That kinda supports the fact that it’ll be a nightmare to actually program surely? - otherwise they wouldn’t need him to play the parts at all (especially as they’re replacing the sounds too!)
His feel is probably pretty key to how it sounds.
I feel that with some clever program and trig conditioning it may not be all that hard to program. Obviously the Digitakt isn’t the best for velocity changes (lack of multi samples, but sample chains could be useful) but I feel like the patterns themselves could be program decently. Scale per track could also make it easier to do the polymetric stuff.
I don’t believe it speaks to the difficulty of programming drums but to the necessity of having a drummer in a live setting for shows. Meshuggah have long been programming their drums as part of the writing process but imagine how put off an audience would be if there was a laptop sitting where the drummer should be, especially a metal audience.
I am quite surprised that no one has mentioned Ghengis Tron. I believe their first two albums, the drums are programmed entirely in fruity loops as they had no drummer. I have not kept up with them so that may have changed now.
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Looking at that interview, you could try writing the drum part for bleed, which is notated on the page, into musescore or something, dump it to midi, and send it to your elektron device. Should give some indication as to how the bass drum parts are timed at least.
I dont think anyone would disagree.
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it would still be a pointless waste of time for him to record them if they’re going to sound exactly like the programmed drums though?
maybe you’re right though, we’d have to ask them I guess!
I think on the earlier albums they had way simpler drums which masked the fact that all the drums were programmed. On the album in question in the drums are much more complex with more fills, would probably be much more obvious to discerning ears.
I think recording after programming lends to the drummer knowing he can pull off the stuff in a live setting. If I correctly recall correctly the meshuggah guys aren’t necessarily local to one another and track stuff separately when writing and then send it to one another electronically. So programming the drums in early writing stages facilitates this I believe. A quick change to a midi sequence is easier on the early writing stages than re recording drum tracks over for little changes.
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Yesss, huge record
Good question: Is there any sort of midi percussion controller that
- Has a good feel
- Can be programmed to contribute some or several MIDI cc changes to modulate whichever parameters on the Elektron box?
By strike velocity, position, pressure on one area…
Bop Pad?
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Meshuggah style bd and snare patterns are easy to make with any drum machine. It’s the cymbals that are kinda tricky if you want them to sound authentic.
edit: maybe I’m missing something here.
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I used a Roland SPD-SX to play the Analog Rytm and Octatrack and it works great. It allows you to play the different tracks with velocity. I’ve tried programming death and black metal drums on the Octatrack and in Ableton Live, but it’s not easy, and I say that as a drummer. You really have to tweak every single note to make it sound good.
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I put the kick on two separate pads. Gives more wiggle room, but (only) occasionally get a phase issue depending on the sample.
I think a big part of what makes a lot of grind/death/technical metal drumming so interesting is the fact that the dynamics are all over the place. Unless you’re Gene Hoglan, hitting drums hard and really fast is going to have a huge effect on the consistency of the dynamics (as well as timing), and it is this that’s so hard to replicate with drum machines, as it’s about more than just randomising velocity or throwing a few random LFOs about, because once you get past about 150bpm, these differences start to get lost.
As @ARVE says, if you want to make your drums sound even remotely similar, you’re going to have to do a lot of detailed editing of every single drum hit and its transient, which is going to get pretty fucking tedious.
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Never saw anything like that before. 15 to 20ms of latency though must be weird for live use. Plus the fact you need to use their mic.
That’s why I hit upon using kick on two pads, otherwise on one pad you’re just hearing transient transient transient…
Danny Carey from Tool likes to talk about Mandala drum pads in interviews:
https://www.synesthesiacorp.com/products
Plenty speedy. I have no experience with them.
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Yes, and round robins, lots of them, to further avoid that artificial “machine-gun” sound
It worked for Steve Albini! Though that was not a laptop, just a Roland 606 I think…
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