Any examples?

[charic]

As per header

Has anyone had any experience working in a band with "programmed" drums? Specifically in the metal/prog genre as a recent project is leaning this way for quite a few reasons. We've got a guy who is pretty hot on programming drums and it seems an avenue that could be interesting and have a few quirks to make us stand out.

I'm sure a lot of people will be against the idea but I see a fair bit of potential in it.

Cheers,
Rik

[Chris2112]

Yep, the Berzerker and Impaled Nazarene have used them...





I'd say the Berzerker stuff is about as good as it gets with programmed drums in metal, although they found a guy to play those tracks live...scary!

Edited December 6, 2010 by Chris2112

[cheddatom]

the dude from meshuggah apparently programmes drums for the studio, but plays live. That's the right way round IMO.

It would be weird to see a metal band without a drummer on stage. That could be a unique selling point perhaps? But for me the drummer is an integral part of any live rock gig. He's generally the one i'm watching

[MythSte]

my old lot, Myth of Unity had a mixture of live and programmed drums live and in the studio. We had some metal-ish sections but I think those parts where more live drumming.

This is a good example, programmed hi hats in the faster sections over the live drums etc.

[bartelby]

Check out Godflesh, more grindcore than metal, but it gives you a good idea.


takes about a minute for the drums to kick in.


And Pitchshifter.

Edited December 6, 2010 by bartelby

[phil.i.stein]

i may be wrong but i thought that early Anaal Nathrakh stuff was programmed ..

no personal experience though. should work great if you can combine it with live drums. ask Dan Owens about clickstation perhaps.

Edited December 6, 2010 by phil.i.stein

[jonno1981]

The metal scene is dominated by a program called drumkit from hell by toontrack. Its ridiculously high quality samples recorded by top notch session players including thomas haake from meshuggah. It does enable bands to achieve huge sounding drum tracks which is always the most time consuming and difficult part of recording. As you can get all the drum tracks done before going into the studio to record it saves loads of time and leaves the band to concentrate on getting good takes by the other guitar players and singers.

It can obviously give a very false impression of a bands musical abilities as it means you can get technically perfect drum takes which might not be anyway representative of the abilities of the player. There are a few metal labels who outwardly reject recordings made using the software as it means they don't really know if the band can play! It is pretty distinctive sounding and can be easy to spot but to a casual listener they wouldn't know any better! It's also got its place in allowing guitarists (who are often the main soundwriters in many bands) the ability to program guide drums to their riffs and take them to rehersal to give the drummer more of an idea of what they want on the tune.

[bartelby]

Didn't notice this bit earlier:

[quote name='charic' post='1049351' date='Dec 6 2010, 02:50 PM']I'm sure a lot of people will be against the idea but I see a fair bit of potential in it.[/quote]


Why would anyone be against the idea?

I've seen dozens of bands that use programmed drums live.

I was in a band that used and Alesis SR-16 and a Roland R-8 as we got sick of unreliable drummers. No one in the audiences cared.

Edited December 6, 2010 by bartelby

[charic]

Brilliant! Plenty of listening (when I get a chance) there

@Bartelby, I just assumed people would be against it in general as in certain musical circles I have found a certain amount of snobbery when in regards to programmed tracks.

[dbass]

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJxWLY6qKZY"]Lordaeron - Homeage to The Hermit[/url]

This is my original band Lordaeron and our drummer recorded the drums to that track live but as you can see uses an electric drum kit bass pad instead of a bass drum. This is and him figuring new techniques have allowed him to go so fast whilst allowing the bass drum to cut through the mix with the triggered sound.

We play with a few bands without drummers but I find it just lacks the punch and "feel" live (Yes, feel in death metal). However one of my favourite bands "The Project Hate" have used programmed drums for quite a few albums and I've never minded it in that format. Just not live.