, too. I also have the Big Rock pack that does the Bonham thing when I want to do the Bonham thing.

 

[la szum]

Programming is the only way I’m able to maintain SOME aspect of playing drums, I still program thinking in paradiddles and when I get really creative I have to sit behind my computer and air drum a part to ensure it’s actually possible to physically play. I’m always so cautious of crossing that line. Hahaha then again, some of the damn drummers I’ve seen on YouTube in the last decade have me re-thinking what’s humanly possible.

If I couldn’t think of programming from a playing standpoint, it’d be that much more of a chore. Hahaha and that’s not to say I sit there getting excited about MIDI notes in a piano roll, it’s just the only thing that can make me sit there and tweak velocities for a week straight without losing my mind. So many times it sounds like someone soundchecking a drum kit for HOURS.

Masochist!!!

 

[Jarick]

Programming is the only way I’m able to maintain SOME aspect of playing drums, I still program thinking in paradiddles and when I get really creative I have to sit behind my computer and air drum a part to ensure it’s actually possible to physically play. I’m always so cautious of crossing that line. Hahaha then again, some of the damn drummers I’ve seen on YouTube in the last decade have me re-thinking what’s humanly possible.

If I couldn’t think of programming from a playing standpoint, it’d be that much more of a chore. Hahaha and that’s not to say I sit there getting excited about MIDI notes in a piano roll, it’s just the only thing that can make me sit there and tweak velocities for a week straight.

Honestly I have a nice Yamaha e-drum kit and I was a drummer first and can play all this stuff, I'm just too lazy to hook it up and deal with all the trouble. That Logic Drummer does a half decent job of getting things started. In my head I hear where the dynamics should be different or notes should be in different spots. It's easier to generate a beat and have at least some variation in the dynamics and then make a few tweaks to the piano roll than do everything from scratch and make all the dynamics manually.

 

[la szum]

EZ Drummer 3 should auto-recognize your Yamaha brain and not require any painstaking setup. Dynamics can be touchy
with triggering samples and someone super picky is probably going to have to go in and adjust velocity by hand anyways.