Your Favorite Rhythm generation tool for the Virus ?
 

The Virus is a great synth, and the new TI has amazing sound generation capabilities, but I am not sure it is the best tool to create the rhythm track for a song (i.e. Trance, Techno, Dance, ...etc).

It would be interesting to know what Virus users seem to consider their favorite tool (hardware i.e. Korg EMX-1 or software i.e. Stylus RMX) to create rhythm tracks for the Virus.

Any feedback on this topic ?

Thanks

Stylus rmx has everything you need in a box. Sound quality,flexibility for a bargain price. If you get the xpanders you can create everything you can imagine.

agreed, I find Stylus RMX to be one of my favorite vstis. Be sure to pick up a copy of recycle as well so that you can chop up all of your loops and import them into rmx (if you go with it :) )

I'm using dr-880 drum machine for acoustic drums and HPD-15 for ethnic and electro groove altogether the sound is amazing . 8)

I like the simplicity of using a TR707 and using it to trigger other synths also. Thing that baffles me a bit with modern drum machines is that you dont seem to get individual outs these days. Everything just comes out of a stereo pair. Am I right in thinking these devices are just jamming tools....they cant be serious recording tools can they?

DS

DS. I think you will find that you can re-wire up the Virtual Drum software these days into multiple outs in your DAW - so each track can have FX/EQ.

regards

So...most people use software drums these days? I dont like working with software...hell I dont even like working :lol:

What hardware alternatives are there these days? Drum machines with individual outs?

DS

Hey Doc, have you used NI's Inktakt?

I have read on another forum that Intakt is similar to ReCycle, maybe easier, maybe a little more feature rich.

I bought Reason almost 2 years ago and hated it so I never got into ReCycle...

Cheers!

-Alex

Stylus RMX ... definitely!

In the music that streams from my site... you'll hear Groove Agent. Now I've migrated over to Stylus RMX. Far superior to Steinberg's Groove Agent.

If you like, check the new mpc 2500.Superior quality, many outs,2midi IO, but only 16mb onboard ram expandable of course.The perfect hardware companion to the TI IMO.

Ni's Battery will be much more useful since you could always buy new sample cds to run thru it.

Hi Alex, yeah, I do own Intakt and it is a good piece of software. It's very much like the rex player in Reason where the pitch and tempo are independent of each other and you can manipulate the loop at the slice (or hit) level. But honestly, once you go with RMX, you will probably never want to use another software for rhythm generation. I really can't do it justice here, but it really is an amazing piece of software. Now don't get me wrong, RMX is very expandable with sage expanders from both spectrasonics and illios - neither of these require and slicing on your part. But I just love the flexibility RMX offers me as far as importing my own sample libraries (and own customized loops) into RMX using recycle. RMX has breathed a whole new life into my sample library - with it's amazing effects section, chaos improvisation etc. For me, recycle is actually quite a simple program, but I have been using it for years and have gotten to the point where I can cut up a loop or sample set almost perfectly. It takes a little practice, but you eventually get the hang of it and once you do, you end up going through everything and cutting it up to get it into RMX! :)

also Alex, think of recycle more as a tool rather than an instrument. Basically you use recycle to properly "cut up" your loops to proper hit points so that they can be played back in your software of choice.

I'm with you on the DR880, quality snares, toms and cymbals galore

Yeah.. we also use RMX, 1000 times better than Groove agent.
Were using it on our new track which is nearly finished..The DOC has already had a preview of the track and he likes it. :lol:
After getting a slaging off from certain people we totally changed our style
COMING SOON

for the drum parts i import the samples directly into audio tracks in cubase and create my rythms, i feel i have a better control over them this way, and i gain some RAM & CPU usage

We record ours as an Audio track when we have the Percussion how we want it...

I one ore more of the following, separatrely or layered, played or programmed:

Yamaha Motif ES Rack drum kits
Roland TD6KV VDrum kit
Reason V3 + RDK

Between that lot I usuall find what I am looking for, though I keep going through phases where I lust after a machine drum.

If you have no other hardware rompler/synths at all, then I think you should have a good look at a rompler to give you access to all those stock sounds that are really useful sometimes, including loads of drum sounds usually.

Reason is very good and easy to work with, but I personally find its raw samples seem to be a bit dead and take a fair bit of tweaking a procesing to bring alive. You can of course easily include your own, so I often sample of my v-drum kit. Motif ES drums seem to have a good punch to them, so I quite like them, either single or layered with something else.

I still think that for most flavours of electronica, there is nothing better for drums than a machine drum. (Lust... :))

Oh yeh - V-Synth makes for an excellent drum machine as well.


BTW - girl next door - I love that cover art - really nice :)

You can pick up a Novation Drumstation for very reasonable money if you can find one and that will give you EXACTLY the same sounds as a TR808 and TR909 (Have done direct comparisons and forking out for the original Roland boxes is sheer stupidity IMO)

The Drumstation will give you 8 1/4 inch jack outputs and each sound is freely assignable to each output. If only it had a step sequencer it would be one of the best drum machines out (besides Machinedrum of course, but thats at least 5 times the price)

Now, does anyone know of a hardware midi step sequencer that I could step write on to control the drumstation with?

EMU sampler here.

The EMU has multiple outs, which alows me to process each drum/loop/loop-part differently - also recording each drum element to a seperate track is a must. It also has a gain boost which is very pleasing. And the filters are fucking great!

I use recycle to chop and re-chop beats, transfering them back and forth to the sampler.

I also have a HPD15 which I use a trigger for certain beats. Although I've been thinking of selling this thing, beacause I like the feel of doing most of my drums from the keyboard, as it gives you lots of control over gating.

Well, I acctualy dissagree. Id much rather go for a software solution, because you can do very little with it, and it dont sound any better then software, so no need for the hardware and cables. The Drumstation is a VA and not particularly good at it. If you want real analoge 808/909 rather take a listen to Airbass from Jomox. This is the real version of the drumstation, that is built on the same components as the original TRs, and even extends the sounds in some aspects. Muuuch more "OMPH"

You can pic up an airbase probably cheep now. I did. I will also wholehartly recomend the Machine Drum, its a monster! The most modern, versatile and punchy electronic drum machine to date. Its VA, but its tighter then any software ive herd! Ive got the Monomachine, its sickly punchy.

Also remember with the RMX that if you like to program your own beats, its not that well suted. It is a very advanced loop-rompler. I know many people dont use it, because the sound you get from it sounds Spectrasonics, and not your own.

You can put your own loops into it, but it takes some work, import to recycle, slice it, export, convert to RMX with SAGE Converter, and then you can load it in the RMX. You have to do all this for every loop. On top of that, if you want to change the spesific loop, you have to do it all again. Its to much hazzle for me, dont have pations.. When I want to write a song, I got to do it right away! Though people work diferently. I had big plans for this with RMX, but in the end im just too lazy.. :P

I got it though & love it! I use it as it is, a percussive loop rompler. But only simple fills like shakes, or congas etc. I think that if you use the whole rythm section from the RMX in your song, it sounds to much like not your own sound. Its got a lovely sound though, dont get me wrong!! Its just that its not your personal sound...

For constructing your own beats with software, I will recomend MicroTonic for programing electronic drum sounds. And battery for building drum sample sets. Also GURU, and BDF for rock stuf.

just my 2 cents..

I use a 128Meg MPC1000 (will upgrade to th 2500) although I'm going to get Groove Agent 2 for inspirational purposes (as opposed to production)

The ESX-1 is the best thing I've found for me. I really like its sound and the interface is excellent; so intuitive. Effectively it's a sampling groove box, so the sounds never get old either. I chose it over an MPC as I really like x0x style interfaces for drums/samples and was planning on using a PC to sequence the Snow. Also, I've found a workaround on the ESX to get a pseudo off-tempo/unquantised sequencing for doing more natural/swung drumming when I do dubstep type tracks. The arpeggiator ribbon is also good fun when using it to control the virus (Virus have missed a trick not including one on the Polar ;)). The only real obstacle to ditching the PC for live work* that I've encountered is the lack of an ability to sequence chords when using it to control the virus. I've found two rather crude workarounds:

1. By "playing" the chords live on the keyboard section; it seems it can transmit the midi signals of multiple keys per part at once, it just can't store this information in the sequencer. Alright for live use (although you can't span different octaves), but not so hot when trying to record parts.

2. By assigning both note/melody parts to the same midi channel, you can play two-note chords (sequencing one note per channel).

Neither of these are much cop when trying to use multi-mode though, as at best you end up with 2 parts, one (sequenced) mono and the other (played live) capable of chords. This isn't unuseable for the way I make music as I tend to have a monophonic bassline and then chords on the lead/pad, so I can use the Snow without a PC. I would, however, buy a new sampling electribe in a flash if it had 2 more note/melody channels (for a total of 4- one for each snow part) and all these parts could at least sequence midi data of chords, even if they couldn't play back samples polyphonically.

*I imagine I'd keep it for studio work for actually designing the patches in Virus Control etc.

usually I just drag and drop drum samples onto cubase audio tracks

for dedicated drums I'll either use drum kits on my S6000, a TR909 or a Vermona DRM1 for the 808 style kicks and odd shit.

My favorite rhythm generation tool is our drummer, Joe and his fusion kit. We're still pretty old school, in that the majority of our recordings are done, real time in the studio. Drum kit, lots of mics and a guy with very fast hands and feet.

Then again, we play jazz.

When I'm doing something that doesn't need to "breathe" as much, and/or I'm working alone (or doing a totaly electronic project), I like Strike by Digidesign. Killer drum sounds and a ton of flexibility with everything from mic placement, to where the drum strikes the head. Also, since it's a Digidesign product, the integration with Protools is totally seamless and glitch free.

After going through various hardware and software drum machines, then currently Im on chopping up loops and sample libraries augment with beating my v-drum kit and handsonic to death :)