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Drum Samples Are Canned Goods: Get Fresh Custom Drum Tracks From An Online Session Drummer

This text exists for the benefit of you, the composer/songwriter in need of drum tracks.

Let us agree that in order for your music to stand out you must have professionally recorded drum tracks for your music. Master quality drum tracks can make a song shine just as lesser quality drum tracks can drag a song into “demoland”. But how can you get great, professional drum sounds without going way over budget?

People often see the solution to the problem in drum sample software packages, such as the “BFD” premium drum module.

People feel this is the solution because, admittedly, the drum samples contained in the software tend to have drum sounds that are very good. Generally, the drums are well-recorded and tuned, and have been EQd in such a way as to generically fit in with most mixes. But there are drawbacks.

The most important disadvantages to using drum sample software are:
1)“Canned”, uninspired results — drum tracks that sound strangely out of context in relation to your music. 2) Epic amounts of time being wasted piecing together pretend “custom” tracks slice-by-slice with single-hit drum samples.
Now, most of these drum sample programs provide you with factory (pre-made) loops you can use. Most also give you the option to construct your own beats through the use of separate, single-hit drum samples.

Lets focus on said loops for a minute.

You may have some luck finding a factory pattern in the package that basically fits your song.
But even if a pre-made drum pattern works initially, there likely will be parts of your song that could use a little bit of variety in the drum track. Certain sections may benefit from a change in the bass drum pattern, for example. Perhaps looser hi-hats or some extra snare hits would be in order.

Regardless, the chances of drum sample software containing a loop that actually sounds like a real drummer throughout your song are very slim.

Given this situation you are likely to think to yourself “I need my drum tracks to sound more organic than that”, or perhaps that “this loop or that loop won’t cut it because I need to have the drum part do those cool hits with the guitar”.

Of course these are legitimate concerns as you don’t want your music to sound contrived, you want it to sound alive.
And at this point you may come to the conclusion that you must construct the drum parts yourself, hit-by-hit, slice-by-slice, using single-hit drum samples. Admittedly, you’ll probably get a better result using this method because you at least have control over specific cymbal crashes, adding bass drum notes, fills etc.

One huge problem is associatied with this approach however: You will spend way too much time doing it.
If you have been through this before, I don’t need to tell you: putting together “custom” drum tracks using single-hit drum samples will take up so much of your time that you are likely to compromise your artistic needs in the end anyway. You will spend much time, and the tracks will sound better than relying on factory loops, but you will probably give up in the middle of programming, realizing that they will never actually sound and feel like custom drum tracks that were played for your song.

You would look at how much time you have put in to your drum samples and would settle for your peiced-together drum tracks (that still sound canned) because you couldn’t bear to do such tedious busy work anymore. The end result would not even be what you wanted:musical, exciting drum tracks. That may be preferable to simply using the loops, but it still won’t sound like a real drummer.

Some say “time is money”. Its true that you’d save money slaving away cobbling drum tracks together slice-by-slice from drum sample software, but in reality its just not worth the time you’d waste and the frustration you would feel.
If you look at it that way, it is obvious that approach would really end up costing you.
A much better idea is to do things the easy way: Get custom drum tracks from a studio drummer online.

You can now get real, custom drum tracks from professional session drummers over the internet and save a lot of money over the old ways. Traditionally, getting custom drum tracks recorded for your music has involved paying a list of people for services including: every minute of use of the studio including setup and teardown time; cartage of the drums to the studio. Don’t forget you still have to pay the drummer and engineer (or team of engineers), etc. This can all get very expensive.

With an internet-based session drummer you only pay one person, which obviously saves you a lot of money.
Be sure to shop around — all online drum track providers are not of equal quality, neither in terms of quality of performance nor sound quality. Of course you should base your decision on which session drummer would musically fit your project best, but you must also compare the actual sound quality provided. Use your ears and compare the quality of sound on the websites, and compare the gear and signal chain used by each online studio drummer.

You will hear that some sites are providing noticeably better sound quality than others, so choose carefully. To get additional tips on how to choose an online drum track provider, read the article titled “Online Drum Tracks – Tips For Success”

Remember, relying on drum samples is a great way to make your music sound stale and boring. Factory loops won’t sound like they were made with your song in mind. Piecing a drum part together from sample slices will drive you mad with wasted time, yet still sound uninspired and “canned”.

Stop using drum samples– samples are “canned” goods! Go for fresh, custom drum tracks online!

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