real or fake drummers?????

I heard that the overwhelming majority of records today don't use real drummers on the songs, but use computer programmed drums instead. I watched the recording of Faith Hill's newest CD and got a little bit of an idea of how it's done but would like to hear one of you go into detail about it.

Also, if the drums aren't real, why do they list a drummer in the liner notes? Do they use the computer to assign a sound to drum pads and then use a real drummer, or is it all computer?

 

Unfortunately, more often than not, even when a "real" drummer is present, that drummer is subordinate to the click track. Then take into consideration post-production shenanigans involving DAWs and the like and you have ... the triumph of the machines (or, at the very least, humans sonically rendered into machines).

I was reflecting on this very issue last week, having just watched the Led Zeppelin DVD set. Those performances! And nary a digital device, autotuner, computer metronome or massive guitar rack in sight. Now I'm not exactly a nostalgia merchant (the heyday of Led Zeppelin was before my time anyway), nor am I a luddite. I'm not against technology per se, merely the gross abuses of it - and there are (far too) many contemporary recordings and performances which will serve as gruesome examples.

 

I agree with you 100%!!! I'm not against technology or using everything available to us to make new music, I'm just against rendering muscians redundant. Back in the 70s I could almost tell you by listening to a track who the session musicians were on it by their style. Also, you could hear a new track on the radio and tell instantly if it was Yes, King Crimson or ELP, etc. Now everything is starting to sound the same. If you remove the human element you have nothing.

In the liner notes to Here and There by Elton John, Gus Dudgeon says that for the remastered version they went back and corrected mistakes made by the Elton John band during the live performance recording. If that's the case, why even make a live album?

What exactly are you referring to when you say that most drummers are subordinate to a click track? Is a click track similar to a metronome?

 

Even if you have a real live musician all you need today is one or two measures of the verse and chorus and then they'll loop them until they have the whole song.

It's always highly amusing to watch these 'guitarists' perform live on Leno, Letterman, and Conan, and see them struggle to strum and finger the entire song from beginning to end instead of the tiny segments they played in the studio.

Feh!

 

I don't like drumming on synthesized drums or anything like that... also drum samples used on many records... for example: Joe Satriani's Engines Of Creation.

 

I generally prefer live drummers, but it depends on the song and style of music.

The problem today is that the drums are sampled. They will get a real drummer to play a few things then they will process the hell out of it. And then they will add drum parts from other drummers in a library.

Not only is this cheaper, but they can get perfect results.

Did I say "perfect"? *That's* the problem with music today. Everyone is trying to craft a technically perfect track. Don't blame Pro Tools, blame the drones who try to squeeze perfection out of everything.

 

I toatally agree with you, Grant! Drum-samples are good for Techno or Hip Hop music, but not for Rock or Hard Rock... IMO

 

Of course, Def Leppard was able to get away with using tons of technology on drums, even before the drummer lost his left arm.

 

Give me Jack DeJohnette or give me death.

 

I dunno about that. I rock band who may be a little experimental can work drum-samples in with their live drummer. Of course you have to be able to do it right.

 

There are a number of live drummers who sound 'fake' to me, just as there are groups using synthesized, sampled, or otherwise electronically produced percussion sounds that sound 'real'. The medium is not necessarily the message.

 

Alan Dawson and good friend John Robinson would do too!