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[Flash@TMB]

Do you feel that drum machines are acceptable in any form of 'rock music'?

I'm referring to the whole spectrum or genre of 'rock music' in it's broadest sense, i.e. as opposed to the entire genre of 'dance music'.

Here is my argument AGAINST drum machines:

1) A real drummer can respond to feedback from the rest of the band and the crowd. This enables some freeform changes, jamming, extending songs, improvisation etc.

2) A real drummer can incorporate subtle changes in dynamics that may be appropriate at the time. Every time the music is performed the drumming will vary along with the rest of the human operated instruments. This is one of the great joys of listening to live music. If it were the same everytime we'd be as well with CDs.

3) All musicians can impart content from theirs soul into the music by means of the a direct physical extension of their will through their physical body into the insrtument. This is one of the main reasons that rock music carries a high degree of emotional content. Listen to the bass on Fleetwood Mac's 'You Make Lovin Fun'. The vocalist on the track is singing about her affair with the lighting engineer, and the bassist is her estranged husband.

4) If we eliminate the drummer then who is next? The bass player? Follow this route and you ultimately end up with someone singing to a computer generated backing track like karaoke. Then you eliminate the singer, and we have errr dance music.

5) Someone said to me "it helps if you have programmed beats because it means you can appeal to the dance audience also".

LMAO when dance first appeared people were making some dance records with alleged cross genre appeal to the rock market. Pointless because at that time rock was virtually dead. It's the same now in reverse. Dance is dead. Some people haven't realised that yet but - hey so what. No point in appealing to it's audience then.

6) The computer can do things that a drummer can't. Err possibly, but believe me that there's even more things a drummer can do that a computer can't. This argument is invalid. It's usually made by people that haven't listened closely to drumming, especially jazz drumming.

7) The drummer is good to watch, often the mostvisually entertaining part of the band.

8) I have seen the Terminator movies.

Having said all this there are bands performing that I really like, that utilise drum machines in place of real drummers. It's just that I feel they'd be better with drummers.

I look forward to hearing arguments from the otherside!

[justincutyou]

I'm a real drummer and I love using drum machines. I also like playing electronic drum pads because I'm all about rhythems and I don't really care where it comes from. In my opinion programming can be an art in and of itself.

[RF Scott]

using a drum machine along with a drummer is good. As is using sampled drums, with a drummer. and so on and so forth and so on and so forth...


yes.

[daveofficer]

drum machines can create all manner of fucked up noises and sounds which a standard kit just can't i can't help feeling that you're argument centres around the fact you don't like dance music and thus anything associated with dance music has no place in a rock band. didn't do echo and the bunnymen any harm. i believe that you shouldn't write off any instrument(and yes a drum machine is an instrument) as it just restricts your options. if a song can be better by using a drum machine then use a drum machine. i don't think dance music is dead, it's just more underground again. it's going through a commercial recession but it'll probably re-emerge once someone comes up with a sound that appeals to everyone again. perhaps the rapture, dfa et all will lead to that. all music is cyclic, it never dies it just goes back to the bedrooms and the garage's.

anyway, surely you can manipulate drum machines in real time as well as just have them preprogrammed? you can add effects and use keyboards to release sounds at different times and to react to the live situation.

what do you think about drum triggers?

we're trying to work out a way to incorporate some of martin's synth and drum machine wizardy into dedalus' live set at the moment. i think it can add a different dimension to a band's sound, but it can also overpower the basis of the song if used badly.

so i'm for it, but not if it's shit.

[less_than_stu]

you can get some fucking cool sounds out of a drum machine sometimes. Wen Radiohead played the Exhibition centre, they used drum machines well, i thought, purely because they got such amazing atmospheric osunds out of them...
...and of course the drum'n'bass stuff in "Sit down. Stand up"

[Dayeth]

If your band can't find an actual drummer that can't be avoided, but I prefer the real deal. I don't have too much against drum machines as such...if they aren't abused.

[Flash@TMB]

Originally posted by daveofficer:
drum machines can create all manner of fucked up noises and sounds which a standard kit just can't i can't help feeling that you're argument centres around the fact you don't like dance music and thus anything associated with dance music has no place in a rock band.

anyway, surely you can manipulate drum machines in real time as well as just have them preprogrammed? you can add effects and use keyboards to release sounds at different times and to react to the live situation.

what do you think about drum triggers?

My own thoughts are that incorporating some percussion type effects - the ones a drummer can't do, into the synth is a good plan, provided theyare triggered by the human operating the synth. The effects on Pink Floyd and Hawkwind tracks are amazing.

I still feel the actual rythmn should have a real-time physical human source though, err like a drummer with drums.

Personally I don't like electric kits because they always seem to have a grossly artificial sound unlike an electric guitar where the sound still feels like it's a result of the strings and other physical aspects of the instrument. Having said that I like the sounds of a synth, and I guess my argument coul be applied to piano vs synth. Not sure how to resolve that one LOL!

You are correct that I do have an aversion to dance music. Some of it I can appreciate to an extent, but I'm always aware that I'm listening to a computer. Even though it may (or may not) be programmed by a musician it's the lack of the physical that bothers me most. I also have to a lesser extent some problems with recorded music, especially where its overcompressed and sounds 'false'.

When I hear Karen Carpenter sing the words "Long ago, and oh so far away", it's enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck - I couldn't make that connection if I knew she was a robot, or a creation of cyberspace. It works for me because she was a flesh and blood human. Like us. The same way that I could never fall in love with a robot, no matter how perfect, although I dare say there are people that would prefer that sort of relationship.

The main thrust of my argument was that I believe any step towards automation is anti-human, or even anti-life. To me music will always be about emotion, and I struggle to believe that this can be properly imparted by programming a machine. For instance I detect no emotional content in the programming of this web forum software we are using, even though the programmers may well have put their heart and souls into coding it.

I hope this puts my question back into the context I intended. Thanks for your perceptive, and well reasoned response.

PS I appologise for the dance is dead comment. It was spiteful and uncalled for.

[psydoll]

Originally posted by Flash@TMB:
PS I appologise for the dance is dead comment.

Hehehe I did wonder if you'd stand by that - depends what you class as dance though - all electronica or just like house music for example? House has got a bit bland lately for me but dunno if I'm just looking in the wrong places...

Drum machines are all well and good in their place I think. Certain types of music benefit from them like your goth or EBM sorta bands like Covenant or Manuskript (can't imagine them with a drummer) but for good ol' rock and roll you cannae beat a live drummer

Like Dayeth said mind they're also handy when you can't find a drummer. They're an unpredictable breed.

[Flash@TMB]

Originally posted by psydoll:
Like Dayeth said mind they're also handy when you can't find a drummer. They're an unpredictable breed.

Perhaps that should have been option 4, but to be honest option 2 kind of covers that response anyway.

[Flash@TMB]

Originally posted by psydoll:
depends what you class as dance though - all electronica or just like house music for example?

Damn good point! For me electronica is where the instruments themselves are artifical but can be played live in real time by the musicians. For instance the synth. That would imply an electronic drum kit, or drum sounds actrivate by pressing or hitting something... which to me is acceptable in that genre of music AND very important to the sound. Relevant to this question is only whether the sounds are preprogrammed or activated by a human being in real time.

I guess that's the crux of it.

Not as straightforward an issue as I had first anticipated, which is good because for some of us that may invoke thinking, learning, and potentially modifying or even changing opinions.