From mkolmar@ccs.nslsilus.orgSat Apr 8 17:59:25 1995 Date: Sat, 8 Apr 1995 10:39:26 -0500 (CDT) From: Mark Kolmar To: Machine Media Cc: STEPHEN NIMMONS , analogue@hyperreal.com Subject: Re: Drum machine On Fri, 7 Apr 1995, Machine Media wrote: > Next big question, what main drum machine do you want?? Are you making HARD > acid or hard acid HOUSE?? A lot of people with MIDI set-ups go for > Roland R-8's but I don't :) Buy either an 808 or a 909. If you want the ACID(tm) sound instead of just making hard acid music, you might just be better off with an 808 or 909. The sound pallette may be restrictive, however, as your horizons expand. (Don't flame me--but I'm a digital boy at heart :) No drum machine is capable of sounding as good or as crappy as the Roland R-8. Badly programmed, the result is the worst of both worlds: Stiffly played "realistic" drum sounds. [Draw an analogy to the DX7: You have to know how to program it, which requires (or is at least aided by) an understanding of the principles involved, and some time behind the wheel. The DX7 is quite powerful and flexible, but I swear next time I hear that friggin' Tine Piano I'm gonna...] The R-8 can be an unusually subtle and lively rhythm-generator, however. Record in real-time or step-time or both. The velocity, nuance(timbre), pitch (+/- 10 cents), panning, decay and timing of every event can be edited in real-time or step-time also. [So you could record a high-hat pattern in step-time, then change the micro-timing, pitch and nuance(timbre) by grabbing a slider in real-time.] You can also change parameters in real-time during playback with MIDI controls, but only a total of 4 machine-wide. Several sound cards are (were?) available. One includes some very tweakable 808 sounds, and another some 909 sounds. (I forget what else was on the card with the 909 samples, but to me it was a pretty weak card overall despite the smattering of 909 sounds.) Since there is only one ROM slot, you can't use the 808 and 909 sounds at the same time. One general observation about the R-8 is that the decays on just about all the sounds are way too long from the factory. Tweaking this kind of stuff was the first thing I did. A lot of the drums don't have MIDI note numbers pre-assigned but you can fully edit the MIDI note -> drum. Another thing is the "groove" feature is of limited usefulness. Except it'll let you randomize velocity, nuance, and I think decay which is helpful. However for some perverse reason you cannot randomize micro-timing... In tests, though, the R-8's timing is actually sloppier than just about any other drum machine, and in fact it's sloppier than some human drummers! Another trick I use is to pan the left and right outputs just slightly inward from hard left and hard right. The slight phasing/comb-filtering that results adds some punch/kick/bite & life. If you use internal patterns, you can layer two or more sounds to, in effect, create new ones. Most of the drums consist of two samples--you set the nuance to change the balance between the two samples. For a kick drum, let's say, one sample would emphasize the pedal striking the drum and one would emphasize the resonance of the drum. So you could basically use the attack of one drum and the decay of another. By the way this doesn't work over MIDI--because MIDI is serial and even if one note on happens at 1.000 and the other note on happens at 1.000 they don't arrive at the drum machine at exactly the same time. Internally they do trigger at the same time. If one could import samples and the box did real-time percussion synthesis it would be the ultimate. As it is I highly recommend the box. I also use drum samples on an Emax II (which has synthesis and resonant filters!), but the interface on the drum machine is more suited to rhythm programming.