There was a time when I referred to myself as a drum purist. I hated the sound of processed drums and electronic drums and I especially harbored great disdain for the “Drum Loop”. I could smell them a mile away when I heard songs on the radio and I looked down my nose thinking that the engineer/producer either didn’t have the time or talent to add a live/real drum track to the song. Well I’ve changed my tune recently and I’ll tell you why.

In my studio I have a very nice set of Pearl drums and I can play well enough to lay down tracks for a demo song. I had been doing just that for a while, but as time began to get more and more of a rare commodity I found that getting a live drum track was just not feasible. Not only did I have to learn a part, I also (as engineer) had to set up a battery of microphones in order to capture the sound of the full set and then process the tracks with EQ/compression etc, to get the right tone.  I also got a few jobs that came into the studio that required me to play outside of my ability and outside of the sound of my set – hard rock with a big layered sound. I needed a solution.

My solution came to me because I started to look closely at the ads for drum sample engines: the kind that are plug-ins for a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). I use Pro Tools in my studio and so I was attracted by the ads for drum engines that were RTAS (real time audio suite) compatible. I looked at a few of them and settled on one called EZDrummer (www.toontrack.com) for it’s affordability and  ultimately for the quality of its sample sounds.

Now I don’t want to go into a review of EZDrummer or its big brother Superior Drummer because I’m not endorsing either. What I am endorsing is the concept that drum sample engines have come a long way in the past 5 years to the point where I don’t mind listening to an instance of one on a commercial pop song or a demo recording.

What is it that has made today’s drum sample engines different? First of all the samples are excellent and the midi files that trigger the samples are played by top-flight studio musicians. The midi files are also tweaked in such a way by the producers to make them sound and feel like a human is playing them. Samples are triggered at different velocities to mimic a player’s inaccuracies that give a groove its ‘feel’. Every tim a human hits a drum it sound different because a human never hits the skin/rim/stick in exactly the same place/way every time. Timing is also tweaked so the track doesn’t sound like a robot is playing. When you look closely at the track you can see that some of the triggers are put slightly off the beat like a when a drummer slightly drags the beat or lays back (except that mine would be laid way off the beat…).

Most drum samplers come with a large selection of grooves and fills that you can be combined seamlessly and are played in the same style. So if the groove is playing the ride cymbal the fill coming out of it also uses the ride so that it doesn’t abruptly switch and make it sound like the drummer grew another appendage. The sample libraries also encompass a wide range of genre specific grooves such as: Latin, Country, Rock, etc, so you are sure to find some groove that fits your song style.

So how do I use my drum sampler? One of the simplest things I use it for is a better metronome. If I’m laying down a scratch track on guitar or even if I’m just practicing, it is much better to play to a drum beat than it is to play to a sterile sounding CLICK-click-click-click. I also use the groove styles as inspiration. Sometimes I have a chord progression idea but there’s just no motion to it. I go through the sample library and choose a groove and start playing around the groove. It’s amazing what comes out.

The most amazing thing that has emerged is how I use the sampler to construct a drum track for a song arrangement. After I’ve finished writing a song and I can play it through as a solo piece I begin mapping out a demo arrangement. A demo arrangement for me is usually guitars, voices, bass and piano/organ.

I start out by laying down a scratch guitar track over a groove from the sampler (usually one that I will ultimately use in the song). I then go back and insert the fills and change the groove for the intro, verses, choruses and bridge. After I have the drum track completed I mute the scratch guitar and add the bass, really zeroing in on the kick drum from the sampled drum track. I often get great bass groove ideas from listening to the kick that comes from the groove library. With the bass and drum track locked in I can then add the guitar-piano and finally the voice and other instruments. But it all centers around the drum samples I assembled from the groove library.

So don’t be ashamed of using sampled drums in your songs. With the quality and wide range of sample styles and grooves listeners will be hard pressed to tell whether it’s live or it’s sampled.

Here are some websites of sample engines:

www.toontrack.com – EZDrummer
www.fxpansion.com – BFD

Here are some examples of my songs using the drum sampler EZDrummer. Can you tell if the drums are live or sampled? Leave a comment, let me know what you think.

Peace,

~ Darryl