ToonTrack Shoegaze drums

[budda12ax7]

I love my EZ drummer, but am having a hard time finding the right drums for shoegaze...I have quite a few expansion packs and a ton of midi packs.
I'm looking for that skip beat...any ideas??? Also...it's like the Flock of Seagulls "I Ran" drum beat but slowed down...I don't want to to use loops but maybe I should for this project

see video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6gDb8JlBkQ

[Plumerai]

I used to record/sample beats from songs I like & then loop it. If you're lucky there's a bit of song with just the drums.

[Professor Bill]

I was using ToonTrack for a bit and found that it's easy enough to find a beat you like well enough and then edit the midi track to taste. Drag your cursor across the track and figure out which dot is the snare. You can adjust the snare hit (or move it to another snare sound, increase or decrease the velocity, &c.) to where you like it, then you can cut and paste to repeat that bar. I found that editing the midi tracks became an engrossing task all on its own. Hours of fun, actually.

[budda12ax7]

I was using ToonTrack for a bit and found that it's easy enough to find a beat you like well enough and then edit the midi track to taste. Drag your cursor across the track and figure out which dot is the snare. You can adjust the snare hit (or move it to another snare sound, increase or decrease the velocity, &c.) to where you like it, then you can cut and paste to repeat that bar. I found that editing the midi tracks became an engrossing task all on its own. Hours of fun, actually.

Thanks for the tip, will try

[Dr. Ooh]

I went down the midi drum road for a while, and just ended up not being happy with it, for both writing songs and regular jamming.

The way to go is real recorded drums. Loop Loft, Yurt Rock, and Drum Drops have been my go-to’s, along with a few drum loop packs from splice, which I think are Sample Magic and Zenhiser.

Sample Magic and Drum Drops have shoegaze drum packs. Loop Loft and Yurt Rock have really great Indie drums, which work well for shoegaze. There are also some great in between packs for dream pop and I think they call it dreamgaze.

Between those options, I always have great drums to write or jam with. Sometimes I can build a full song with the loops, sometimes not. If not, I use them to get the general idea down, then hire a drummer to record the song, custom.

[budda12ax7]

I went down the midi drum road for a while, and just ended up not being happy with it, for both writing songs and regular jamming.

The way to go is real recorded drums. Loop Loft, Yurt Rock, and Drum Drops have been my go-to’s, along with a few drum loop packs from splice, which I think are Sample Magic and Zenhiser.

Sample Magic and Drum Drops have shoegaze drum packs. Loop Loft and Yurt Rock have really great Indie drums, which work well for shoegaze. There are also some great in between packs for dream pop and I think they call it dreamgaze.

Between those options, I always have great drums to write or jam with. Sometimes I can build a full song with the loops, sometimes not. If not, I use them to get the general idea down, then hire a drummer to record the song, custom.

yea...I have a ton of loops from when I switched to a 100 percent digital recording DAW and interface, but I always felt not in control of the loops..unless I was using construction kits or stems...I guess that works too. I like in Studio One/Toon Track you can assign individual tracks for each drum.

[Dr. Ooh]

I went down the midi drum road for a while, and just ended up not being happy with it, for both writing songs and regular jamming.

The way to go is real recorded drums. Loop Loft, Yurt Rock, and Drum Drops have been my go-to’s, along with a few drum loop packs from splice, which I think are Sample Magic and Zenhiser.

Sample Magic and Drum Drops have shoegaze drum packs. Loop Loft and Yurt Rock have really great Indie drums, which work well for shoegaze. There are also some great in between packs for dream pop and I think they call it dreamgaze.

Between those options, I always have great drums to write or jam with. Sometimes I can build a full song with the loops, sometimes not. If not, I use them to get the general idea down, then hire a drummer to record the song, custom.

yea...I have a ton of loops from when I switched to a 100 percent digital recording DAW and interface, but I always felt not in control of the loops..unless I was using construction kits or stems...I guess that works too. I like in Studio One/Toon Track you can assign individual tracks for each drum.

In that case, the DrumDrops shoegaze drums is worth checking out. They have stereo mix, stems, and multitrack versions. And there are multiple variations and multiple patterns. So there is a lot of customization capability. I tend to start out with just the stereo mixes, and if I build a full song around the drum track, when it’s time to mix, I’ll then change out to the multitrack files, to have full control of the mix.

It is definitely less control than midi drums. And it’s definitely much easier to start out with the drums, and write around the drum parts, rather than what is most natural, writing the guitar parts and then customizing the drums to work with the guitar writing. But doing it that way a lot of times inspires me to play new things and in new ways. So it’s definitely a trade-off.

Hiring a remote session player is also worth a good thought. There are some really great drummers available, with great rooms, great gear, and great pricing. I think that’s worth looking into as well.

[budda12ax7]

Thanks....really good ideas...

[jorri]

might be more about the effects, like gated reverb and such. i just use alt rock, and mix it but it is intentionally towards something that it less to imitate other shoegaze drums. i layer up with a linn or other electronic drums a lot with other free plugins (more cocteau twins), but they do have a post-rock kit on EZX and to me the sound you posted is something that sounds pretty familiar to the post-rock genre (isn't it a hybrid, really?) so maybe that's up your street

[budda12ax7]

might be more about the effects, like gated reverb and such. i just use alt rock, and mix it but it is intentionally towards something that it less to imitate other shoegaze drums. i layer up with a linn or other electronic drums a lot with other free plugins (more cocteau twins), but they do have a post-rock kit on EZX and to me the sound you posted is something that sounds pretty familiar to the post-rock genre (isn't it a hybrid, really?) so maybe that's up your street

I will check that out, but it's the actual beat i'm looking for. Great idea though....thank you.

[nightgolf]

might be more about the effects, like gated reverb and such. i just use alt rock, and mix it but it is intentionally towards something that it less to imitate other shoegaze drums. i layer up with a linn or other electronic drums a lot with other free plugins (more cocteau twins), but they do have a post-rock kit on EZX and to me the sound you posted is something that sounds pretty familiar to the post-rock genre (isn't it a hybrid, really?) so maybe that's up your street

I will check that out, but it's the actual beat i'm looking for. Great idea though....thank you.

this is REALLY cool dude, congrats. what midi packs/etc did you use for the drums?

[UlricvonCatalyst]

I will check that out, but it's the actual beat i'm looking for. Great idea though....thank you.

At the risk of stating the obvious....do you know any drummers who can write drum notation? At the risk of generalising I think that skill is more prevalent among drummers than other rock/pop players, maybe because more of them have had tuition from beginner level.

Anyway, if you know someone who could transcribe the beat in question for you it should be simple to programme into your DAW. The key would be the level of quantise you'd need (i.e. 1/16, 1/32, 1/64). As someone else said, figuring out which midi note is which drum allows you to rearrange existing patterns from EZDrummer to your own preferred groove.

Not sure what DAW you use, but in Cubase, if you go into the EZDrummer pattern, click select all, set quantise to 1/16th, and select 'fixed length' from the MIDI menu it's a lot easier to see what's going on with the drum rhythm.

[budda12ax7]

The drum beat is the Flock of Seagulls "I Ran" beat.....i'm obsessed with it.