Drum Sequencing. What do you use?

shabdavan · Post by **shabdavan** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 9:55 pm

Hello all. I have been fiddling around with different options to do drum sequencing and I was wondering what does everyone else do? What setups do you have for your drum sequencing?

shabba

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 6:07 am

Native Instruments' Battery + Sonicbytes ERA stepsequencer. I haven't actually tried it yet 'cause I just got the ERA, but it should work brilliantly.

valis · Post by **valis** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 6:02 pm

Linplug rmIV / Exs24 / Motu MACH5 in that order.

I'm starting to build a lot more of my drums in rmIV. I've tried the Dr008 demo and it definately beats rmIV in terms of sheer raw power but I find it slower to work with (perhaps since I only tried it for two songs). For me though rmIV is great right now, for example the way you can stack samples with independant keyzones on a single pad really suits my drum programming style. It allows me to group (for example) all snares to a single output with a single shared envelope, or all 'rimshots' etc. I can also come back later on a different pad and start stacking sections of loops & breaks (short fills) on top of main 'hits' so that the snare is followed by a filtered bongo trill when I trigger the (for example) C3-note snare. Of course different envelopes require different 'pads' but this is still a lot more efficient for me than 1 hit per 'pad' and beats the hell out of Exs's envelope offsets.

For Logic users nothing beats Exs's cpu load and performance impact so Exs24 does still get used a lot, either for loops (ie, pattering breaks filling out the drums rather than carrying the main focus) or for cases where exs2's mod matrix makes doing automation easy (you can drive things from 1-2 midi cc inputs etc). There are a also few tricks that Exs24 does well, for instance the "Slice Loop" Recycle convert import. Unlike "Extract Sequence" which merely assigns one slice per keyzone, "Slice Loop" will timestretch the loop then slice the recycle file from each successive drum hit to the end of the file. This makes it easy to do 'oldskool' style drum chopping by simply 'painting' in midi sections in a manner that is rather like using clips in Sonar or Acid. Toss in some envelope & lfo automation.... Unfortunately since it timestretches its only useful for percussive/rhythmic material.

[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2004-12-19 18:06 ]

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Sun Dec 19, 2004 7:10 pm

Samples (generated mainly by some Mod-III patches) dropped in FL Studio, then exported as loops.

Micotonic drum synth VSTi.

And a few samples played via Kontakt.

Post by **hubird** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 12:08 am

Slice editor Phatmatic Pro from Bitshift Audio, http://www.bitshiftaudio.com/
Creator Art Gillespie decided to leave the pc platform two years ago, so it's only mac now.
The OS-X version is much more advanced, one another important reason why I'm waiting so eagerly for OS-X

shabdavan · Post by **shabdavan** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 3:27 am

Valis,
Can you please tell me in your opinion what are the pros and cons for using logic's matrix editor connected to an STS as a setup for drum sequencing?

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:21 am

Pro's: Lovely filters in Creamware stuff compared to most software samplers (exs&kontakt included). The stock filters in my STS5000 aren't half bad and you can also drive an external filter off the same midi seq out & midi channel etc. to get your 'bus' filtering done (non-polyphonic) in SFP.

Cons: Poor midi timing (jitter). Even the tightest systems will have several milliseconds jitter which is fine for lower-tempo 'live' sounding drums but bad when u want to start getting really synthetic and layered. You can counter this by bouncing to audio once you get your 'pattern' laid out and editing/slicing that. Bounce multiple 'patterns' and you have your variation for building drum progressions & breakdowns etc. You could also counter this with one of the step-sequencing solutions that exist for SFP...

Personally I think that the STS series is fighting a losing battle when competing with software solutions because, unlike most effects, samplers benefit from fast access to lots of ram. Unfortunately the cpu wins that game because it has the most direct path to system ram and the least bottlenecks. If IDE had some sort of PCI-sideband to allow other pci devices to access harddrives then perhaps the 'disk streaming' sampler battle wouldn't be lost as well, but sadly I think that the cpu has an advantage even when talking to other devices on the system bus (feel free to prove me wrong on either count).

[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2004-12-20 04:22 ]

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 4:26 am

Incidentally I once measured my latency and jittter:

Sfp jitter (latency corrected in seq.):
Minimum: 25 samples
Maximum: 36 samples
Deviation: +/- 5.5 samples (11 samples total)

Latency wasn't included in my measurements because it can be compensated for in your midi programming (or just using the object's delay parameter in the arrange window). The short article I wrote covers that:

http://www.kief.net/studio/tests/MidiTi ... gic-pc.htm

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:07 am

Short Circuit (www.vemberaudio.com) - best software sampler ever.

Incidentally, the Phatmatik author recently decided to stop, in his own words, his 'platform evangelism' and support Windows again (I have a feeling his Mac plans didn't work out).

shabdavan · Post by **shabdavan** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:43 am

cool. Short Circuit has a two note polyphony free demo for download. i'm gonna check it out.

shabdavan · Post by **shabdavan** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:09 am

Can I trade in my STS5000 for this?

I like the GUI. It's so simple yet everything is there within reach. I wonder though if my pc has enough memory to run this competently. I have a p3 800 512mb RAM. I am assuming the STS5000 is better for me now only because it uses DSP power apart from RAM. Is this a correct assumption?

Post by **hubird** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:33 am

On 2004-12-20 08:07, dArKr3zIn wrote:
Incidentally, the Phatmatik author recently decided to stop, in his own words, his 'platform evangelism' and support Windows again (I have a feeling his Mac plans didn't work out).

d*mn you're right.
is this indeed since 8 december, as the site suggests?
Where did you find that 'platform evangelism' statement? it's not on the site.

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-12-20 09:34 ]

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:36 am

His statement was on a post at http://www.kvraudio.com. Art from Bitshift was *extremely* violently pro-AudioUnit/Apple.. even to the point where he claimed that anyone using wrapping technology was a traitor to the AudioUnit cause etc. He even managed to get banned from osxaudio.com. It seems that he's calmed down now, which is a good thing for everyone I think.

Post by **hubird** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 10:42 am

Jeezzzz

was he poisened by the KGB or so?
what a story.
Unfortunetely the kvr link makes my IE crash after a few seconds, since some time, I don't no why.
After three times crashing the system freezes

Anyway, so Art Gillespie got stucked in a crusade...
So now he's back in windows...not a shame, it's hard to get a living from the mac platform alone I guess.
yet a bit pity...oh sorry

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:03 am

Beautiful irony in the IE thing btw

To be honest, all browsers should be made to crash on trying to load KVR, purely as a mental health safeguard

I just think that platform wars are tiresome from either angle. I think it's the same for anyone.. the only difference between us all is that we each have a different tolerance threshold for anything. I'm sure Art found this out in his own way. If anything, MacOSX is a much better platform for selling plugins - there's a relative lack of warez, and musicians for whatever reason (and this reason could be anything from perceived ease of use/stability to over-zealous computer salesmen who are happy to extol the virtues of a Mac be they good/bad because the Mac costs more) do seem to choose Mac, and would rather be making music than chasing the latest hit of crack

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:20 am

Huub, did try to open the link without the dot?

darkr3zin, if their user base would be like the one from Windows, the warez would find their way to the mac users much easier

IMHO everything can and will be cracked if their is a large enough audience for it.

Back to topic, drumseq: I don't like to use samples at all, unless I made them

I mostly start of with a Flexor patch with built-in seq. Sometimes I record the audio and split the events to drum hits on audio tracks in Cubase. Then I can apply some groove quantise, group them and treat them as loops, while keeping full control over each hit in the loop.
Nothing beats this accuracy! Now for the programmer, that's something else

Post by **hubird** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:39 am

On 2004-12-20 11:20, at0m|c wrote:
Huub, did try to open the link without the dot?

No

I got the kvr page loaded, streight from Darkrazin's link, besides I used to visit the site now and then in the past.
I think it crashes just after some moving of the cursor or clicking something...
I have this since I installed a fresh system and did new installs and updates lately.
Must be kvr related, it's the only one that refuses.

Maybe it's something about malfunctioning cookies, or a browser plugin update is needed, the older one causing conflicts, I don't know.
I'll check the site's behaviour from my pc upstairs later, maybe my Draytek router is involved somehow.

Alright, this isn't the problem solving forum, let it pass, I can live indeed without kvr (tho with christmas in a restaurant...

)
cheers.

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-12-20 11:47 ]

shabdavan · Post by **shabdavan** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 11:51 am

atomic, what flexor patches do you use? Are there ways to make flexor sequencer patches that can be routed to ext midi device eg another synth? I like the midi rythmer patch and was wondering if there is a similar patch but dealing with pitch sequencing?

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 12:30 pm

I use always different self made patches, often based on older work or whatever comes closest to my liking. There's also a drumpatch from Flexor, 80s Drums. But what would be the point of modular if you wouldn't modify it to fit your needs?

If you put a DVC and an ADSR w VCA on each drumsound, you can gate them separately from your MIDI keyboard or sequencer.

And the MIDI Rythmers do just that what you ask: they chop up and pitch incoming MIDI notes. The Riff is polyphonical, the Arpeg is not.

shabdavan · Post by **shabdavan** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 6:36 am

Is there any way to convert the frequency out on the sequencer modules back into midi in order to be routed to an external synth. A patch simply as an arpeggiator?