acoustic vs electronic drums

I play in a 50's and 60's band and decided to record an homemade cd. I want the drum kit to sound natural. I am able to mike my kit and get a decent sound. Then, the drummer tells me he just bought a Yamaha DTExpress IV electronic drums and would like to use it instead of my acoustic kit. I never worked with an electronic drum kit. Will I be able to get a natural sounding drum sound out of it?

Of course, I'd really like to be able to record the drums in midi and be able to correct the performance at will... but I already invested in a better set of overheads...

What are your thoughts about electronic drumsets? Anything to say about the DTExpress IV?

agreed with philip - someone who has never played an electronic kit may have a hard time transitioning, but it can be done if you do it then you have much more control over the sound than with an acoustic kit - at least in the respect of being able to change the sounds to different kit sounds with samples.

for someone who's never used one - it will take a lot of work to get used to because you don't hear them the same as you do an acoustic. it's completely different from the drummer's perspective.

of course, it's not ever going to sound the same as a good acoustic set live.

ORIGINAL: skullsession

ORIGINAL: fgelinas

Will I be able to get a natural sounding drum sound out of it?

Nope. You'll always be able to tell there are samples being played instead of live drums.

Which of course in certain cases can be a good thing...

Funnily enough I'm always trying to get close but as Skull says you'll always be able to tell but I just posted this on the songs forum today which is a midi version of the drums and bass from 'Close to the Edge' as a result of my pursuit toward narrowing the gap.

Let me tell you my programming here exceeds my ability to have played the same part and I used to play for a living...

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1616080

This is a custom built sample kit using several NN-XT samplers in Reason

ORIGINAL: skullsession

Yah....you know what? Painfully obvious samples.....

Yah....and ya know?...just as there are some painfully wooden players, I see you've opted for a few of those......

Ahh, I see yes of course drum machines don't pay you studio fees, so it's gotta be worth telling even the most fundamental rookie what a 'great feel' he has then he'll come back for more.

Each to their own is the best bet. I reckon

I didn't get any more personal than parodying your style.

And you'll see if you look up that was my original point, whereas at the time you seemed to blanket state samples were no good nothing more...

ORIGINAL: skullsession

You'll always be able to tell there are samples being played instead of live drums.

I'm not sure that's really the issue. Honestly, I'm not sure it even makes sense.

Is the issue the sound of the drums, or the playing of a drum part?

If it's the drum part, then it takes either careful programming or skilled drumming, like JTEC said.

If the issue is the drum sound, there's no such thing as the sound of "live drums" in a recording, only the sound of drums recorded more or less well, and mixed more or less appropriately,

In the context of a record, "live drums" -- as opposed to "live drummer" -- doesn't mean anything, just like "live vocal" or "live guitar amp" doesn't mean anything. It's all recorded. It's all sampled. None of it is "live." Even the engineer and the producer are less concerned with the "live" sound that what comes out of the studio monitors. That's all that matters.

From that point of view, well produced drum samples, carefully selected for a project, should *sound* as good as the "live drums" did when they were sampled. And they will still *sound* good no matter how poorly they're MIDIed or triggered by a live *drummer*.

When these distinctions get obscured, too much of the process remains mystified and bad paths are gone down.

No one asked if the sounds would be "good". I never said that samples couldn't SOUND GOOD....just that it is usually obvious when they are being used.

This isn't a question of insulting someone's preference for sampled sounds over the use of a real drum kit. I didn't mean for it to sound that way. I listen to music with either or both all of the time. The question the OP had was, will my electronic kit sound "natural". It seemed the question revolved around the decision to use a real drum kit or the electronic kit.

If you want your drums to sound "natural", then the decision is easy to me. Maybe my mistake is in assuming that "natural" means a "real drum kit played by a living drummer at the time of the recording." And it's not a question of "good" vs "bad" sound - rather nuance.

Hit a snare once. Hit it 5 times in rapid succession, and the sound will be different from the single hit. Hit a tom hard once. Hit it soft, and then hit it hard immediately after that......there are nuances there that you can't possibly "program". When the shell of a drum is resonating from a previous hit, the next hit is always affected in a way that is directly related to the dynamic if the previous hit. THESE are the nuances that are not captured by firing off samples on (or off) a grid.

Is there any argument that a "live" ride cymbal has nuance to it which is not possible with triggered electronic samples?

Bill Clinton - "It depends on what your definition of 'IS', is."

I'm gonna hang with Skullsession on this one. I've recorded V-drums and various other electronic drum systems here in the past. I don't remember ever thinking, "gee I can't tell the difference". It's not so much an issue of the quality of the samples themselves (the single hit sounds) but the nuance of the overall performance.

What style of music are we talking about? Some form of nu-metal/techno? Blues? Jazz? Grunge? Britney Spears Pop? In many cases, that sort of artificial, machine-like quality is perfect (or even necessary). But there are plenty of other scenarios where that would never pass muster. Try it and see is the best answer. Do a song and then sit back and listen and decide for yourself.

What Larry just said . . .

and also for recording you could try mix and match - use a natural snare and hi hat and then electronic pads to trigger some of the other sounds. I just wish some drummers wouldn't use cymbals quite so much!

Andy

Is there any argument that a "live" ride cymbal has nuance to it which is not possible with triggered electronic samples?

No one had any argument with that and it wasn't a puerile case of 'who's hanging with who' or 'who's side are you on' as far as I knew.

My point had already been made in that sometimes resorting to programming or using electronic drums is a better bet than having it played OR recorded....BADLY. There wasn't an issue with your original statement, in fact if you read mine you'll see I completely agreed with you.

You've only got to read back through the thread in the order it unfurled in all honesty in order to see why it took a swerve!

Much like the local hairdresser regularly shampooing the old lady's hair you gotta be nice to your clients I ain't knocking that its an honest living, but I'll bet after you've spent 3 days setting somebody up that can't play when you know you could have laid down a convincing track in a couple of hours that you find it really hard to bite your tongue on occasion, I'll even venture to suggest you have some hilarious memories of some real 'prize' ones.

Like I said its down to who's paying and who's the payee in this case as it's not likely you are stand by your admirable ideals of getting the very best quality when you are gonna lose a weeks worth of paid time by doing so. Surely you'd go broke.

So why is stating that them samples sound 'painfully obvious' any less personal than saying someone sounds like they would be better served resorting to other means than taking up studio time?

You have a valid point that I agreed with at the outset and still do.

But like I said sometimes using mechanical means can be a better bet....as long as you are calling the tune.

I like to record live drums then use a drum-replacement program such as "Drumagog" to replace the kick & snare. So the overheads and tom mics which are real are now mixed with replacement kick & snare. The overall sound is pretty good because the overheads pick up some of the kick and snare as well as the drumagog sample. I've never used electronic drums or midi. Not sayin that those programs are bad, I just don't use them. www.drumagog.com.
Tom.

The question was: "Will I be able to get a natural sounding drum sound out of it?" The word "It" is refering to the electronic kit.

I suppose it might be possible, but obviously if you record acoustic drums with real mics in a room, you will get that "natural" sound. With the electronic kit there is a very legitamate question whether that can be achieved or not. So I guess it is a matter of taste. Experiment and use what sounds good to you.

I know no one asked my personal opinion, but if they did, I would say...

As an engineer I feel a certain amount of pride and accomplishment when I achieve sounds through old fashioned hard work. I feel better about myself and my abilities when I actually use them and am able to get decent results. If I were to use an electronic kit for drums, I would feel as though I cheated or something. I of course use samples to replace kick drum every so often, but when I do, 90% of the time I created the sample myself from that very kick drum. I use Drumagog for that.

But is extremely rare that I would use any replacement on anything else. I figure I will learn more and gain more knowledge by "biting the bullet", "facing the music" or whatever and challenging myself to get usable results without using machines to do it for me.

Anyway, my opinion is unique to my case I and I am aware that it will not fit with many engineers philosophy. Please know I do not mean to say my way of thinking is the only right way. I just mean to say that is the right way for my and I gave my reason why. So please do not be offended.

so to the OP's question, will it sound "natural", if by that you mean authentic, then yes you would need real drums to get an authentic sound. if you mean, can you get close, well you can with an electronic kit.

i think i said this before but i'll make it really short and to the point:

bad room + real drums = don't bother.

ORIGINAL: fgelinas

I play in a 50's and 60's band and decided to record an homemade cd. I want the drum kit to sound natural. I am able to mike my kit and get a decent sound. Then, the drummer tells me he just bought a Yamaha DTExpress IV electronic drums and would like to use it instead of my acoustic kit. I never worked with an electronic drum kit. Will I be able to get a natural sounding drum sound out of it?

Of course, I'd really like to be able to record the drums in midi and be able to correct the performance at will... but I already invested in a better set of overheads...

What are your thoughts about electronic drumsets? Anything to say about the DTExpress IV?

If you're playing in a 50's and 60's band why not use what you already have? Especially if you're doing covers with a lot of conservatism. Personally, I wouldn't mind hearing Rock Around The Clock with a Jazz Bass à la Geddy Lee.

well I haven't added my 2 cents in a while, and what a wonderful opportunity to embarass myself - as someone said the weak link in sampled percussion is the hi-hat (and much of latin percussion) - when I first became a drummer (yes, before e-drums, and when the only sampler out there was the mellotron) it took a while to get over the fact that what I heard when I was behind the kit (the 'natural' sound) didn't match up with what I heard on playback. I have yet to hear a recording of anyone playing live that sounds anything like the real 'natural' sound. Someone pointed out that engineers monkey with the sound so that its all, in a sense, sampled. I agree, because that's what engineers and mastering is all about, making the track sound 'good' without regard to 'naturalness'. That being said, I also agree that you can sometimes tell when a drum track has not been played by a real drummer because of various subtleties (although, if you have enough drummers together: see Concert for Bangladesh). I disagree that you can always tell a midi-only piece from a 'live' performance, but even so, who cares? Does the song sound good? That's all that matters... and to the OP - yes, if your drummer is any good, it is possible to record e-drums and make it sound as close to a-drums as you want it to be. Personally, I use e-drums to free myself from the limitations of a-drums, but that's just me... I'd like to think there's room for it all in the musical world... otherwise there would be no death metal or gangsta rap... and wouldn't that be a shame?

ORIGINAL: serauk

- as someone said the weak link in sampled percussion is the hi-hat (and much of latin percussion)

Just so that my original thought is clear... my comment isn't to the point of the samples quality, it's to the point of playability. Very difficult to get a great performance from e-drum hats. And to attempt to do so takes so much concentration that the rest of the performance suffers, IME. IOW it doesn't flow like a real kit does in performance.