[ddots-l] Re: Your Vote for most Accessible Drum Machine
- From: "Mike Tyo" <mtyo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 22:49:30 -0500
Hey Mark,
Nice playing there! It kind of reminds me of the sort of stuff I was doing a
while back...And I believe congratulations are in order for your incredible
27-year run at the Hideaway Lounge! I'm not sure how many of us have that sort
of thing going on these days. I had about a 10-year deal with Panasonic Company
as a Technics Musical Instruments Concert Artist; and I've worked various
venues around my area for no more than five or six years max per venue at a
time. Perhaps I'll do better at my current situation; but that's going to
depend on what this economy does.
Anyway, I turned 55 in late December, but I don't think I would consider myself
set in my ways. I will say, however, that I'm comfortable with particular
setups, but if I can take advantage of something that might up the quality of
the presentation, I'll do it. Your sound is a good one; and I liked the vocal
as well. I have a question on your drum box. What is the maximum length that
you can write in a pattern? The newer machines give you up to at least 100 or
more measures. The reason I ask is that if you have the capability of writing
longer than say a 2-measure pattern, you could create them so they don't sound
as obvious when they loop back around. For example, I had an 8-measure
limitation on the Technics instruments; so if I were writing patterns in 4/4
time, I'd write a 7-measure pattern. I discovered that if I did that, you
couldn't tell when the patterns would loop back around as much in the overall
presentation. It didn't matter where the pattern was in time; if I wanted to
hit a fill-in pattern, the machine would switch to it on the next measure - or
if I hit it early enough in a measure, it would switch to it immediately. I
don't know if a lot of the drum machines will give you that flexibility; but I
thought I'd share this with you as I think it would humanize your drums a
little more if you had the means to write subtleties in the patterns. I wanted
to be able to do what you're doing with a Boss DR-660; but you're limited to
2-measure patterns. I want my ride drumming to be a little more human sounding.
Yeah I know; get a live drummer. <grin>
Oh by the way, I liked your guitar as well as it sounded quite realistic.
Hope you have 27 or more years to keep making that money and to continue to
enjoy doing what you do without having to fight with the instruments to get the
sounds you want.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Dew
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2015 15:35
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Your Vote for most Accessible Drum Machine
For studio work and home recording, there are better alternatives other than
using a hard ware drum machine.
However, working live like I do, hard ware Drum machine is the ticket.
I program my own patterns, with the Alesis SR18 machine.
Don't get me wrong, there is a learning curve and that is true for just about
everything.
I work 4 nights a week, doing piano-bar work.
Most of my matterial is performing live with out using midi files.
However, I have slowly interduced midi files in to my performances.
I would say only 10% of my work is midi files.
The Tyros 5 does a great job in this respect.
I am 62 years old and making a living playing music since 1970.
I am set in my ways.
Working live I use the Yamaha P90 digital piano on the bottom and the Tyros 5
on top.
Along with the Roland PK5 midi pedals and the Alesis drum machine, I get
along just fine.
Using the PK5 pedals to play bass, it is midi in to the P90 piano.
The SR18 drum machine sets between the two keyboards, right is front of me.
Each pattern has two parts and 2 drum roll patterns.
So the main pattern has four parts.
Each part, is programable to your specification.
You have 200 pattern slots, to where you can save an user pattern.
I have 60 of these slots, filled with my own patterns that I have created.
If I want pattern 70 for example, I simply press 7 0 on the num pad.
Tap in my tempo, use the foot swich to start, and start playing.
The other foot switch connected to the SR18, switches from pattern 1 2 and
the 2 drum roll patterns.
So here, I have the sustain pedal for the piano in the center, with the
switches for the drum machine on each side.
The on and off for the drum machine on the right and the drum roll on the
left.
Of course, the right foot is what controls these pedal switches.
Programming the SR18 is accessible, however it does take time to understand
the machine.
In most cases, you find a preset that is close to what you are interested in.
Copy it to user slot and from here, you can delete an individual drums sound
in the pattern, reassign a drum to different sound or record a new drum in to
the patterns.
After you are satisfyed with your results, you save the pattern in to one of
the 200 user slots.
The SR18 has on board effects, reverb delay, just to mension a few.
The efects type, can be edited and assigned to each drum sound that is in the
pattern.
Otherwords, the bass drum could be dry, no effects, where you may want a
touch of reverb on the snare.
You can also tune each drum to your liking and stereo panning for each pad is
also available.
Also, there is a pollit of compression that could be assign to a pattern.
These are just a few of the capabilities of the Alesis SR18 drum machine.
Here is a link of a song, just recorded last Saturday at work.
/A customer Dave is doing the vocals.
Playing live, simple but effective
I have been here at the Hideaway lounge, here in St. Louis for 27 years and
working on my 28th.
I believe I have the pdf manual for the SR18.
If anyone would like to have it, send me your personal email.
http://www.markdew.com/music/Any-Time.mp3
Mark
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