help on drum and bass machine please

davylee

well lads
after being let down just one time to many now by other musicians i've decided to try and do something myself so as not to depend on anybody else.
I'm looking for a drum and bass sound along with the acoustic.
Can anyone tell me if i can get a drum and bass machine and if so how does it work. Do i play the bass on the keypad or record into it from the bass.
I did read up on the zoom rt223 and the boss dr880 but i am a bit confused as to how they really work.any takers.
your help is much needed and appreciated

DamagedTrax

what is a drum and bass machine? drum'n'bass, like all electronic music, is made on a wide range of synths, samplers and drum machines. there is no 1 machine that does it all (besides groove boxes, 99.9% of which sound little better than fischer-price kids toys)

or am i totally getting it wrong? are you even talking about drum'n'bass?

artvandulet

I had a Zoom RT-234 a few years back and it was great. About 100+ drum kits and 50 basses. The bass line you use from it will have to be fairly simple as there's only 12 pads as I recall. So each 'pattern' you make can only have 12 different notes max but fine for getting your ideas together.
If you can pick one of them up 2nd hand it'll be good.
The Alesis SR-16 is probably the most common drum machine around but to be honest, you can get much more bang for your buck.
Zoom are great for the money.

davylee

DamagedTrax wrote: »

what is a drum and bass machine? drum'n'bass, like all electronic music, is made on a wide range of synths, samplers and drum machines. there is no 1 machine that does it all (besides groove boxes, 99.9% of which sound little better than fischer-price kids toys)

or am i totally getting it wrong? are you even talking about drum'n'bass?

just a drum machine where you can record bass with it and dat would leave the acoustic and vocal live ya no

davylee

artvandulet wrote: »

I had a Zoom RT-234 a few years back and it was great. About 100+ drum kits and 50 basses. The bass line you use from it will have to be fairly simple as there's only 12 pads as I recall. So each 'pattern' you make can only have 12 different notes max but fine for getting your ideas together.
If you can pick one of them up 2nd hand it'll be good.
The Alesis SR-16 is probably the most common drum machine around but to be honest, you can get much more bang for your buck.
Zoom are great for the money.

you say i can have up to 12 notes in a pattern but most of the stuff i'd be doing is middle of the road and prob no more than 12 notes in them.
please tell me this
say on your zoom, can you record a drum pattern, then put the bass over it so then if your playing along you have your full sound???

PaulBrewer

I recall a program years ago called 'Band in a box' which is built to do what you need.

A quick Google tells me it's still there ...

http://www.pgmusic.com/

artvandulet

davylee wrote: »

you say i can have up to 12 notes in a pattern but most of the stuff i'd be doing is middle of the road and prob no more than 12 notes in them.
please tell me this
say on your zoom, can you record a drum pattern, then put the bass over it so then if your playing along you have your full sound???

yeah, basically you create patterns - about 4 bars long. Each pattern can have drums and bass. Then you build a song from all the patterns. You cant record a whole bass line over a completed drum track. Has to be built pattern by pattern.

Maybe you are looking more for a keyboard/synth. Or even prerecorded backing tracks just played back on minidisc or mp3.

davylee

artvandulet wrote: »

yeah, basically you create patterns - about 4 bars long. Each pattern can have drums and bass. Then you build a song from all the patterns. You cant record a whole bass line over a completed drum track. Has to be built pattern by pattern.

Maybe you are looking more for a keyboard/synth. Or even prerecorded backing tracks just played back on minidisc or mp3.

i would rarely do a song as 100% to original and i don't like backing tracks.
If there is a solo that's on the backing track while i'm playing chords, i think that's desperate ya know.i do understand about patterns metronome user tracks and that.
i had a zoom mrt3 where i could write a drum track from start to finish just the way i wanted it.
all im looking to do now is get that with a basic bassline
will i get that from the zoom rt 234?

davylee

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I recall a program years ago called 'Band in a box' which is built to do what you need.

A quick Google tells me it's still there ...

http://www.pgmusic.com/

cheers will look into the band in a box

Lukasz.

alright.

okay.

*phew"


lets get things into perspective here.

you want a "drum n bass box" well,that sounds like hardware to me.

id recommend a Roland groovebox or Korg electribe esx.

go and buy some royalty free jungle/drum n bass loops on teh net,via sample dvd.load em up,or splice the loops in audacity and import into your sampler(via smartmedia card or Compact flash,all depneds on what gear you are using) same goes for synth hits an bassline,just buy some hits and load em onto the memory card and start making "grooves"

that was all simplfied and in laymans terms,im not going into much detail there,just the basics.


some great jungle was produced on akai MPC's back in the 90's.quality stuff.

davylee

Lukasz. wrote: »

alright.

okay.

*phew"


lets get things into perspective here.

you want a "drum n bass box" well,that sounds like hardware to me.

id recommend a Roland groovebox or Korg electribe esx.

go and buy some royalty free jungle/drum n bass loops on teh net,via sample dvd.load em up,or splice the loops in audacity and import into your sampler(via smartmedia card or Compact flash,all depneds on what gear you are using) same goes for synth hits an bassline,just buy some hits and load em onto the memory card and start making "grooves"

that was all simplfied and in laymans terms,im not going into much detail there,just the basics.


some great jungle was produced on akai MPC's back in the 90's.quality stuff.

layman's terms!!;)

Lukasz.

davylee wrote: »

layman's terms!!;)

do you want to make music on a PC or hardware?

davylee

Lukasz. wrote: »

do you want to make music on a PC or hardware?

preferably hardware.
i was looking at the alesis sr 18 and the zoom 223 which will let me record drums and bassline. i could then put it on computer and from there to the mp3. i reckon that's the easiest way for me. i'm useless on computers. doing that will be hard enough ya no

Lukasz.

davylee wrote: »

preferably hardware.
i was looking at the alesis sr 18 and the zoom 223 which will let me record drums and bassline. i could then put it on computer and from there to the mp3. i reckon that's the easiest way for me. i'm useless on computers. doing that will be hard enough ya no

hey,

so you are going to play live drums and live bass guitar into those two devices?

or do those two devices compose drum patterns and basslines?
sorry about this,im just too lazy to look them up.

davylee

Lukasz. wrote: »

hey,

so you are going to play live drums and live bass guitar into those two devices?

or do those two devices compose drum patterns and basslines?
sorry about this,im just too lazy to look them up.

i can create all the covers i'm doing from start to finish with one of these machines i think any way. But you don't record the songs using instruments, you use the machine. The pads act as drums sounds and bass notes as far as i no. That is my understanding of it

Lukasz.

davylee wrote: »

i can create all the covers i'm doing from start to finish with one of these machines i think any way. But you don't record the songs using instruments, you use the machine. The pads act as drums sounds and bass notes as far as i no. That is my understanding of it

cool,sounds nice.You seem to be taking a completley different approach to drum and bass which,in my opinion, is a breath of fresh air!

im oldskool,i just take drum breaks from old records,import them into my pc,chop em up on screen,them import them into my sampler,and away i go.

So,explain to me,do you have your two devices synced in any way? Is one device sending MIDI messages to the other?

I would recommend using your drum machine as the master device and
using the bassline composer as the slave

Thats always worked for me,i find drum machines great as sequencers.

PaulBrewer

Lukasz. wrote: »

im oldskool,i just take drum breaks from old records,import them into my pc,chop em up on screen,them import them into my sampler,and away i go.

??? Oldskool is PLAYING the drums ??

Lukasz.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

??? Oldskool is PLAYING the drums ??

You will very rarely see live drumming in oldskool jungle/drum and bass.its become more prevailant today,but back in the nineties,you'd never see that.not a chance.

So yeah,chopping up the breaks and importing onto the sampler (or even chopping them on the sampler) was very oldskool.

i have to stop using the term "oldskool" so much.

davylee

Lukasz. wrote: »

cool,sounds nice.You seem to be taking a completley different approach to drum and bass which,in my opinion, is a breath of fresh air!

im oldskool,i just take drum breaks from old records,import them into my pc,chop em up on screen,them import them into my sampler,and away i go.

So,explain to me,do you have your two devices synced in any way? Is one device sending MIDI messages to the other?

I would recommend using your drum machine as the master device and
using the bassline composer as the slave

Thats always worked for me,i find drum machines great as sequencers.

something like that is the plan yeah.The devices won't be connected. I will get the song finished on the rhythm machine. Then my plan is to get that on the computer. I presume these machines would something to allow me to get it on the comp like a card receiver???
Ive narrowed it down to three machines i think.

Boss dr 670
Alesis sr 18
Zoom rt 223

so any takers on any of them.

DamagedTrax

Lukasz. wrote: »

You will very rarely see live drumming in oldskool jungle/drum and bass.its become more prevailant today,but back in the nineties,you'd never see that.not a chance.

So yeah,chopping up the breaks and importing onto the sampler (or even chopping them on the sampler) was very oldskool.

i have to stop using the term "oldskool" so much.

dude, the guy isnt talking about drum'n'bass the genre.. he's just looking for a drum machine and a bassline machine.

and importing to your PC IS NOT oldskool!!!! oldskoolis importing slices to your akai S series ;-)

Lukasz.

DamagedTrax wrote: »

dude, the guy isnt talking about drum'n'bass the genre.. he's just looking for a drum machine and a bassline machine.

and importing to your PC IS NOT oldskool!!!! oldskoolis importing slices to your akai S series ;-)

Ill leave you guys to your own devices.

davylee

sorry lukasz think we got our wires crossed