The Problem With Drum VSTis

[dea-man]

Originally Posted by whiteaxxxe

(I want some air-guitars ... all of them. getting the idea of what I play from my face ... someday ...)

What a great idea!

I have always wished for an instrument that just interfaces straight with your brain and imagination.

I guess that would be vocals, but vocals have a physical limitation. I want "no limitations".

[brainwreck]

That Aerodrums thing looks pretty cool. My biggest concerns (same as for any MIDI drumming) would be latency, velocity sensitivity, and how velocity is mapped to sample playback. Taking a peak at the manual, it says that the camera frame rate is 125 fps, which is 8 ms latency right off the bat. I wonder how much latency is involved in the rest of the chain. If my sound device involves an output latency of say 5 ms, that is 13 ms total, not counting time for processing the camera frames, converting to MIDI, sending to a drum plugin. I also wonder how velocity sensitivity compares with piezo triggering methods. Velocity to sample mapping is down to the drum sampler, of course. I wonder how well the Aerodrums sampler handles this. One neat thing that I saw is that since the sticks are tracked by the camera, there is no need for handling L/R hand articulations in a pseudo fashion. Any way, Aerodrums is novel, and I'm curious to see how it develops. Maybe it will get a dual camera thing going on for more stick articulations, such as rim shots, hi-hat bow/edge.

[dea-man]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

Maybe it will get a dual camera thing going on for more stick articulations, such as [b]rim shots, hi-hat bow/edge]/b].

Does aerodrums not come with these articulations?

[morgon]

Originally Posted by dea-man

What a great idea!

I have always wished for an instrument that just interfaces straight with your brain and imagination.

I guess that would be vocals, but vocals have a physical limitation. I want "no limitations".

Some guys can really beatbox vocally, im not that good but im practising a method that will auto-separate kick, snare and h/hat [audio to MIDI]

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by dea-man

Does aerodrums not come with these articulations?

Sample-wise, I don't know. I'm talking about triggering articulations, e.g., some edrum hihats detect triggering for edge and bow and a unique MIDI note is sent for each.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

Sample-wise, I don't know. I'm talking about triggering articulations, e.g., some edrum hihats detect triggering for edge and bow and a unique MIDI note is sent for each.

It does support those articulations, but it does so through velocity thresholds which you can set yourself. When playing the snare for example, once you reach the velocity threshold for a rim shot it outputs the correct midi note for that articulation. This works better than you might expect, because the velocity response is extremely good.

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by Stu

It does support those articulations, but it does so through velocity thresholds which you can set yourself. When playing the snare for example, once you reach the velocity threshold for a rim shot it outputs the correct midi note for that articulation. This works better than you might expect, because the velocity response is extremely good.

Interesting, on the articulation thing. Same for the velocity response. How is the latency? Are you triggering a drum plugin with it?

[rmm]

i will not read all the posts in this thread and so i just say my meaning wich is:
"Addictive Drums" is may be the best solution you can get and secondly look at this one for free: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/

[Stu]

Originally Posted by brainwreck

Interesting, on the articulation thing. Same for the velocity response. How is the latency? Are you triggering a drum plugin with it?

The latency using onboard sounds is very low, certainly as good or better than the E-kit I used to own. I have had less time using it with other drum plugins but latency does seem higher, still low enough to have minimal effect on a performance. Aerodrums also has the option to send midi whilst monitoring built in sounds, so you can get around it to an extent whilst recording.

[Wolffman]

Originally Posted by Stu

Aerodrums also has the option to send midi whilst monitoring built in sounds, so you can get around it to an extent whilst recording.

These Areodrums are an interesting alternative to an E-Kit, they have my interest spiked

How well is the midi tracked, i mean does it track all the notes and velocities acurately, especially with things like intricate hi-hat work and ghost notes on snare etc, or does it drop some notes or put in double hits or notes you don't want etc.

Would you say areodrums is as usefull for home recording as an E-Kit ?


Cheers

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Wolffman

These Areodrums are an interesting alternative to an E-Kit, they have my interest spiked

How well is the midi tracked, i mean does it track all the notes and velocities acurately, especially with things like intricate hi-hat work and ghost notes on snare etc, or does it drop some notes or put in double hits or notes you don't want etc.

Would you say areodrums is as usefull for home recording as an E-Kit ?


Cheers

I haven't spent enough time with it yet to say that 100% this could replace an E-Kit, but it does appear that way. I owned a TD6k roland E-Kit for several years and have also played other models right up to the TD20 flagship and no matter how much tweaking I did I could never capture a natural dynamic range. I wouldn't say I'm a particularly hard hitter but no matter how I set up the response I would reach maximum velocity far too quickly. I also found that in all but the most expensive models I got a lot of false triggers on adjacent pads.

Where Aerodrums is different is that the maximum velocity it can understand is much higher than with piezo pads, whilst also picking up very gentle playing too. Out of the box it is set up for a light touch and I found it way too sensitive, but with adjustments (which are easy and fast - you don't even have to pick up the mouse) you can make it respond very much like a real kit, more so than I ever found with an E-Kit. It has no trouble picking up fast or intricate playing accurately either.

When Aerodrums outputs MIDI there are some issues with how sensitive it is, meaning that unless you are a particularly clean and tidy player (small arm movements, keep hands very still when not playing) you get extra notes playing as you move your sticks across the zones. Thankfully there are adjustments you can make here which allow you to filter out notes below a selectable threshold in order to mitigate these false triggers.

I wouldn't say Aerodrums needs more tweaking to get it 'right' than any other E-Kit, they all need adjustments to get the response right for a particular drummer, but the range of adjustment is greater and it's easier to do.

[edkilp]

I'm chomping at the bit to get mine. Ordered a few days ago and still not shipped. Very eager. If you watch the videos you can get a pretty good sense of how responsive it is. Stu, are you holding your sticks and playing normally, or are you using the technique he demonstrates where the stick snaps against the palm of your hand?

I guess I'm a bit concerned about latency, too. But maybe I shouldn't be, as nothing has ever given me a latency problem before. I just want this to work so I can get on with my life. Hehe.

[Wolffman]

Originally Posted by Stu

I haven't spent enough time with it yet to say that 100% this could replace an E-Kit, but it does appear that way. I owned a TD6k roland E-Kit for several years and have also played other models right up to the TD20 flagship and no matter how much tweaking I did I could never capture a natural dynamic range. I wouldn't say I'm a particularly hard hitter but no matter how I set up the response I would reach maximum velocity far too quickly. I also found that in all but the most expensive models I got a lot of false triggers on adjacent pads.

Where Aerodrums is different is that the maximum velocity it can understand is much higher than with piezo pads, whilst also picking up very gentle playing too. Out of the box it is set up for a light touch and I found it way too sensitive, but with adjustments (which are easy and fast - you don't even have to pick up the mouse) you can make it respond very much like a real kit, more so than I ever found with an E-Kit. It has no trouble picking up fast or intricate playing accurately either.

When Aerodrums outputs MIDI there are some issues with how sensitive it is, meaning that unless you are a particularly clean and tidy player (small arm movements, keep hands very still when not playing) you get extra notes playing as you move your sticks across the zones. Thankfully there are adjustments you can make here which allow you to filter out notes below a selectable threshold in order to mitigate these false triggers.

I wouldn't say Aerodrums needs more tweaking to get it 'right' than any other E-Kit, they all need adjustments to get the response right for a particular drummer, but the range of adjustment is greater and it's easier to do.

Great info Stu, seems like they have them working well from what you're saying, good to know its no problem to personalize the setup as well.

I'm going to keep a close eye on reviews etc for a couple of weeks, i can't afford a set right away anyhow.

Thanks for the info Stu, much appreciated.

Cheers

[Stu]

Originally Posted by edkilp

Stu, are you holding your sticks and playing normally, or are you using the technique he demonstrates where the stick snaps against the palm of your hand?

A bit of both really, I have found it quite easy to adopt that technique with my right hand but the left isn't there yet. The good thing is that it encourages good technique in general which would translate to a real kit.

Originally Posted by Wolffman

Thanks for the info Stu, much appreciated.

Cheers

No problem, glad I could help. If I get a decent go at it today I'll try to post a couple of clips showing onboard sounds and triggering a sampler.

[dea-man]

Originally Posted by Stu

No problem, glad I could help. If I get a decent go at it today I'll try to post a couple of clips showing onboard sounds and triggering a sampler.

That would be really cool.

Thanks for all the info.

[edkilp]

Well, all I can say after installing Aerodrums and playing around for a bit is this: If you're anything like me, and drums have always been a frustrating struggle in your recording projects, this may well be the answer! It's a huge breath of fresh air to be able to just play what you're thinking of and fix it if you have to.

This program is truly innovative. The stock sounds aren't my cup of tea, but the responsiveness that is built into their sample set is astounding. You can ever so gradually open the hi hat pedal, and it honestly sounds like a hi hat opening ever so gradually. Very impressive.

The drums in the preset kits are kinda bunched together, and I'm not a drummer, so I had to get myself some space between kit pieces. Super easy to customize your own kits. There are also 3 preset sensitivity levels, from beginner to intermediate, which can control how much noise you get from your sticks flopping around, or your feet moving just a bit. You can also set the sensitivity for each kit piece.

I don't have a big review as of yet, but I'm saying it's a keeper, and it will only get better. Best 170 bucks I ever spent!

I used it to drive EZ Drummer and Addictive, as well as MDrummer.

I highly recommend this program for those who are tired of the mind-numbing task of sifting through countless midi files or bangin on a keyboard or drum machine.

[Lazarus]

Cool, good to see - I have a drum stick blister which must be a good sign.

[HugoRibeiroDotCom]

Originally Posted by chip mcdonald

So, I was browsing through the Ez Drummer 2 thread, and the whole time I had thoughts in my mind, whenever I encounter any drum vsti.

Thoughts like "I've wasted a good portion of my life fiddling with midi based drum beats".

Each VSTi interface has it's pluses and minuses, and each angle on recording samples is different. That's annoying enough on it's on, but my big concern is the following:

I'm never, ever happy with what I get once it's "recorded" to midi.


There are a number of processes I always end up doing:



1) having to tweak one or more specific hits on a certain beat forward/backward in time to match the feel of what I want to do;

2) concatenate a fill from a disparate midi source to another midi beat;

3) attempt to fix - make more realistic - subtle dynamic changes on one sound source on one part of a loop/measure (particularly snare ghost notes that NEVER, EVER sound right in midi loops);

4) attempt to fix - make more realistic - "humanized" dynamic changes across a number of measures;

5) placing the occasional accent - which requires fiddling with selecting the right square-blob in the editor, and fiddling with it's level over and over'

6) quantizing a manually real-time played drum performance, but having to deal with non-intelligent shifting of beats forward/backwards, as well as odd groupings against straight. Yes, I know I can fiddle around with quantize settings, but this process itself is so insanely clunky I feel like I'm using a step sequencer on a 386 DOS based pc.

7) extract beat/timing from a recording, without dead-end tweaking.


What I want is - all of these things to be integrated into a "Drum Peformance Midi Tweaker" program/macro/whatever, with menus for those 6 elements, and with INTELLIGENT, thought out presets, AND an awareness of what gets created by AD2, EZ, BFD Eco, all of the electronic drum kits.

A large undertaking, but really - in the music production world, isn't a very enormous amount of effort put into drum programming/fixing? Who doesn't find themselves spending a large amount of time manually tweaking notes one at a time on nearly every project?

This one thing is probably in the top 5 things in my life over the past 30 years that has been a constant source of depression and aggravation. If I was Sting I would just keep Vinny Coliauta on retainer, but... yeah.

The drum VSTi people are not going to be motivated to do anything like this, because it effectively opens their own product up to scrutiny as well as supplanting by other products, so it would have to be the effort of a software house that is not beholden to selling It's Version of How To Make Drum Tracks.

Just thought I would put that out there, after having read endless, endless threads on drum VSTi's and the short comes and failings, and nobody ever really addressing the global problems....


/ $.10

Thats why guys like me are important!
You get your own custom drum tracks without all that hassle... and.. its real!

cheers

[dea-man]

It seems there is another "contender" in the air drums category.

Check this out:

http://www.drumsanywhere.com/

Anybody had experience with this?

[edkilp]

I did see that recently. You're still using your hand/stick for a kick drum which is a bummer to me. For the price, these Aerodrums are the ticket, dude. It takes a bit of getting used to, because you're inadvertently hitting drums you don't wanna hit. But once you get a kit spaced out right and practice for a few minutes, it's just like playing a drum kit as far as where everything is. I'm experiencing no buyer's remorse whatsoever.

On the down side, I'm quickly discovering how bad of a drummer I am! This is still better than dragging MIDI loops around, but man, I thought my timing was at least somewhat solid! I think Reaper's metronome is off or something.....hahaha!

[dea-man]

Originally Posted by edkilp

On the down side, I'm quickly discovering how bad of a drummer I am! This is still better than dragging MIDI loops around, but man, I thought my timing was at least somewhat solid! I think Reaper's metronome is off or something.....hahaha!

Timing comes with practice.

Practice everyday and you will see improvement.

[karbomusic]

I'm quickly discovering how bad of a drummer I am!... I thought my timing was at least somewhat solid!

Outstanding! I say that because it's a turning point, just keep working at it and you'll start seeing it get better and better which will be extremely empowering and rewarding.

[edkilp]

Thanks for the encouragement, guys! If nothing else, it sure is a lot of fun beating on a huge drumkit and hitting absolutely nothing!

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by edkilp

Thanks for the encouragement, guys! If nothing else, it sure is a lot of fun beating on a huge drumkit and hitting absolutely nothing!

You guys keep us posted on how you get on with those, sounds intriguing actually.

[ginormous]

Originally Posted by rmm

i will not read all the posts in this thread and so i just say my meaning wich is:
"Addictive Drums" is may be the best solution you can get and secondly look at this one for free: http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/

Hydrogen is Linux only, or else I'd be all over it. (Win 7)

[Stu]

Just a follow up for those that were interested: I recorded a clip a while back when this thread was still active and never got around to posting it, so here it is - https://www.dropbox.com/s/qeroovfwgu...0test.mp3?dl=0

I'm using Aerodrums to trigger Slate SSD 4. Everything is first take, improvised, and my playing is sloppy as hell but it at least gives an idea of the dynamics it can pick up, there are some ghost notes, flams etc.

After spending a couple of months with this I can say that I don't spend time looking at e-kits online anymore, this does the job very well and although there are some things missing (edge hits/rimshots are triggered by velocity rather than stick position) I would say for the most part the benefits outweigh the negatives.

[Badmotor]

Originally Posted by ginormous

Hydrogen is Linux only, or else I'd be all over it. (Win 7)

Errr... what?

I have it on both Windows and OSX.

[ProfRhino]

Of course, having a real drummer play or program the parts for you is best.
But since that is often not possible, I can live well with the following workflow, starting from a guitar idea.
- first, I try and get a rough idea in my head of what kind of basic groove would suit my idea - per section, ignoring specific breaks or fills for now
- then I look for something close, in TT files or Jamstix, verifying it by looping the section and jamming along. Quite often all that's needed is changing a kick or snare hit here or there to make it sit right. Copy / paste / tweak to taste, remember both TT and JS have velocity controls, giving you a wide range of variations for the exported clips. JS goes much deeper of course ...
- by now it should be easy to record the guitar part.
- next I add a few accents, fills and maybe a break, making sure drums and guitar are tight.
- when the basic song is assembled that way, I record a few "live" MIDI tracks with additional accents (crashes, toms, snare, hats) on top of that, fix the mistakes and adjust a few velocities ...

works pretty well (and fast) for me, doing straight rock, country, blues and similar styles.
Especially since some really good drummers taught me to think simple for most of the song, and reserve the flashy stuff for the few occasions where it really serves a purpose in the song.
All that said, the only way to get a Matt Abts style track probably is to hire the man himself ... (joking)

ymmv,
Rhino

[HugoRibeiroDotCom]

Originally Posted by ProfRhino

Of course, having a real drummer play or program the parts for you is best.
But since that is often not possible, I can live well with the following workflow, starting from a guitar idea.

Shameless self promotion - Well, I record drums for a living if you ever need some.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Stu

Just a follow up for those that were interested: I recorded a clip a while back when this thread was still active and never got around to posting it, so here it is - https://www.dropbox.com/s/qeroovfwgu...0test.mp3?dl=0

Hey Stu, that sounded pretty good.

[morgon]

Originally Posted by HugoRibeiroDotCom

Shameless self promotion - Well, I record drums for a living if you ever need some.

Hugo, that record you made with Vanessa Cabral [who I just named as a fave singer in another thread not long ago] and Godvlad, is awesome. Cheers big time.

@Stu, thats impressive demo, the detail is quite remarkable.

[HugoRibeiroDotCom]

Originally Posted by morgon

Hugo, that record you made with Vanessa Cabral [who I just named as a fave singer in another thread not long ago] and Godvlad, is awesome. Cheers big time.

Thanks a lot man!!! Really appreciate it!

cheers

[OpIvy]

Aerodrums looks awesome! Learning drums was my next challenge but don't have the space for a kit, even e-drums really (+ I may give up quickly).

To those using it, would this make a suitable learning tool?
Looks like way more fun than drag/ dropping beats from AD!

[Stu]

Originally Posted by OpIvy

Aerodrums looks awesome! Learning drums was my next challenge but don't have the space for a kit, even e-drums really (+ I may give up quickly).

To those using it, would this make a suitable learning tool?
Looks like way more fun than drag/ dropping beats from AD!

I think it would be very good as it promotes good playing habits and the outlay is as low as it gets for learning drums. I would definitely recommend watching all the Aerodrums tutorials on the website to see the techniques used to make up for the lack of tactile response, and will also give a good idea of how responsive and accurate it is.

[ivansc]

Laid in a supply of popcorn and put a watch on this thread. I will be very curious to see what peoples experiences with this are.
Still stumbling about on my Roland E-kit for the present.

[Jeffsounds]

Originally Posted by HugoRibeiroDotCom

Shameless self promotion - Well, I record drums for a living if you ever need some.

Watched some of your vids. Good stuff! Would Mike Portnoy be one of your influences?

[HugoRibeiroDotCom]

Originally Posted by Jeffsounds

Watched some of your vids. Good stuff! Would Mike Portnoy be one of your influences?

Thanks Jeff.

Yes, Mike Portnoy was definitely a big influence back in my late teens.

cheers

[ginormous]

Originally Posted by Badmotor

Errr... what?

I have it on both Windows and OSX.

Well, I had to dig for it, but it is there for win 7... a stable 0.9.6 snapshot install.

I point out that it's been in beta since June of 2010. I hope it don't crash my desktop.

[Badmotor]

Originally Posted by ginormous

Well, I had to dig for it, but it is there for win 7... a stable 0.9.6 snapshot install.

I point out that it's been in beta since June of 2010. I hope it don't crash my desktop.

Yeah, that website isn't that user friendly - I've never had it crash my computer, but just find it very unfinished. I wish it'd get some serious development as it is my favourite drum machine interface.

Anyway, dreams are free.

[outspoken]

Really at the end of the day -- the problem with vst drums are this:

1. There's no person to watch, get inspired by and jam with.
2. You are by yourself...Drummers have song ideas and look to you to complete the song with them.
3. There's no one to slap a high five with when the song is done.