Bob Oister


v
jamesyoyo:
 
Hey, James,
 
How's it going, buddy?  I'm truly glad to see that things are starting to get back to normal for you after Superstorm Sandy!
 
Thanks again for your valuable input and observations, as well as your very kind offer to work with me on a drum track.  I truly appreciate your offer, but I'm a DIY guy who feels like I'll never learn to get better if I have someone do my work for me.
 
Do you possibly have a any specific suggestions that would be useful for me to try to humanize the drums a bit better?
 
Remember, I am not a drummer, I'm a guitar player just trying to learn to create something that works for my songs!  My process as I explained above to Mark, is to try to bang out what I hear in my head (kick, snare and hats first), on my Yamaha pads or lately more often, my M-Audio Keyrig midi controller, and then try to find a section where I'm keeping a fairly steady beat, then quantize it and turn it into a groove clip that I can stretch out for sections of the song.  Then I add in the fills and cymbals, etc., and then after a few good suggestions from several very accomplished "real" drummers here on the forum (about a year and a half ago), I use groove quantize to mess up the velocity and timing a bit to try to humanize the sections.  At the time that I first tried the groove quantize suggestion, I received several PMs and forum posts saying that it was a major improvement, so I really thought I was on the right track.  As for the actual drum "sound", I've actually had several "real" drummers and producers who purchased my CD ask me how I eq-ed and processed my drum tracks to get such a full, punchy drum sound to fit within the thick wall of distorted guitars that I use, so once again, LOL, I thought I was doing something right.  If you might have any other ideas or suggestions for me to try to improve these results, I'm always willing to try anything to learn to improve my recording, mixing and production skills, and would greatly appreciate any specific advice you might be able to offer.  I've resolved myself to the fact that that digital recording and production is a never ending, constantly flowing and changing learning process and I'm always hungry to learn and try new techniques and ideas.
 
Thanks again for checking in on this, and also for all of your great help, input and support on my stuff in the past, I've truly learned a ton about mixing from your very specific ideas and advice here in the past few years, and I consider your input invaluable!
 
Best wishes, James!
Bob
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There is nothing wrong with the way you are doing it, Bob. But a little different approach could service your songs better. Your stuff is not at all oddball in terms of meter or feel, so I am kinda wondering why you just don't buy some real good rock midi loops and tweak them, instead of starting from scratch. Then you have the real feel of a drummer and it also allows you to put your touches to it. Since you are an awesome guitarist and singer, but self-described as not a drummer, why not concentrate on what you're good at?



Food for thought. Keep rocking, bro.

jamesyoyo:
 
 
Hey, James,
 
Thanks for coming back to this one, and for your extremely kind words and ideas, I really appreciate all of the great input you always provide!
 
Basically, there are two reasons I'd rather do the drums the way I am, even if it's a little awkward for me.  Number one, coming from a background of decades of "live" playing on real instruments, I can't wrap my head around how a loop would sound more "real" than actually trying to play the part on pads or the midi controller.  I understand that you mean loops by professional drummers and that they can be manipulated to a certain degree, but somehow, I feel that's almost like not participating in the creation of your own song, if you're not actually playing the parts yourself.
 
The second reason is that I can't imagine trying to auditions thousands of loops trying to find something that comes close to what your imagining in your head for a specific part of a song.  To me, it just seems much easier to try to bang it out what I'm hearing in my head on the midi controller or pads, even though my drumming skill level is nowhere near that of an actual drummer.
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to people using loops and I know that much of today's very successful modern music is constructed that way, it's just that when it comes to producing my own music, I'm a bit old school, and would rather be "physically" involved in the entire process.
 
Thanks again for all the great advice, ideas and help that you always provide here on the forum.  It's been a great help to me during this never ending, ongoing learning process, and I really appreciate your friendship and support.
 
Have a great night, buddy!
Bob
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No problem, Bob. I guess it just comes down to the difference between process and result.

Nice one Bob.
The unique hook idea is way cool.
I do agree with James on the drums though. In particular the kik. 

Bob, I can see what you mean about the drums.  I use EZDrummer, because I'm no drummer either (well, I actually DO play the drums now, but I've got a long way to go. Imagine that!  lol)   Anyway, it's not like auditioning thousands of loops.  You have to narrow it down to the style you want, the beat, and even the tempo.  Then there's the chorus, verse, bridge, intro, and outtro loops to choose from.  So...find one that's close to what you want, then tweak away to your heart's content.  But the basic beats are played by a real drummer.  Seriously...you audition a few (or even a few dozen), drag and drop and then tweak to your heart's content.  Heck, I've even learned a few cool beats just analyzing some of the loops.  Obviously there's a learning curve to any drum program, but I know you could handle that, and there are good people right here to help.  :)  

Just some thoughts.  :) 

timidi:
 
 
Hi, Tim,
 
Thanks, buddy, I really appreciate you stopping by on this one and also your kind words and good input!
 
Yep, this is still the original mix, but I've already beefed up the kick drum, as per James suggestion, and also fixed up the little awkward transition that Vicente mentioned.  I'm hoping to get a little time finish it up, export the final mix, convert the MP3 and upload the new mix sometime in the next few days.
 
Thanks again for your input and observations, I'm grateful to you for lending your good ears to this one, have a great night, Tim!
 
Bob
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Janet:
 
 
Hi, Janet,
 
How are you?  Hope you're doing great!
 
Thanks for stopping by again on this one, I really appreciate it!
 
Yep, I know what you mean, I started out with this stuff using the very first Cakewalk Session Drummer that came with Sonar 3, and it came with loops that you would string together in an interface that sort of looked like a checklist and then pointed to a GM softsynth, but if I remember correctly, you couldn't edit the parts in piano roll view.  Then I bought EZ Drummer which came with a bunch, and then Steven Slate which also included a ton from pro drummers.  But, even if I found something relatively close to what I was hearing in my head, it always still took a lot of manual editing in PRV to try to flesh out the original idea, so it just ended up being quicker and easier for me to play the parts on the e-drum pads or midi controller layer by layer to get the basic idea down, and then build on the layers adding the fills and cymbals after getting the main rhythm down.  Then I still have the option of touching things up in the PRV.
 
My main goal is still just to try to get something down close to what I'm hearing playing in my head.  Either way I feel like my drums are light years better than when I first started learning this stuff, thanks to a bunch of great ideas and suggestions from forum members, and hopefully, I'll continue to improve as I keep going!
 
Thanks again for checking it out, and for your friendship and encouragement.  Have a great week, Janet!
 
Bob
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Oh, I'm sorry, Bob.  I wrongly assumed you hadn't tried a drum program yet.  I should have assumed you had.  Carry on.... :)  Like I said, I like your drums.  :) 

 Hi Bob, been away for awhile. I see you are still burning it up man. Great song. Not quite as rocked up as some of your others, still a winner. The voxcals are coming through here well and whatever you do for those harmonys.*( I'm guessing you use Melodyne)...sounds right on.

 Take care and keep on making those...I'll keep listening!

Janet:
 
 
Hi, Janet,
 
Oh, no problem, and thank you again for your kind input!  All this crazy DAW related stuff changes so frequently with new software, plugins, virtual instruments, updates, and etc., it's hard for anybody to keep up with what's on their own computer, let alone somebody else's!
 
Thanks again for always taking time to listen and comment on my stuff, your not only a super piano player and musician, but you're also a wonderful person and one of the nicest people here on the forum!
 
Have a great night!
Bob
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Starise:
 
 
Hey, Tim, How are you, buddy?  It's always great to hear from another PA Musician!
 
Thanks for checking this one out for me and for your very kind words of encouragement!
 
No, I don't have Melodyne (at least not yet), although a few years ago when V-Vocal first came out and the bakers posted a video tutorial about backing harmony, I fiddled with it for awhile, but it seemed to always end up robotic sounding and there were many noticeable artifacts after the process.  Although V-Vocal does seem to work okay for touching up an off note here and there.
 
I usually just end up doing three or four straight takes in a row of the different harmony parts, picking out what sounds best to my ears, and then run them to a BGV bus with Voxengo's Analog Flux Tape-Op saturator, and then the VX-64 Vocal Strip, the TL-64 and then sometimes the Channel Tools plugin.  Sometimes if they really need to be fattened up, I play around with the VX-64's doubler section, but not that often.  Then just a send out to a separate reverb bus and a delay bus, and then the Master Bus.
 
Thanks again for giving this a listen and commenting, Tim, greatly appreciated.  Have a good one, buddy!
 
Bob
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You're right about the changes, Bob....I'm always amazed that you guys can master this stuff!  

And thank you, but I must say you're one of the kindest people here and so good to comment so helpfully on everyone's music.  I hope your job takes advantage of your writing skills.  :)