If you were making some synth/punk/rave type stuff, think of likes of Prodigy and Pendulum, what plugin (and kit within plugin ideally) would you use to add the live drums elements?

I generally use 909 elements with breaks layered over the top, but Prodigy etc play live with a live drummer too, so interested in experimenting with that concept.

Cheers

 

Any suggestions at all?

 

so if you want to use a plugin for live drums - Then so, you wanna program 'Live Drums'

If I'm correct then I think XLN Audio's ADDICTIVE Drums has the most Live Feel. The Kits and groove capabilties. To me its the most 'realistic' sounding plugin


I Think other alternatives would be

FXPansion - BFD Drums

A.I.R. - Structure


Happy Hunting

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2021

Superior Drummer is what I use. And there are some pretty squashed presets in there too for this type of thing!
Some interesting sounding lofi kits in That Sound's Sterloid you may like. Quite small.
So you're still going forward with your live drummer/ravey thing? Cool.
I'm friends with Andy Gangadeen, if you need any pointers via PM for when you go live with it.

 

Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums are good and realistic.

but for the type of music you mentioned, I would suggest some metal drum library like GetGood Invasion (Kontakt) or you can also try the SD3 with any metal library (but it is huge).

 

Overkill imo, unless he ends up using the kit live with trigger kit.
SD2. Has great squashed presets for this.
And I wouldn't necessarily use a Metal kit at all.
It would be in the processing.

 

Last edited: Aug 30, 2021

Basically Linn Drum or Simmons Drums for Synthwave. If it's a live kit you need to smash it with an 1176 and add that madatory 80s gated reverb. Native Instruments Butch Vig Drums (from the Play Series) has some great sounding mangled drum sounds as well.

 

Hi bro.
I know that Bunford is planning to want to take this out live with a drummer.
So, why are we assuming he wants the drummer to sound like Bobby Z playing over a drum machine?
Just wondering.
He mentions The Prodigy. Not very 80s sounding with Linn or Simmons at all imo.

 

live drums layered with dubstep drums and breaks. packs i recommend anything from disciple records and bog standard classic breaks freebie pack off the internet. The phase one sample pack will get you going the best as that's a great pack of live drum samples mixed with dubstep ones. Processing wise eq compression route to a drum bus with fabfilter saturn and some multiband compression then either a clipper or limiter done.

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2021

Well, read my entire comment on the topic and stop wondering.

 

Two sentences aren't hard for me to read.
You edited the "Synthwave" into it now, after I said that.
What's up with you today? Grumpy?
Or you could answer my question I posed to you...

Live drums, Stan. Most probably acoustic. You must have missed that part of the sentence.
Please read entire OP and stop...whatever.

 

Last edited: Sep 2, 2021

@Smoove Grooves First of all I make suggestions - whether somebody makes use of them or not is not my concern. Second of all, I have have mentioned the butch vig drums which are based on acoustic drums but treated. Something even prodigy could run with. 3rd, I have produced a synthwave album, so I am pretty confident that I know what I am talking about. So STOP bothering me for making SUGGESTIONS!

 

I know, and it's great! You already know from before I've got your back, c'mon.
But Synthwave is not what Bunford is doing, is all I'm implying.
Yes, Butch Vig would do for the ac. drums.
I didn't think the Linn, which I absolutely love too, was relevant to his sound.
He has posted before about this project too, and I happened to remember.
Sorry man. But all I was doing was pointing things out and commenting, as you are too.
You were a bit terse and I don't understand why.
Well, I understand you think I was hassling you or something.
But I'm not, and should be allowed to say what I said.
Please chill, brother. No offence intended.
Okay?

 

anyway, I had no idea what his current gear kit list was like, and so I looked.
I really like Drum Designer in Falcon 2 for example. but would I trust it to be used live? hell no.



LIAM HOWLETT'S GEAR LIST
Ableton Live software
Access Virus TI Polar
Akai CD3000XL MIDI Stereo CD-ROM Sampler, (10MB)
Akai iMPC Music Production App for iPad
Akai S1100 sampler
Akai S2800 midi stereo digital sampler
Akai S3200XL Professional Stereo Digital Sampler
Akai S5000 sampler
Akai Z8 Digital sampler

 

Liam also had a load of Roland W-30 workstations back in the day. He loved them.
I think most of the Akai's you mention weren't even around when the classic Prodigy tracks were made.
So that's interesting to see what he's been using up until recently.
Are they still gigging after Keith passed on?
I used to be in their scene when I lived in their area!
I nearly sold my W-30 to Liam!
Great guys.

 

I didn't copy the whole list because it's massive. but the whole drum sound he 's talking about is mostly Akai. especially breaks.
there are a bunch of plugins and things that attempt to emulate different models. akaizer is a good free one that tries to sound like the time stretching "damage". and others bitcrush/filter speed, emulate.

for some low-bitrate effects like op requested, they are cheap/free. and not half bad if you remember that they are cheap/free.

but so much of what you hear attributed to hardware samplers, you really have to remember the hw is likely returning via a desk.
that's a pretty big part of the sound, with at minimum a channel strip worth of attention given to it. an Akai is cheap. I bet their board is $$$.

 

The W-30 sampler has a 'sound'.
It was 16Bit sampling, 12Bit playback.
And I can push it into clipping when I sample into it!

From VSE:
"Overall, the W-30 was quite popular for its time and musicians such as Liam Howlett from The Prodigy made extensive use of it on all their early tracks. It even remained his master keyboard on-stage until 2008. Some of the drawbacks of the W-30 is the lack of real time filters and the fact that it doesn't have Sysex."
http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/w-30

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2021

Addictive Drum can do the job, it got some Linndrum/DMX sample for the synthwave part, some 808/909 for the punch/sub and their drum kit are pretty decent. But if you really want the real live drummer feel, Superior Drummer is probably best as it got more nuances (but heavier on CPU and using lot of space on your hard drive)

Prodigy use a drummer live but on their album it's mostly sample based, using old breakbeat layered with an 808 for the kick (just like old school hip hop from 88-92 but with more compression/saturation). For Smack My Bitch up for exemple, it's the Lyn Collins "Think" break with some 808 kick (sampled directly from an hip hop track, so it's a sample of a sample, which is cool to think about). So it's probably close to what you already doing. Using sample for the feel can be great, especially if you use different break for different part, all that layered with some drum like Addictive or Superior Drum for the energy and 808/909 kick for the sub/punch.

 

Sorry, but nowhere in the OP is Synthwave mentioned! lol

Uh, your external SSD, please! lol.
Gonna do this live too, remember!

Correct.

Who plays to the click and may even be triggering samples to the click, as per Smack My Bitch up.
As my friend Andy Gangadeen does with Massive Attack, Chase & Status, Labrinth.
I am reading that Bunford wants acoustic drums with some electronic elements too, and playing to the click obviously. So other breaks can be triggering in realtime.

Slightly OT, but when I was hanging out with the Purple people, I was told that they experimented with having a 'live' click that followed John Blackwell.
Renato Neto was manually clicking the tempo TO John.
I thought they tried out Ableton Live for this but I'd have to speak to Morris again to confirm this.
So any samples that would be triggered in the sequence will stretch in realtime to the drummer.
It feels a lot more organic.
But obviously you need a master pocket groove man for this.
Can't have too much tempo deviation if not working TO the click, but having the click follow the drummer.
Andy of course is mostly working to just a straight click all the time.
Just some thoughts for Bunford really.

 

Last edited: Sep 3, 2021