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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on Jan 4, 2019 13:05:32 GMT
Sure we had a least one whole decade of music (the Eighties) where practically every drum track sounded shyte. Don't beat yourself up about it DefJef !
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Jan 5, 2019 15:47:38 GMT
Well. I've spent an hour on it and, in the true DefJef way, decided to first see what I could understand without reading a manual. The answer is, not much . I have occasionally managed to teach it a rhythm by the pads rather than strumming and, at the end of the hour, had managed to set a verse, chorus and bridge of sorts and could step on them to play in sequence via the SDRUM pedal alone. Now I can see why you need the additional footswitch box. I presume it is so you can cue the right next sequence to play. Whether I would fancy doing that on stage along with all my other duties is a question I won't be able to answer for a few days yet and, anyway, I would want to understand how I am meant to have far greater control over what drums play, how busily and at what tempo, before I can imagine committing to that. I also suspect that I have no control over the sensitivity of each drum hit but I may be wrong. Once I've read the manual and watched a few videos I may be far more enamoured of it and feel more in control. At the moment what I teach it and what it does are like telling Ringo to play jazz. A complete waste of energy. I certainly don't hate it yet and put all of its faults down to me at the moment. I'm still quite excited to see what it will do in the hands of a more learned student than I am after one hour. The jury is out but hopeful that it will be a vast improvement on the drum box I had back in the 90s. I'm not totally convinced it will be but will give it very much the benefit of the doubt at the moment as long as I can get it to not second-guess me and play bizarre things. More lessons tomorrow.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2019 16:47:14 GMT
I certainly dislike needing to press other stuff while playing. I have no issues if Im using these for recording as I can record the parts and then stitch them together but in LIVE situation I go into a full scale panic attack when I have to engage a Delay pedal for the lead part AND THEN need again to step on it to switch it off Im certainly a set-up and leave it alone player and if needed I can switch the guitars 3 or 5 way to change pups but thats it! Well volume and tone knobs on guitar are also fine. Seems I need a guitar with effects built into it Im amazed to see those Looping players go all amok with pedals and loopers!
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Jan 5, 2019 17:55:32 GMT
I agree Che, and once I'm singing it's absolutely the last thing I want to do.
Having read the manual (well skim-read it!) I can see that the idea of actually building a drum track live would probably be a disaster unless I was a total master of this thing. Even if I was, it looks as though a whole load of adjustments can be made after programming the drums to actually get what you'd want, so live it would be just about impossible unless you were happy to settle for randomness and then improvise over whatever was thrown at you. Might be fun for one song and be quite audience engaging, especially if we asked the audience to choose what buttons were pressed, or even invited them to press some, but more than that I think you'd lose the audience entirely.
My feeling is that, whilst the SDRUM can do a heck of a lot, it can probably do far more than any single person would want or could possibly remember: press the footswitch how many times to not get a kick drum on the downbeat? Hold it for how long when? All of that cannot be retained, so the manual is a must to have on hand when a specific feature is required. And I'm still not sure if I can tell the thing when to hit a drum hard or softly. I think I may be able to but suspect the pedal does some of its own thinking that I then have to either agree or disagree with.
So I think the best thing to do is to master the sort of tasks I know I will want to do again and again when writing and recording but bear in mind that there are plenty more options if I want to dig into them.
Storing songs that I am happy with may then lead me to use them live and do a bit of pedal stepping just to swap songs or verse/chorus/bridges but even that may be a step too far leading me to forget lyrics, or guitar parts, or cues or simply need me to be looking down whilst also singing a line and therefore missing the microphone. I think it's all too much to do really and to enjoy myself. And knowing me, my size 10 boot would hit two switches instead of one and set off a 3/4 march in the middle of a ballad! I don't need that kind of aggro; I'd rather quit gigging!
Meanwhile, as I rummaged around Digitech's website to see if there were any software updates for it (there weren't, which was reassuring), I discovered that there was one for the Trio which seemed to add some interesting features to do with tempos and noise and got rid of some rather busy bass playing on some settings and played the bass lower down the neck on those parts too.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2019 19:19:49 GMT
That Trio update is an old one, for the very first version I think. I did download it for mine. Most folks wanted a boring bass player which I dont really get! I much enjoyed that busy cleaver Trio Bassist (the one we used on Wicked and Grain I think)
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Jan 7, 2019 11:41:36 GMT
Played it into a stereo hi fi system today and the sounds are much better. It's a bit of a nuisance though. No matter how simple I may want it to set up a verse rhythm, just a shaker or simple hi hat, it will insist on doing a highly inappropriate fill on any part of the kit before moving to a chorus. Same with the transition into a bridge. And you can't end a song with a fill. Only a stupid cymbal crash or else just a sudden stop.
Maybe there are ways around these things, the extra foot pedal that I've not tried yet is supposed to be able to trigger a fill whenever you want one, so maybe I can trigger one just before a stop, or maybe a firmware upgrade will come along and address a few of the issues.
It strikes me as a bit of a clever toy rather than even a semi-professional essential. It drums a bit like a lot of drummers I've come across; heavy handedly and unmusically, and I really am rather allergic to single buttons that have several functions depending on what else is held down and for how many seconds: 2 seconds will do this but 4 will do that.
I'm beginning to think that, for my type of music, I would need a more manageable drum box that does as it's told, even if that instruction is to make some stuff up. I have no problem with a machine making some stuff up, this SDRUM does it quite well and randomly to stop your beats becoming too samey, but I would rather be able to tell it when to do that. I'd also like more control over the kit elements.
I reckon this pedal is fine if you just want something a bit busy and generic and you don't mind cymbal crashes but it does seem a bit limited in the creativity department and doesn't have enough kit choices. Allegedly there are ten but 5 of them just seem to be a bit louder and less reverby than the other 5. So two of them are an electro thing that I've found no pleasant use for and another are percussion that seem to favour loud congas rather than anything subtly nice.
And the 'scratch out a beat' software is a bit of an unreliable and rather pointless gimmick when the pads control things far more predictably.
I'm about 95% clued up on the pedal now and I think I'd rather spend the money on a vocal harmonizer that I could possibly use live. This gadget would stay at home even if I had a solo acoustic spot.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2019 12:12:53 GMT
I like the drums you usually make in Pro Tools! The Trio pedal had very bad drums. Just some generic very simple beats but the bass player was where it would shine for me. And even here it was only on the Alt. Rock setting and on the busy bass player setting (not sure why folks insisted to get the slow boring bass player with the new upgrade). You need a real drummer that can sing harmonies, somthing like Roger Taylor!
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on Jan 7, 2019 13:10:47 GMT
Maybe the SingularSound Beatbuddy pedal would be more down your street. Pricey though.
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