Drums on Demand

[surfnorthwest]

In all my CDs I have used as the foundation drums a product called Drums on Demand. These are professional recorded drum loops in which you assemble in your recording software to create a drum track. They offer about 12 DVDs full of loops and I have all of them.

Basically as you open the DVD there will be many sub directories each with a name of a certain groove. Within that groove you will have many wave files cleaverly named such as "intro" "intro alt" "Verse" "Verso Crash" "Verso Ride " and so on. This helps you select the loop you want. It is like putting together a puzzle but the results are excellent. Many time the drums come out perfect and other times I will use my Yamaha drums to add additional fills or hits.

Anyways if you are confused how to get great sounding drums into your recordings without a drummer, Drums on Demand is the answer.

Here is their web site where you can demo many of their DVDs they sell.
http://www.drumsondemand.com/index.html


Also a quick video of someone assembling a track from scratch.

[youtube][/youtube]

[DeanM]

Holy shit! this is exactly the sort of thing iv been looking for! I dont like drum machines cos alot of the time its the same beat thru the entire song! i wanted somethin a little more realistic, cos as the dude says a drummer is gonna throw in variations throughout the song!! Iv got an 8track recorder at home and one of the things that put me off recording stuff was tryin to figure out a good way to capture the drum sounds. i thought maybe drum machines but didn really suit my needs, i got drum machine software but that involved writing the whole drum track beat for beat....and im not a drummer so that wud be so time consuming!!

this seems like the solution iv been looking for!! if i was to go for this....surf, could you recommend some software i could use to create the tracks as he does here?? using xp or vista. xp prob be more reliable! software wouldn't need to be anytin fancy...just somethin i can use to create the drums tracks like he does.

Thanks!! and thanks for postin this!! its a big help and prob the answer iv been lookin for!!

[surfnorthwest]

All of my nine CDs were recorded using their drum loops. OK here is the deal

On each DVD you will find multiple sub-directories loaded with high quality .wav files. The sub directories are named for example "101 bpm double time rip" and so on, there are usally about 30 sub directories on each DVD with different styles of loops. It is best to just build your song from the .wav files from a single sub directory all though you can mix it up if you wish.

Once you choose one of the sub directories and open it in explorer you will find a bunch of wav files that all match that theme. The names of the files give you a clue as to what they are, for example you might see something like

intro.wav
intro alt.wav
crshVs.wav
Vs.wav
fill.wav
fill2.wav
bridge.wav

and so on. Next what you need to do is use a DAW (recording software) to assemble the wav files and audition them. For instance you might start with the file named intro.wav and then make the next file crshChorus.wav and then add four Chourus.wav files and the next be fill3.wav this begins you building your drum track for the song, trust me it is simple as hell once you have done it once, I could write a book about it here but it would be best to put together a video of me doing it in the studio as it would be much simpler then,

The software I use is simply Sonar Home Studio from Cakewalk, I love this DAW and it makes assembling the drum track very easy. Once I have the drum track built I start to doodle on the guitar to get a rythem track, from there it is a series of playbacks and record alongs to make the song. I do however use my electronic drums to add some percussion if nessassary.


If you go to my music page at http://www.surfnorthwest.com you can hear all my songs and again they all use Drums on Demand loops.

IMO they are the best out there, Drums from hell, Beta Monkey, and others I have tried suck balls. These sound so real, If you purchase a volume ( I have all of them) let me know and I will be happy to help you get going with them or answer any questions.

[Slashwannabe1]

I don't think I'd have the patience to put together a drum track for my songs. I know what I'd like to hear but sometimes its best to have somebody with an outside view look into what a song needs.

I admire people like yourself Surf who can find the drum tracks they need and piece that puzzle together. Very impressive! I may try it someday but I'm in a rut right now for inspiration so I don't feel very confident to go find drum tracks.

[DeanM]

I don't think I'd have the patience to put together a drum track for my songs. I know what I'd like to hear but sometimes its best to have somebody with an outside view look into what a song needs.

I admire people like yourself Surf who can find the drum tracks they need and piece that puzzle together. Very impressive! I may try it someday but I'm in a rut right now for inspiration so I don't feel very confident to go find drum tracks.

i dont think il have the patience either!! ideally i would prefer to have a real drummer to contribute aswel. so this is just to get some practice recording at home and maybe give me a beat or somethin to write songs over. most likely just to maybe make a demo or two just for fun.

[DeanM]

Surf, i got some sonar software. it looks pretty cool but man the first time lookin at it looks complicated!!! but im sure after a bit of messin around with it il eventually have an idea for the software, im not worried about that. im messin around with tutorials first to get a feel for the software and experiment etc. i opened up a tutorial and it plays back but theres no sound. it says this

the following tracks and buses are currently assigned to silent hardware output.the items listed below will be silent in your project until their outputs are reassigned to an appropriate hardware output
and in the list is the bus "A".

i was hopin i wudn have to buy a hardware interface just to make drum tracks. will i have to? can i not set the output to my soundcard or somethin so i can playback? i went to options and went to audio but theres nothin there that seems to be the answer?

Thanks Surf.
Dean.

[surfnorthwest]

You don't need the recording hardware, simply assign the input and output to your soundcard.

[DeanM]

yeah i realised somethin bout the midi or somethin i tink i turned it on and it worked for the first files but some still wudn play. i cant remem what i did but just now when i go to options->audio->drivers there's nothin there to enable or whatever.

anyway i worked it out as you can see here the output was set to Microsoft GS wavetable synth but it wasn ticked!!

Pic1.jpg (82.88 KiB) Viewed 862 times

i think i mite try make a sample drum track to try get it working but then as far as gettin the drum samples into it i still havent looked at that. i may have to read up first! any ideas where to start? please...if you dont mind!!

Thanks!