Best Drum VI or library for Jazz brush ballad?

[Rick Cornish]

Well said, Shooshie. I just wanted to echo the point made earlier about live players (and it's certainly much more affordable to hire a drummer than a string orchestra) as well as introduce the notion of using loop CDs to incorporate real playing.... which is more viable than a VI in this case—at least in my view.

[Shooshie]

You mean like Apple Loops? REX? Those kinds of things? Obviously you're referring to some tailored for percussion, but same deal, right?

That's all well and good, but I've got one question that I've never really figured out. How do you find exactly what you're looking for? I could have spent years searching just the Apple Loops in Logic, and I just wasn't finding what I wanted. Close, but... well... no cigar.

Are there libraries that come with some kind of pattern catalogue? Maybe cross referenced between rhythms (perhaps in notation form, on a grid or something), and style, instrumentation, dynamics... I mean, already just that little idea there is getting out of hand. How do you do it?

Shoosh

[toodamnhip]

My 2¢...

Having played jazz for most of my life, I'm skeptical that a VI would be able to capture or reproduce the nuance in jazz brush playing—particularly on a ballad. Perhaps if the user isn't too picky and the part isn't too exposed, a result might be able to be achieved that would be considered "good enough" for some, but can only imagine it would take an inordinate amount of time to do so. Personally, my choices would be (1) if at all possible, record a real drummer (a real jazz drummer with the right kit and chops) or (2) as a last resort drop the needle on a sample CD (Peter Erskine's "Living Drums" or Samplephonics' "Brushed Grooves" come to mind) and spend my time doing some creative audio editing of real playing to get the part to sing.

Again, just one guy's opinion.

Your opinion is quite valid Rick. But let me add an aspect to things that you may not ave considered.
Any time I, as a human, REAL player, START with something from a VI library, I end up PLAYING TO IT. This makes it COME TO LIFE. So what may have been some sort of indistinguishable jazz brush part, or hip hop loop or whatever it is, come to life due to MY playing.
And if done right, this makes that particular VI come to life. Is it is a good as being in the studio with a live drummer who is reposting back and forth with me? No. But it is an over simplification to think a static MIDI part remains so once a real play attaches himself to it. it does indeed take on a life of it’s own even if done in a somewhat reverse manner. The same thing happens with a simple metronome. It’s clicking, without any apparent feel to it. A great player starts swinging up against it and VIOLA....it suddenly swings.
Un human can be brought to life...just like frankenstein said...lol

[Rick Cornish]

Any time I, as a human, REAL player, START with something from a VI library, I end up PLAYING TO IT. This makes it COME TO LIFE. So what may have been some sort of indistinguishable jazz brush part, or hip hop loop or whatever it is, come to life due to MY playing.

Definitely considered this, which is why I write most of my music in DP (unless I'm scoring for big band or orchestra). The point is, pushing a button to play back a sample of someone playing brushes on a drum kit—no matter how expertly played, recorded and programmed into a sample player—will never duplicate the flow and nuance of a real player. Personally, I find sample CDs—like the Peter Erskine disc—where you have a minute or more continuous playing, give me more to work with and enable me to better approach the illusion of having a real player on the track.

But again, that's just my opinion.

[BKK-OZ]

Dunno what the OP ended up doing, or if they are still looking, but I got an email today sayimg that this was on special.

No idea if it is good or not, here FYI: http://www.thelooploft.com/products/bru ... s-volume-1

[mhschmieder]

After Dave downloaded the Sennheiser library, he was wondering where the brushes were, so I rechecked my copy and the user manual and found I had likely remembered wrong. It's just that the kit was recorded so well that its highly nuanced playing (in particular the awesome snare) ended up giving me more of the feel I was looking for than any of my brushes kits.

As an additional note (since I had forgotten), you have to go to their German site and wade through German to get through the process of the download. My German sucks, but I managed anyway.

[Rick Cornish]

FWIW, came across this VI today…

http://www.acousticsamples.net/drums/drumtastebrush

Very nice sampling, though the result for a jazz ballad is not what a real player would play. Nevertheless, it sounds very nice and—short of complex "stirring" snare work—looks to be agood tool for anyone needing brush work.

[BKK-OZ]

Dunno what the OP ended up doing, or if they are still looking, but I got an email today sayimg that this was on special.

No idea if it is good or not, here FYI: http://www.thelooploft.com/products/bru ... s-volume-1

Update, bundle on special for a few days: http://www.thelooploft.com/products/bun ... 5032caaf3a

[mhschmieder]

Unless I bought it and forgot I had it (and this would have been in December during the sales), I wasn't aware of the AcousticSamples brush library, even though I thought I drilled deep into their catalogue during recent sales. At least, I don't recognize the GUI on that product page.

They're a pretty good sample library developer overall. I would say on par with SampleTekk, which means above average and occasionally excellent but not in the Top 10 (a tough task, indeed, with all the great developers out there now). This also means their libraries are all usable and musical, and are a good purchase especially for stuff that hasn't been covered by others.

[David Polich]

Just as a side note/addendum/whatever….personally I find drum loop libraries (or any
sampled phrase library, for that matter) completely useless. The main reason is that the
loops don't "adjust" to your composition. I did start my musical life as a drummer, so I just
"play" drum VI's like I know a drummer would play. That's why all I need from a library is good
individual sounds - I'll record the right part myself using my fingers on the keyboard.

To Shooshie - two things a keyboard player should never use - the D-50 "Fantasia" patch,
and a sampled saxophone. That said, I know a number of MIDI orchestrators who do such amazing "mockups" that if they hadn't shown me the actual project files (usually DP), I would
have said that's a real orchestra. So I know that music done entirely with MIDI and virtual instruments can sound completely convincing. There's a lot of it on television these days,
because the music budgets are so small, there isn't money (or time) to hire bands or orchestras.

How convincing or authentic a sample-based VI is depends mostly on the skill set of the person "playing " it. I'll give you another example - I've heard Greg Phillinganes play
a guitar patch on a keyboard and damn if it didn't sound like a great guitar player. Greg
is one of those guys who really knows how to play idiomatically, understanding what instrument ranges and behaviors are, and what players can and can't do.

So if you have a virtual clarinet up and running in your project, then you have to be a clarinet
player for that instance. If it's a trumpet, you become a trumpet player. If it's a guitar, you're
a guitar player. This is not always the case with people who do MIDI composing, and thus you
get stuff that doesn't sound cohesive or authentic.

[monkey man]

Spot on, David.

You have to BE him or her.

My music, at least, the last time I made any, which was years ago, was always much more "convincing" and engaging (to me at least) than I'd expected. I put this down to "becoming" the various contributors, and, following that, the sum of those constituent parts.

There's no place for ego in this endeavour. For me, this is the foundational principle.

[Shooshie]

JHow convincing or authentic a sample-based VI is depends mostly on the skill set of the person "playing " it.

I started using a WX-7 when the DX7-II came out, back when we thought that was an exciting advancement over the DX-7. In fact, I had a DX-7-II-E!, which expanded the DX7-II to an 8-voice multi-timbral instrument. Wow. At that time, we were excited to get even in the ballpark of the sound of a real instrument, so what I learned was that making an instrument sound convincing was ALL in the idiomatic playing. Otherwise, there just wan't that much difference between a trumpet sound and a violin, or even a solo flute. So, I turned off the LFO on all sounds to make it possible to play the vibrato naturally, with the WX-7, and made sure that blowing harder added harmonics, not just a volume control. The rest was up to us when we played it. ("Us" being my friend and myself; we each played a WX-7 with synthesized orchestra, while playing things like duo concertos or any other work that included duo voices.)

So, yeah, idiomatic playing is the key. Even today with samples that may be fairly convincing on their own, nothing sounds as real as when you play it in the stylistic idiom of the instrument you're mimicking. That's why I always tried to find libraries that allow you to turn off the vibrato and create it naturally. I've about given up on that with most modern libraries, however, opting now to control the speed and depth of the vibrato with pedals rather than to try to create it as I do on the sax. (Yamaha WX instruments have a "reed" with a pressure transducer that can vary the pitch as you move your embouchure up and down, as you would with pressure on the reed of an actual instrument.) Most libraries just make it too hard to do that. But all the other elements of idiomatic playing are usually possible.

Shooshie

[rob fetters]

Best results for me (besides a real drummer and 2 mics): "Purrrfect Brushes" — genuine sounding and cheap ($19), works in Kontakt.

http://www.studiocat.com/open_cart/inde ... duct_id=63

I use it for more than jazz, but speaking of technique—great jazz drummers often play less than I would imagine. They let the listener fill in the spaces.
I learned that in a session in Cincinnati where John Von Ohlen drove a ballad almost entirely with sparse hi-hat hits. Maybe tapped the kick 4 times in the whole piece. It was breathtaking—like watching a tight rope act—and as fascinating to watch as somebody like Bill Bruford, who's busier, but still honors the space between the notes.

[daniel.sneed]

[...] but speaking of technique—great jazz drummers often play less than I would imagine. They let the listener fill in the spaces.[...]

Thanks for sharing, Rob.
That's my major rule in many circumstances.
AFAICT, works in quite all musical contexts.

[David Polich]

Best results for me (besides a real drummer and 2 mics): "Purrrfect Brushes" — genuine sounding and cheap ($19), works in Kontakt.

http://www.studiocat.com/open_cart/inde ... duct_id=63

I use it for more than jazz, but speaking of technique—great jazz drummers often play less than I would imagine.

Umm, yeah - warning Will Robinson! I bought and downloaded this. It is WINDOWS only. The ReadMe says they were compressed with 7-zip, and I tried installing 7-2x for Mac to unzip them, but they just unzip as Unix files. Not only that, but the 7-2x installer also installed
malware on MacBook…something called cinema pro-1, which fortunately I was able to remove after about an hour of nail-biting.

Until this vendor gets his act together and posts downloads in regular zip or RAR format,
I'd stay away from this product.