Why drum machines?

[oblioblioblio]

Sorry mate, focussed on the personal bits there.


I think the problem is reasonably complicated. One major point is that every person is very different. There is not a logical process behind the choices that are made. There is a lot of emotion involved, and musicians can vary like different parts of a river... sometimes stuck and resistant to change, sometimes just moving along with the mass flow, whatever.

What is the point of this forum? TBH there aren't that many newbies here... a lot of the guys that are newbies are of the flitting moth variety... they come here, ask a question about presets, don't get an easy answer and never come back.

Most of the people posting here have been around for a while, and I don't know if it's too helpful to say 'what would a newbie think', but of course its important that music making is accessible and not stuffy elitist circle of favours hoarders, so it's a valid train of thought. But I don't think it's the only thing at play here.

[AK]

what 'personal attack'. Give over, I was moaning and ranting. If you look back, you will see I also had some mighty high - and nice things to say.

It wasnt the fact that it was a thread about drum machines that set me off on one either, it was the culmination of a lot of threads and a lot of posts that's all. Just so happened that I couldnt bite my lip any longer. Ive questioned a lot of things Ive read here and beneath the personal preferences of studio gear, there's a magic of input from a lot of guys which is of great resource. Its a good forum.

Why do I feel it's wrong to speak my mind here? I have no intention of trying to be nasty, its not in my nature, but it is in my nature to question what I dont necessarily agree with. I made a comment and then it all kicked off. I was targetted with sarcasm by puffta, then responded with a comment, then steevio jumped in on it and it went from there.

I dont have a problem with anyone, in fact, the 2 exponents of modular that I am aware of on here, are obli and steevio and they are great guys who I have learnt from. Im sure they can live with the fact that Im happy to defend whatever gear and technique I wish to use, and that's all I ever meant. I'm just not in agreement to a lot of things that get said but I dont want to feel like I cant say my bit.

Well I thought Id better post anyway, dont want no bad vibes, perhaps it reads different when I say things to my state of mind when posting? Like, if we were all in a room debating, It would come over differently and not as an attack or whatever. But hey, whatever. I'm not backtracking cos I stand by everything I say, but its not my intention to deliberately upset, just to voice my interpretations and views. No more, no less.

In fact, Im still having a hard time wondering wtf is the prob! Its an Internet forum ffs, we are going to differ cos we are all individuals. Its been several months of gear and technique slating and when the bullet rebounds in a one-off thread, all hell breaks loose. Interesting.

[oblioblioblio]

Yeah I think everything's got a little out of hand recently. I think like you say it's the culmination of a lot of private views built up from other posts and things spilling over a bit. It's hard to tell on the internet but I felt things got a little too personal, in a few posts. But everyone seems to get on fine most of the time, and like you say, this forum is definitely overall a useful resource and place of exchange.

Anyways, the world is burning and in the history of world issues this one is not really up there. I look forward to future interesting discussions.

[pafufta816]

wow, lolz. hey i have an idea, admin locks this thread and we move on from this totally pointless display of drama and unfounded emotion....

[simonb]

This thread is getting daft.

Nobody was being elitist or belittling others' equipment, all I saw (at least until a few pages ago) was people comparing their working methods and why drum machines (or modular setups or whatever) work or don't work for them and why. Maybe talking about it in a passionate way because they feel strongly about how their kit and working process enables them to make music, but there's no real disdain or condescending.

I guess maybe it's just a display of how passionate people are about their music and kit when they take these comments as a dig at their own personal preference? Get out for a walk or something

[AK]

fair enough. We are blessed with a forum full of users that have an undestanding of how music and sound works. In such a place, it's understandable that we wont always agree. And I think that can only be a good thing, co's we talk about what we do and we are passionate about it.

[eggnchips]

Drum machines are the business!
After using Ableton only for a few years, I recently purchased a Tr 707 and a Tr 727 and must say I love them both.
Simply jamming on them for five minutes can produce more groovy ass accidental grooves than an hours worth of mouse clicking.
They are also teaching me a lot more about dance music and I see their limitations as an advantage as one uses only that box to get the best out of it.
The use of drum machines is where the whole fXXcking genre sprung from right?
Sequenced music, that's what we do.

[coldfuture]

Drum machines are the business!
After using Ableton only for a few years, I recently purchased a Tr 707 and a Tr 727 and must say I love them both.
Simply jamming on them for five minutes can produce more groovy azz accidental grooves than an hours worth of mouse clicking.
They are also teaching me a lot more about dance music and I see their limitations as an advantage as one uses only that box to get the best out of it.
The use of drum machines is where the whole fXXcking genre sprung from right?
Sequenced music, that's what we do.

I too want to contribute to the OP's question and say that I really dig my Machinedrum. I have had it for about 3 years now and I don't find it limiting at all. I suppose one can say its limiting if you actually do want to replace the nuances of real drummers with microgrooves, micro-editing etc.

The fact is that I am too stupid to really grasp all that microtiming stuff, and my attention span can't handle it. But even if I wanted to, the MD can do so much stuff, the machine amazes me every day.

The personal highlights for me are:

-8 levels of accent, applicable per step, per part.

-parameter locks that work like automation per step per part that include everything from tuning to volume to bitcrushing, to filters and LFO cycles.

-Sampling, both static and realtime

-16x LFO's in the machine, filter per part, EQ per part, distortion per part, all programmable by step, per part.

The thing is a percussion space station. I am more amazed by it now than I was before! The best part is all of these features are accessible in real time while the sequencer is running and this is why I love to use it... because its alive while I am working with it and allows me to find the music as I imagine it.

When I was working solely ITB I always got lost in preemptive ideas and flow, and consequently was frustrated a lot when my results sounded static. I work with a few people who are wizards with the DAW and don't have this problem at all. But personally it was a constant snag and my Machinedrum and Monomachine have resolved that nicely. 90% of my music is made on just those 2 machines even tho I have several other synths around if I need them.

This is my personal why for drum machines.

edit: I also want to mention that I am super excited to include my MD in my future (planning now) modular setup because the "impulse machine" function on board will allow me to send 6 different triggers/clocks in modular friendly format out of the 6 outputs of the MD.