check out Groove Monkee http://groovemonkee.com/ and yes you need a drum instrument to play them but "Impact" that comes in S1 is a decent sampler set up to do these things. you don't have to have a 3rd party plug unless you want a better one. cheers

Hi Anthony...

You should also be able to play the midi loops with 'Presence' loaded onto the track with a drum kit preset. Haven't tried it but you might need to tweek some of the notes (in the edit pane) if the note layout doesn't match with 'Presence' or is not GM compatible.

Regards....

Anthothedude,
Here's a very good free drum instrument: http://www.powerdrumkit.com/
It has a good selection of drum patterns, and has its own kit sounds built in. Also, you can use sounds from other drum kits with this plugin as well. As for Presence, I made a soundfont from a kit from another program, and it works perfectly in Presence. * I used the drum vsti from the link as the input on a track, and Presence as the output. I'll explain more later if you're interested.

Anthothedude wrote:I have a question, maybe silly one but I'm not very familiar with midi and drums stuff and 3rd plugins...

The midi drum loops we can find from The Loop Loft for example, these loops can be just played as other drum loops we can have with SO1? I mean, do I need a 3rd party plugin to play these midi loops, like an EZDrummer? Or is it just a drag and drop on the track and just play the song, just like other drum loops in SO1 like "Acoustic drum loops"?

I need more Rock/Pop/Indie drum loops, and I found The Loop Loft was a quite good site for this... but I'm not sure I can run them without download/buy first a 3rd party plugin (EZDrummer for example).

Hi Anthothedude, Great question and no question is ever silly, when it's genuine, because we all have questions and something to learn, bud.

You can opt to throw in loops, via drag & drop or use an instrument like presence, Impact, or other. The one even offered by simonkey looks pretty cool, so try it out. Just make sure you can create layers cause the real essence of drums is utilizing multi layers for a dynamic feel. I use BFD2, and Battery 3 and 4 a lot, but I've kept those sounds intact and not really added to those libraries. You can, but I've found Impact largely works well, and you can layer with it.

As a drummer, I don't do loops, but if you find that works for you, sure, drop them in, or you can slice and dice loops into Rex files with Reason or a few other options. That's always interesting. Find the path that suits you, though realism takes a little work, but the results can be gratifying.

Sure, go with Loop loft or Groove Monkey among others.

Cheers!

Thanks guys for your answers.

So, just to test, I downloaded some free midi loops from Groove Monkeys. Now I see what it is.
It is just a way of playing drum, up to me then to put instrument over it to change the sound of the midi keys... and all the VST instruments I have (presence and Impact) don't have the drum kits I would need. I don't feel like the Large kit of presence has a good sound of snare to me..just as an example...well in the end this is not what I exactly need for drums sound.

I will try the Powerdrum kit from Sirmonkey.

The easiest way would be to find some stereo loops for Rock/Prog/Indie style... I'm not finding this...

Thanks
Anthony

Just found something... Beta Monkeys site offers stereo loops right? well .. offers... you have to buy them.. But these are .wav files right?

Anthony

hey dude... not that you're a dude... it is part of your name dude. lol j/k but dave (sirmonkey) is right about that free kit... it is the best i ever found and i used it a lot to start with. not trying to knock impact or presence but their standard kits didn't impress me either. but like was said... they are just samplers (play little wave files of drum hits or any sound actually) and they work fine for the most part... you just need to find some good samples for them but i take it you are fairly new to samplers and midi and such. if not excuse me... if so... don't be shy. we ALL started from scratch too at some point.

i probably told dave at least a couple of times thanks for that kit... it has good samples AND there are a lot of good grooves that come with it. trust me... i think you will be most happy with that power kit. cheers


jay

Hhhmm MT power drum kit works fine. Can we get other drums kits?
The ideal thing would be to have this tool with other drum kit and more grooves and fills... I need to pay for this right? This does not exist for free I suppose...

jBranam wrotehey dude... not that you're a dude... it is part of your name dude. lol j/k but dave (sirmonkey) is right about that free kit... it is the best i ever found and i used it a lot to start with. not trying to knock impact or presence but their standard kits didn't impress me either. but like was said... they are just samplers (play little wave files of drum hits or any sound actually) and they work fine for the most part... you just need to find some good samples for them but i take it you are fairly new to samplers and midi and such. if not excuse me... if so... don't be shy. we ALL started from scratch too at some point.

i probably told dave at least a couple of times thanks for that kit... it has good samples AND there are a lot of good grooves that come with it. trust me... i think you will be most happy with that power kit. cheers


jay

Thanks Jay.
Indeed I'm quite new on sampler and midi... I'm learning everytime I open SO3 the last days...so powerful... and this is great!
MT drum kit is great. Sound of drum kit is really good to me. More flexibility in terms of choice of drum kit would be the heaven on earth! Would that be possible? Or should I go to another plugin and buy it like EZdrummer or so?

Anthony

told you you's gonna like it. pretty damn sweet kit for free. what is great about samplers is... they are actually playing REAL drums that someone recorded each individual hit and in different articulations (basically different power on the hits from soft to hard) some of the better virtual drum instruments have rather high amounts of articulations which add more of a 'real drummer' aspect to them.

i would stick with that power kit for a bit until you get the hang of things. (no need to blow a bunch of money just yet get to know what you are doing first) i used it for over a year and was happy with it. BUT just to make you sick... since we are talking about samplers and kits... here is a kit i am building in BFD3 using Groove Monkee midi packs. the kit is sounding pretty decent so far. this is raw... straight from BFD3 standalone. cheers


jay

I'm sick right now... thanks!
Sounds great! I love the low freq and compression on toms.

i had to dampen the toms (resonance BOING) and that kick is actually two kicks linked and played as one. the snare is actually three different snares linked. but understand BFD3 or any other top instrument ain't cheap. it took me a LONG time to get it. i started off with BFD Eco and upgraded when things went on sale. i am about the tightest tight wad here... i never pay full price. although BFD3 costs upwards of $300... i have less than $160 tied up in it (excluding addon kits... but i got them on sale also) i actually got a few kits from these fellas https://www.drumdrops.com/ and got a couple of them free (they give like the first few orders free on new releases) check them out. there are a few good companies around with kit samples. another good one is https://www.platinumsamples.com/index.php but anyways... have fun and welcome to the group anthony. back is killin' me yet again so i have to lay down and close one eye. cheers


jay

Thanks for the links Jay.
Anthony

nps tony... there are plenty of good people here that will help you. you just have to dodge some that ain't so nice hehe cheers

The ideal thing would be to have this tool with other drum kit and more grooves and fills... I need to pay for this right? This does not exist for free I suppose...

I think Jay can help you better on those possibilities. I think we are arriving at the same conclusion and that is 1. Understanding how much quality you want, from pulling down free samples (which as I mentioned, for realism is a lot of work), and 2. Like with most things, you get what you pay for. So in these matters, you may want to add any additional information. You did a great job describing that. I think you're just learning those possibilities, so welcome to the club. Lol

Yeah, EZ Drummer, or BFD ECO are ok, but you wont be adding layered sounds for those same reasons, due to their capability, and lack of expression. The drum dynamics are soft to loud, but that's it. Real drums like 90% of the instruments out there introduce different dynamics, like overtones, crescendos, subtle nuances, not to mention inflections from the player. Even Metal, where drums seem to be the same, just aren't, as you know.

In giving good advice (we hope), pulling down samples and getting those samples to produce real good results in my mind anyway, are either purchased outright (as those companies know this and offer packages where you really are getting a session player in quality rooms, and all that stuff. Plus, they provide different ways to translate that playing. The other road to quality sounds can work, but it depends on the users scope of what they need to accomplish. That can be meticulously setting up samples, but you'll need that right sample player. For my wallet, and needs, I went with Battery 4, where I have a good level of visibility to add sounds to existing samples. Since I play an electronic kit, but also tap pads, Battery works, but there's some great alternatives for each flavor of drummer/user. That will no doubt be your learning curve my friend.

You can. Go the pad player route (where a few layers like Impact, or deep layers like B4 work. Or a sample player like Presence, and I agree with you, those sounds don't get it done for what you're looking to do, or you can get a drum package that runs from a joke, to deep (lot's of those), you can pull in your own, and get the groove you think you need, etc. Lastly, as I mentioned, some EM people like to slice and dice Rex files out of loops.

My point is the free stuff is limiting unless you wish to do a good deal of work, or are happy with what works for you (but in the real world often comes off as a poor facsimile). Or you buy the cheapo packages proving the facsimile theory all over again. Or, you pay the piper. The guys at the door, dangling the good stuff.

When I started sampling drums to guitars to keyboards years ago on emulators, Emax's, Akai's, and Mirage's. I swore I got some very real sounds, and I did. But having those sounds embody the actual instrument is a loooooooong road.

For how you seem to be inquiring and not liking the basic results (a good thing IMO), go for a quality +$200 package. That is unless you speak to JBranam who is the artful dodger for paying the full price. Then add samples to that, so you can grow and not screw around with what doesn't work enough, saving in actuality, time and in the long run, money.

Funny how you never know, unless through continued dialogue, you're speaking to someone looking to get top notch results, or writing a lil' jingle.

See also: http://www.xlnaudio.com/demos This is a very nice demo- no time limits or nag screens. Of course the kits are limited, but there's a lot here for a free demo. This is high quality, although you may want to build your own kit, that sounds like what you want.

* There are SOOOOO many drum kits out there. But my philosophy is: How many real bands have 12 different snares for the drummer? How many have 36 different kick drums? etc...

I like to build one or two kits, and stick with it while composing. I try to be old school, because there a bazillion possible choices. I personally have spent a kazillion hours (approximately) messing around with different kits, vst's & effects.

Finally, I put in the time to create a soundfont using a program called sfZed, found here:
audio.clockbeat.com This program allows you to create instruments from samples in a format called "SFZ". Once I have created a kit I like, I then open the SFZ file in another program called "polyphone". Polyphone has more advanced editing options than sfZed. So why use 2 programs? Well, it is easier and simpler to create an instrument is sfZed. But Polyphone will open the instrument created in sfZed, and allow more advanced editing, AND save in a soundfont format the S1's Presence will recognize.

* I do things this way, because as good as drum software is, the sounds can quickly become recognizable as drum software.

Oh yeah, here's the link to Polyphone: http://www.polyphone.fr/

There is some work with this technique, but the idea is to create exactly the kit you want, and stick with it.

Thanks Lokeyfly and Sirmonkey.

I think I will continue to look around what is available and what are my needs.
And I agree, I would need just 2 or 3 drum kits maximum. and then put some grooves on them (midi files). I'm finding myself a bit limited working with the same stereo drum loops, cutting them, mixing part of grooves with part of fills... but in the end I have the feeling that this is not as good as I would like. And sounds from used loops to another might change depending on the way they have been recorded etc.. which is not right on your track.

So If I resume guys:
Drums kits: I can build them via a sampler like Impact in SO or like Battery 4 (taking the example of Lokeyfly). What is important if I want to buid my own drum kit is to have a sampler able to adjut attack, release etc...so, a lot of work to do when creating this but in the end you are done and ready! Or, I can use some already existing drum kits in plugin like EZdrummer.

Then,

I apply to these kits some midi loops I can find...well..everywhere... or build my own midi track as I do already for other instruments.

Am I right?
The fist step is a bit tricky for me to be honest... But this will be the next big step in my learning process!!

Anthony

Guys...me again...
If I ask your thoughts about Ezdrummer and Addictive Drums, what you like, what you don't like, why you won't chose EZD or Addicitve...

What I like in addictive is the abaility to adjust sounds with EQ etc.... We can do this also on EZdrummer but not in the same range, not to say wide range...

Question can we apply other midi loops, for example midi loops coming from the loop loft to ezdrummer and addictive drums? or are we obliged to only work with their loops?
SO3 is working fine with both of them right?

And again, I'm discovering something huge on drums talking to you. Working with stereo loops is nice but want to start hifger stage.

Thanks
Anthony