Some guidance on drum units and triggers

The Lounge General Discussion
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Hey fam,
As my name suggests I’m a bit of a noob in the realms of audio hardware. Guitars and DAWs have been my jam but I’m thinking of branching out! Exciting times, and frightening for my wallet.

What I’m brainstorming is theoretical and I’m not sure how practical or possible it’s going to be, so I want your input and I thank you for your time.

I’m envisioning a triggered drum kit midi linked to a drum module, perhaps the Analogue Rytm which I’ve discovered only today.

Doesn’t sound too difficult hey, so long as it’s linked to the push button pad and not the sequencer right?

Well that’s a shame, because the man in the shop roughly explained to me that you can do some clever programming with the sequencer.

I’m just wondering whether it is possible to produce a psytrance beat, you know the ol’ doof dugga, doof dugga, doof dugga, doof dugga; or the other similar beats by triggering only the kick i.e. kick on the drum kit and the drum module produces a kick plus the bass line. And due to the slight human fluctuations in tempo, that timing relationship between the kick and bass hits will also adjust.

Now I know that there are ways to make the human kick drum set the tempo, with it’s slight fluctuations. I haven’t set about to achieve that just yet, but apparently it’s doable. I’m a noob, be patient.

So I just wonder whether there is a unit in the Elektron range which might achieve this concept, because I’ll be damned if anyone has to hit those basslines manually for an hour - and I’m aware of looping options.

I have to say the sounds coming out of the Analogue Rytm were really nice. I’ve always been a DAW nerd but hardware is soo much nicer to work with and, to my ears, the analogue sound had something in it that sounds more rich and alive.

Any thoughts?

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You want a drum machine with midi tap tempo, and control it’s tempo with a drum trigger kick, that’s it ?

I would’t do that for psytrance beats, I don’t think tempo variations would be interesting, and it’s risky in live conditions if the tempo is drastically changed by a wrong tapped tempo, which can happen with most gear with tap tempo. I tried things like that years ago, I totally excluded that tap tempo thing while playing.

BTW I don’t know if there are external tap tempo options with Elektron gear.

Here is a product doing it :
http://www.midisolutions.com/prodfsw.htm

It would send tapped tempo to a drum machine.

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If you mean that a kick-drum played by a human can be used to trigger other gear, then you are right. There are various options to do this. There are complete kits, like the Roland V-Drums series, which can be used to trigger synthesizers and/or samplers.

But I don’t think to control the AR by some midi-tempo-change would be a good idea to get a “humanized-feeling”.

If the midi-tempo is derived from a “real-drummer”, it takes some beats until the tempo is calculated or re-calculated. This change of tempo could be used to change the midi-tempo of the AR as well, but it would not re-create the small timing differences of a real human drummer, which are applied note by note.

Changing midi-tempo could work, if the piece of music requires tempo-changes, like beginning with 80 BPM, increasing to higher or decreasing to lower tempo.

Having the human fluctuations from note-to-note requires that exactly each note triggers the sound engine and this is AFAIK not possible using the sequencer of the AR with some external tempo control. But playing midi-notes from an external device would achieve this.

But it’s not necessary to do it this way. The Elektron sequencers are not forcing each note to be played exactly inside a precise grid. Each note can have a micro-timing-shift. If we know a little about groove and how to program humanized rhythms using micro-timing, the groove can be very human.

The Electron sequencers allow us also to record live and without quantisation, which will record the “micro-timing” accordingly.

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Thanks for your input guys.

I guess I’m only thinking of a fluctuating tempo because when I forsee one kick strike also triggering the following bassline notes, i.e. Kick-ba-ba-ba, kick-ba-ba-ba, there is going to be potential problems if the next kick comes too late or two early.

I’m probably overcomplicating things and I should just have a machine sequenced kick and bassline and then allow the drummer to play over it. I’ll keep him in time too

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There are sequencers, which accept a trigger signal to go from step to step.

The following is possible:

  1. The drummer hits the kick and this generates a trigger signal,
  2. the trigger signal triggers a seqencer and
  3. this sequencer triggers a short sequence to be played.

Now each hit of the kick by the drummer triggers the required sequence and if the drummer shifts a little in time, the sequence will shift accordingly.

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Yamaha DTX series of electronic percussion can do what you ask.

I use the DTX Multi 12 as a clock source for my OT often, and since I have one of the pads set to Tap Tempo, I have control over the OT tempo with drum sticks. .

The DTXM12 also has the ability to play up to 4 notes from one pad, either as a “stack” ( chord ) or “alternate” - alternate is the one that will play the four notes in succession: so you could play a line with successive hits.

I’m pretty sure that some of the Roland pads / electronic brains do the same thing regarding the stack or alternate modes.

I accomplish what you’re talking about with two different devices:
Analog Rytm or OT as a sound generator, and the DTXM-12 to control the tempo of things with drumsticks for the human feel.

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I had ordered the Yamaha EAD10 a week or so before my post. It accepts up to 6 triggers and the midi is sent via USB… I’m not sure if I can achieve the same result

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Cool man. Are you able to suggest any such sequencers? I suppose a DAW might be able to reproduce this too?

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I had the Komplex Sequencer by KOMA Elektronik in mind using two parts, or sequencer from the modular world. They accept pulses to start, stop, and to advance steps. But the Komplex Sequencer might be an overshot … at least considering the price they are asking for.

Using my modular system I think this would be possible with the Brains, Pressure-Points, René combined with a clock and a logic AND circuit. But even this would be not the most affordable solution :wink: … now it depends … is your use case professional and is an investment justified?

Other hardware to consider could be the Arturia BeatStep Pro. There seem to be various “Clock Connector” and “Clock-Modes”, which might be used, when the BeatStep Pro is in “slave-mode”. Maybe there is a useful mode of the Squarp Pyramid sequencer.

Software could do this and I assume, it could be possible with either Ableton Live or Bitwig, which might accept a “pulse” and then fire a one shot clip.

You will have to do some research on this. Best exactly specify, what is master, what shall be controlled and how, and then check the options :wink:

Let’s know, what you find and keep asking here …

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