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I'm looking for a solution to put "real sounding" drums on my DAWless bedroom recording setup.
Anyone who works like this? What do you use? Drum machine? Which one? Sampler + sequencer? Which ones?
Do I have to get an Akai MPC Live or AKAI MPC X? Is there something else out there?

There's a cool guy on Youtube who uses a drum machine on his phone to record live to a 4-track. You might be able to find a good app for a phone that lets you replace real drum samples and then use recorded kits. There are hundreds of free kits online that sound totally realistic. You could program and sequence the arrangement for each song and then track live if you wanted.

Here's the video..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ER2batcg4

Yeah the app he was using has a pretty broad variety of kits available...here you go!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP6vRENVv5E

Thanks for that reply. I'll check out those videos in a minute.
I actually have a drum machine on my iPhone, and while the drum sounds in it sound pretty good, the app doesn't allow me to load new sounds. Plus working on an iPhone isn't the most practical thing with it being so small and all.
So I'm still looking at hardware solutions.
There's a second hand Akai sample player I can get - the MPX16 - that'll allow me to load a lot of drums into, but that means I still need a sequencer to program the rhythms. And I'm not sure what sequencer to get. Hardware sequencers these days seems to be geared towards synth music, not programming rock type drum stuff.

What are you recording into? Something like the Zoom R24, which has an onboard drum machine with sequencing, might be a way to go that would be cheaper than getting a drum machine and then having to get a sequencer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qvAacB3ZUQ

I have a Zoom R8. It does have drums and a "sort of drum machine", but not in the usual sense.
Usually one would program a couple of rhythm patterns in a drum machine, like verse, chorus. But for it to not sound completely monotonous I would also program a couple of variations of those and also some fill patterns. So all in all a song might consist of perhaps a dozen patterns (probably a lot more) chained together to form a song.
But on the R8/24 machines you have to assign one pattern to a specific track, meaning that in this example I'd end up using 12 tracks. Since I only have 8 tracks ...

But thanks for your reply, Julius. I'm going to check out those videos you linked and see if I get some ideas.

The MPC is the best for this. you'll probably spend a while finding a set of samples you trust but from there all the ways you can manipulate the sounds based on velocity are designed to create realistic sounds. put all the velocity parameters on the ride cymbal and use note repeat for example.

Thanks.
Yes, I'm beginning to think that the MPC will be the way to go.

Not sure if you have an iPad floating around but there are a shit load of good rhythm tools available there, some of which also have cousins that work on the iPhone. For the price of a low end iPad plus $30 bucks you can have some really good electronic to realistic sounds, with full programming options. I've been at this recording stuff for 30 years, and it's shocking how little you have to spend these days.

Thanks for your reply.

I do have an iPad actually, but I really want to have some hardware stuff with physical buttons - velocity sensitive buttons - to work with.
I also haven't been able to find an app that allows me to program drum patterns with different velocity inputs in an easy manner.
If you know of any I'd love to hear about them, and then perhaps I could give my iPad a second chance.

Based on my incomplete experience, give Beatmaker a look. It has the depth of a proper DAW for programming and selecting sounds. I get wanting tactile controls. That said, at least the iPad get you some of the way there relative to trying to mouse it on a computer screen. There's also a pretty powerful MPC app too. Might help you decide if you want a hardware MPC. I kind of gave up on hardware drum machines some time back. I've got a Drumbrute now but largely use it as an analog sound source.

In case anyone here cares, Beatmaker 3 is free during NAMM. I think it's $20 normally. If you have any recent iPad there's no reason not to download it as fast as possible. No connection to the company, just sharing the news.

burpgun wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:43 pm

In case anyone here cares, Beatmaker 3 is free during NAMM. I think it's $20 normally. If you have any recent iPad there's no reason not to download it as fast as possible. No connection to the company, just sharing the news.

Hey thanks for pointing this out! I downloaded it, works very smoothly this will be the app that keeps me busy when traveling from now on.