I am working on a blues/soul project. I am starting the tracks with BB/RB, doing as much as I can, then taking them to a friend's studio. There are a few reasons. His software is a little better and he knows it better. I can do vocals there much easier. His production ideas are good. Finally, he understands mastering.
A couple of the songs have stops and pushes. RD's don't always handle those well. Yes, I know how to enter them, but some RD's just won't comply. In addition, I need some more fills. So it seems my choices are to use a real drummer for those songs or buy a drum package to play the midi parts. The price of two sessions with a drummer (if I get a bargain) and a software package will be about the same. And recording with a drummer is no easy thing.
So here's my question. Do you have any plugins you recommend. EZ Drummer looks as if it has some good features. There are also some free software packages; anyone have a favorite one of those? Just for clarification, I don't need a hundred variations of each drum. I need a couple of bass drums, a few good snares, some toms, a decent crash and ride, open and close HH.
If the cost is the same.... Personally I would go with software because you can use it from that point on. And you don't have to deal with drummers and their personalities. Also miking a kit isn't a fun thing.
I'm not really up to date on the newest and best drum software so I'm offering some generalities.
With drum software there are two ways... well 3 ways to work. 1 is obviously, using midi and playing it or mousing it in yourself. Downside is you gotta be able to play and understand drums to a certain degree to get realistic, believable tracks.
2 is using loops. You simply select your loops from a bunch of intro's, fills, etc and pop them into the song. I've heard some pretty nicely down and very impressive drum tracks done this way. A bit of time to learn the software and you're golden.
3 is using an AI drummer like Jamstix. It can and will compose a workable part on it's own, given the parameters you select. There's a level of competency required to get this working well.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Drums are the major hangup for lots of home studio folks. They are critical and are mixed hot, in your face. Two good software programs have already been mentioned, EZD and Jamstix. There are others, Studio Drummer for example. There are a ton of vids on YT for all of them. You won't pick it up in a few hours, devote most of a weekend to viewing the how-to vids. Then of course it's what DAW software will you use to host either one?
Real Band can do that and you already have it. But some drum software is exclusive to one software package like Studio Drummer is part of Kontakt meaning you pay about $150 as an add on library but you have to already own a full version of Kontakt which costs from $500-$1,000. DAW software like Cubase, Pro Tools, Studio One etc have drum software built in too but of course you're now buying a full DAW for $400-800, learning it then learning how their drum software works.
Someone mentioned loops. People have been using loops for pretty decent drum tracks for 20 years. There are tons of loop libraries out there and some are free. Biab and RB both work well with loops. You can also take your Real Drum track and do audio editing on it. If you need a fill on bar 15 you can drop a loop in there and EQ it to match the sound of the RD. You can find midi drum tracks and find some good midi fills. The midi can trigger a drum synth for playback only and there are some free drum synths around including a decent sounding drum kit. Of course all of this has a learning curve that you just have to dig in and figure out.
I feel your pain, you know what you want in your head but to really get it you have to make a serious investment. The beauty and frustration of Biab/RB is all the RT/RD's that gets you "almost there" but not quite. Getting over the hump for that last bit can double your cost. Or more.
If you're really serious about this and can afford it then buy a well known and tested software package now and go for it. Trying to do it on the cheap can work to get started but you'll wind up buying the good stuff anyway so you may as well do it now. IF you're really serious.
One final thought. Audio production is a serious industry and people get 4 year college degrees in it. You're not going to get proficient in a month, 6 months or even a year. It takes time but like the old saying goes. a journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step.
Drums are the major hangup for lots of home studio folks.
DAW software like Cubase, Pro Tools, Studio One etc have drum software built in too but of course you're now buying a full DAW for $400-800, learning it then learning how their drum software works.
Then of course... Sonar is now free.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
The free Sonar Herb mentioned has a GREAT built in drummer called Session Drummer that you can as Herb says "mouse your way through"--that is play the virtual kit with a mouse-- to create realistic fills and even secondary tracks (or main tracks if you use no Real Drums.)
I use it all the time and it is super easy. You load a style and kit--like Old Zep Wet Kit--choose what type of fills or patterns you want, then just click on those while the song is playing, recording to a track.
Mixed in with Real Track you will never notice the paste if you EQ them the same.
I think it took all of a half an hour to learn. It really is not that hard at all.
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
I clicked on the Bandlab Assistant, found the down arrow, found Install Addons. A box came up showing the addons. Problem is nothing happens when I click Install.
Maybe they don't give you everything on the free version.
I just installed addons and it worked ok. I almost gave up too as it took awhile until something happened, then a very faint grey flashing download information appeared which could easily be overlooked. Try again.
Thanks, Rockstar. I am going to download the free Jamstix and play with it a bit. But, I have a feeling that I am going to go the same route you did in the end.
Thanks, Rockstar. I am going to download the free Jamstix and play with it a bit. But, I have a feeling that I am going to go the same route you did in the end.
2b
For me, Jamstix was a stepping stone on the road to better drums.
I started by mousing the notes into a midi sequencer. Worked but it was too mechanical and stiff. Not realistic.
Jamstix was AI so it created it's own track automatically by following the audio. However, editing and really tweeking it was a learning curve of it's own. And I only got a few rungs up the ladder compared to some of the folks using it. But it was a more realistic drummer, and it was automatic.
Real Tracks made it even easier and they sounded more realistic since they are in fact a real drummer under it all. Down side to the RT's is they are all essentially in one track so if you want to bring put the snare or the kick for example, you are limited to doing it via EQ and selective compression. It would be nice to have the drum RT's available in multi-track mode. I have used midi and Jamstix at times to fill in the creative gaps left by RT's.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Groove Monkey free package has some decent loops. I use them some times in Reaper. The folder names and file names give good clues to what they are including, and estimated tempo they might be used for. I also created a folder that holds all of the Power Tracks midi drum files, the one used for "Load Scrap". These work well for starters but lack fills and rolls. Here's a short cut you might use. Think of a blues song that is similar to the one you are creating. Download a free midi file from the internet. Drag it into your DAW. Mute or delete unwanted tracks. Make edits in the Piano Roll/Midi Editor. Sometimes I use a midi controller keyboard to manually record my midi fills and other parts onto a new track. Then I mute the adjacent sections on the original track until I feel confident to cut them out and paste in my fills and other parts. Many of the midi files I find for free sound rather cheezy when played back through Windows Media player (computer synth) but when played back using my hardware synth or even SI Drums that came with CakeWalk they come alive better depending on how the file was made. Keep in mind that SI drums is not a full GM/GM2 or GS synth. So it does not have things like shakers and cowbells and many others voices. If those instruments are in the original file you will see them but not hear them. If I feel they are important I copy just those onto another track and choose a separate synth, TTS-1 or hardware for example, just for those instruments. Or, load a similar blues song .wav file into Band In A Box's Audio Chord Wizard. Let it interpret the chords which lays out the song in BIAB chord sheet. Mute all instruments except for drums. Choose a BIAB blues style, midi or Real Drum with an accompanying midi style. Place style change markers where you want drum rolls. Export to you DAW... Well, there's some ideas anyhow.
I used to use drum loops from Beta Monkey and was pretty happy with them. I got some from Drums on Demand, but thought the song sets were a bit too limited and processed for my taste. YMMV - it's been a while since I've looked at what they offered.
Eventually I got enough money and moved on to Toontrack's EZDrummer and stuck with the canned tracks that came with it.
Then came EZDrummer 2 with the ability to edit tracks simply by dialing the complexity of particular instruments in and out, which is really cool.
I'm sure you know that they've got Southern Soul and Blues kits, along with MIDI tracks. If you don't need to sound exactly like classic hardware, they also sell the MIDI grooves from the Blues and a different Soul Grooves MIDI. (Based on this comment, you'd probably need to get additional grooves even if you got their Southern Soul EZX).
You might also have a look at RealiDrums to see if it fits your workflow. Like EZDrummer, you can dial in the complexity of canned grooves to customize it. Unlike EZDrummer, it comes with a boatload of different drumkits, so you can really customize the kit.
I haven't been able to play with it, and I'm curious if anyone on the forum has. I know that Jim Fogel was looking at them, but don't know if he ever took the plunge.
Couple things about RB/realdrums, and they have been mentioned before.
1. In RB you can generate many takes of the drummer experimenting with different variations (image below) .. sometimes what you are looking for is in a different variation, and if you don't experiment you'll never find it (same with recording a real drummer, except you get to explain what you want with a real drummer), though what you get will vary, much as it does with RealDrums variations. I have been known to generate many realdrum tracks and paste them together and sometimes those variations over a given A/B section make a big difference.
2. At the end of many of the actual RealDrum wma files (or wav files if using the audio version) you'll find actual recordings of many of the drum hits on their own, these can be edited to be 'samples' which makes using a sample player to create your own fill (or add to one) an inviting option for editing since they sound like the same drums, *if* you like the rest of the RealDrums you have generated.
If you are genuinely not happy with the generated RealDrums, well that's a whole 'nother problem and how to proceed depends on a lot; your abilities with MIDI, your abilities with cut/paste (or slice/dice) of audio .. your ability to manipulate another drum generator .. lots of variables.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
As mentioned by sinbad in his post above, there is no visual indicator (like a progress bar) to indicate a download is in progress. The Studio Instruments file is a pretty good size so it does take some time to download and install. I believe it was ten to 15 minutes. The good news is download and install is performed with just a click of the install button.
There have been a few instances noted in the Cakewalk forum of the program or Add-ons not fully downloading and installing. The "fix" is to uninstall and delete the existing copy of the Bandlab Assistant from your computer, download and install a fresh copy and try again.
Regarding the RD's, I posted something on the Wish List today. I would like more fills for each style. I have generated and re-re-re-generated and I get pretty much the same fills.
My big problem is pushes. Most of the RD's I have found sound great until they get to a push. Then they sound like the drummer was distracted by some hottie. Some of the pianos are just as bad, but I can use midi for them and sound OK. But the midi drums just aren't as good.
Regarding the RD's, I posted something on the Wish List today. I would like more fills for each style. I have generated and re-re-re-generated and I get pretty much the same fills.
My big problem is pushes. Most of the RD's I have found sound great until they get to a push. Then they sound like the drummer was distracted by some hottie. Some of the pianos are just as bad, but I can use midi for them and sound OK. But the midi drums just aren't as good.
Anyway, thanks for all the ideas.
2b
Maybe I missed it in the thread, but, what synth are you using for your midi drums?
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202 New RealTracks Released with Band-in-a-Box 2026!
With Band-in-a-Box® 2026, we've released 202 incredible new RealTracks (in sets 468-488) in a variety of genres—featuring your most requested styles!
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
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MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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