[ddots-l] Re: Your Vote for most Accessible Drum Machine
- From: "Grant" <flybynight@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 17:16:37 -0500
Hello,
I am curious about the superior drummer. I have not tried this yet, but went
and read about it. How accessible is it out of the box? What outboard gear
is needed to make it work the easiest? Thanks,
Grant
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Mike Tyo
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 11:28 PM
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Your Vote for most Accessible Drum Machine
Hey there Bill and List,
To tell you the truth, I moved away from drum machines when I began using
Sonar - especially when I was able to get into the Superior Drummer plug.
Obviously the accessibility factor in Sonar, along with Phil's HSC set for
Superior Drummer kind of put the nail in the coffin for the drum machine. I
had several units over time; but as with most hardware gear, the newer the
units, the less accessible they became - at least in my experience. I used
Roland and Boss instruments ranging from the TR-909, R-8, up to the Boss
DR-660, DR 770, and their flagship at the time, the Dr-880. I may be
slightly off with those numbers on the Boss products; the bottom line was
that each one of those units presented their own challenges. Some machines
sounded better than others, but when I began dealing with things like
Superior drummer, I realized very quickly that the sound quality was so much
more realistic in terms of getting closer to a live drummer being in the
studio.
This is certainly not a criticism of drum machines as they have their place.
I liked the sound of the DR-880, but compared to what's out there now, it's
hard not to notice. The R-8 was certainly no slouch in its time as it had a
fairly decent internal library of sounds; plus you could purchase ROM
libraries for it. I liked the sound of some of the Alesis and Yamaha boxes,
but I didn't work with them; so I can't speak to their accessibility.
When I was a Concert Artist for Technics Musical Instruments back in the
'90s, I was able to take advantage of their built-in accompaniment features
to create styles to use in whatever songs I was using in my performances.
That meant that I could build drum parts, plus other background patterns
that would follow my chord changes. It really enhanced what I was able to do
live without having to build tracks. This way I could use these styles on
several songs without having to create tracks for specific songs. I really
miss being able to do this for live performances nowadays. It turned out to
be a time saver as I could plug these styles in where I needed them; and, I
did it on one instrument. For me, I like having flexibility when it comes to
live performances; and unfortunately you don't have that with tracks.
Sometimes I have guest musicians sit in when I'm working at the local
restaurant. I can't transpose tracks on-the-fly, where as I could with
styles because they just followed my chord changes.
It took time to create the styles, but once I had them, it was a beautiful
thing. It takes a lot longer to do tracks because you have to not only do a
decent job with the creativity part of it, but you also need to make sure
those mixes sound good in the live gear. I thought about using loop
stations, but again, you're limited in what you can do on-the-fly. When I
owned the DR-880, I was hoping I could do some of what I used to do with the
Technics instruments, but between the accessibility problems and the
limitations of the instrument, that idea more or less went out the window.
So I guess I'm stuck with doing tracks if I want enhancements to my
performances. Otherwise I have to consider using live musicians. Not a
problem there; except that they need to be paid for their hard work. In my
area, that can be a bit of a challenge as most places don't want to pay
decent money for good entertainment.
I don't know if that answers the original question satisfactorily, but I
couldn't resist sharing this bit of experience.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill <mailto:billlist1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2015 16:38
Subject: [ddots-l] Your Vote for most Accessible Drum Machine
A blind musician who is not subscribed to this list asked me to ask you:
Which drum machine do you consider to be most accessible to a blind user?
I myself do not own a drum machine and I really have no idea.
Thanks,
Bill
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