I'm not a drummer, so...

[CBHScott]

...as soon as I reorganize (again :rolleyes my basement studio, I want to start doing some recording (finally :rolleyes. In order to do so, I want to be able to record drum parts without the painstaking drawing of them in MIDI, or cutting and pasting loops.

Since I don't want to spend a ton of money, I've boiled it down to one of these:

1) Alesis DM Pro electronic drum kit (apparently a slightly stripped-down version of the DM6 set; has the DM6 module); on sale for $289 from AMS:

or

1) Korg padKontrol w/various "lite" software, for $169 everywhere:

The pros of the Alesis are good reviews, USB connectivity to trigger other soft drums/sounds, pretty low price for a e-kit, and actually having to hit pads with sticks, so I's kan lern me sum drummin', and mebbe gradeate up to a real akuuuustik kit.

Pros of the padKontrol: good review. small footprint, bundled software, lower price.


What would y'all do?

 

[Phil513]

Well, if you'd like to eventually be able to play drums, i'd go with the Alesis kit.

I have been wanting to do that, but i think it would just be another thing for me to suck at and feel bad that i'm not putting the time into, so i'm sticking with just creating them in MIDI, or with my MPC pads.

 

[Chad]

I would go for the kit. When you start out, you could always just do one take and just play the kick, then a second track just playing the snare and so on until you get the hang of playing.

 

[micwalt]

I'd get the kit--it'll be more fun. But be aware that, especially at first, you'll still be spending a good bit of time in the MIDI editor.

 

[Kerouac]

I'd get the kit--it'll be more fun. But be aware that, especially at first, you'll still be spending a good bit of time in the MIDI editor.

This, although I play drums and still love to use the pads, especially for electronic or percussion parts.


---
- Sent from my iPhone at a Tijuana donkey show.

 

[Prages]

I'd get the kit--it'll be more fun. But be aware that, especially at first, you'll still be spending a good bit of time in the MIDI editor.

Truth. I've been playing drums (poorly) for years, but the electronic kit maps out just how bad a drummer you really are.

Thankfully, there's a quantize function in the MIDI editor, and at least on mine, you can tell it to only quantize notes that are more than a certain amount off the beat, so you can still make it sound like a human is playing, but you can easily fix your biggest booboos.

Still, I'd go for the kit over the pad. Just make sure the kit comes with the kick pedal. I don't know how that one is made, but the kit I just got has a kick pad that you can attach any kick pedal to, but it didn't come with a kick pedal. I knew that going in, and it wasn't a problem because I already had two kick pedals.

 

[micwalt]

Thankfully, there's a quantize function in the MIDI editor, and at least on mine, you can tell it to only quantize notes that are more than a certain amount off the beat, so you can still make it sound like a human is playing, but you can easily fix your biggest booboos.

Really? That's cool! I don't think you can do that in Reaper--it's either quantize everything or don't quantize anything.

 

[Prages]

Really? That's cool! I don't think you can do that in Reaper--it's either quantize everything or don't quantize anything.

Yep. It's got a percentage field in the quantize function, so you can not only ignore notes that are within so many percent of the beat, but you can also change the quantize strength so if you are quantizing a note, you can set the strength to something other than 100% and it won't pull the note all the way to the beat marker.

The way I've been doing it is that I'll play the drums, then I'll quantize everything that's more than say 5% off the beat. Then anything that's really screwed up, I'll either edit manually, or copy and paste, or just recut that section.

 

[micwalt]

Yep. It's got a percentage field in the quantize function, so you can not only ignore notes that are within so many percent of the beat, but you can also change the quantize strength so if you are quantizing a note, you can set the strength to something other than 100% and it won't pull the note all the way to the beat marker.

The way I've been doing it is that I'll play the drums, then I'll quantize everything that's more than say 5% off the beat. Then anything that's really screwed up, I'll either edit manually, or copy and paste, or just recut that section.

Very cool.