I’m currently reading the new book about Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming technique and I was wondering how to emulate his style on the new Elektron sequencers like the Digitakt. Maybe you guys have some interesting ideas?
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It’s a very nice book, but the basis of his drumming system is the physical configuration of hands holding sticks hitting drums.
You can make realistic-sounding drum machine patterns using the dot-dash system’s rules for beats, rests, and dynamics, but the book will not inform you about choices of sounds or other compositional matters.
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Studying this track is worthwhile, in my opinion.
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Thanks for the heads up on this book!
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Ditto, will have to find a copy.
Yeah of course I read the book 
but it’s still kind of hard for a non trained drummer to translate this system into the world of sequencers. So the question remains if anybody tried to do it on some Elektron devices?
Thank you for the heads up about the book!
Jaki is my favorite drummer. I believe he developed his style after someone high on psychedelics told him “You must play more mechanical” The Digitakt is perfect for emulating Jaki now that the real deal is dead!
I try to get a “Halleluwah” feel with my kicks and snares a lot. I hold down the backbeat with a snare, then live record the kick and go wild. Then I set a ton a conditional trigs on the kicks to get that expressive Jaki feel.
Here is a decent example of what I’m talkin’ about
It’s not that in depth but I think I capture a little bit of the feeling
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???
It’s a simple set of rules for beats and rests and dynamics of successive hits. The rules for alternate hands can be used or discarded as you want.
For those who have not seen the book, there’s an introduction (the book has more depth) in this article:
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Ironically, the development of the dot-dash theory led him to abandon the conventional jazz or rock kit that he used in Can.
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Trouble with acoustic drums vs electronic drums (be they samples or synths) is this-
On my drumkit I can get literally hundreds of sounds out of say, my ride cymbal. I can play dynamically way beyond the scope of any step sequencer, and revoice any pattern at any time.
And that is just one limb. I have three others. Even though I play a small 4 piece kit with just two cymbals, very complex and dynamic patterns are easy to do. A digitakt just isnt designed to be that kind of orchestral emulator.
If you have a really good multisampled drum kit software, and a linear sequencer like ableton, logic etc, and you know what you are doing (ie, you’re a drummer) then yeah sure, programming elektronic drums to sound like real drums, not that hard. Time consuming as hell though. Much easier and quicker to just play it on the kit.
I have been seeing youtube clips of drummers playing aphex twin beats or Venetian snares beats. Sounds bloody awful to my ears.
Personally I like the difference. I like elektronic music to sound and feel electronic.
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now I must have this book
What do you mean when you say emulating his style? Seems too abstract a term.
For example, if someone says “I want to emulate the style of Jimi Hendrix on a synth”, what does that mean? Is it the notes? The dynamics? The spacing of the notes? The genre (rock, blues, etc)? His choice of sounds (pedals, type of guitar, amps)?
I think you need break it down more what you’re looking for. If it’s just notes, you can transcribe his drumming and see what he is doing.
It’s all about that Vitamin C beat…
I would agree that he is a really good drummer to emulate with electronics and I also need to read this book…
Well, it’s kind of everything you mentioned I guess… because I’m no expert in this musical terminology. I tried a lot to copy his more simple rhythms (especially from the Secret Rhythms LPs with Burnt Friedman) but it’s not sounding as “special” as his style.
Well maybe it’s time to learn real drumming 
Could someone point me to some essential Jaki listening? Thanks 
that’s why I got myself my first Drumset (after playing here and there) it’s so quick and extremely inspirational to bang out some triplets on the ride cymbal, cavemen like.
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great track!!
The drummimg on Tago Mago is incredible.
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Havent read the book, so fwiw.
When I had yhe DT I tried to emulate Jakis drumming using a couple of bars from Vitamin C as a kind of templete. I sampled one or two bars of his drumming to th DT. Run the loop on one track, and used rest of the tracks to program the drums.
Microtimning and parameter locks makes it pretty easy and managable to roughly emulate one or two bars of drumming (that is when the complexity is low). I where pretty pleased with the result, felt like I captured what I interpreted as the essnce of his drumming (in that track) to the DT.
The album Ege Bamyasi.
Edit: After making this statement I gave the album a good listen on headphones with an ear for drum programming. It’s so rich…
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