Percussion in multitrack DAW environment and using vguitar for percussion

[DreamTheory]

I'd like to know how you guys deal with the vexing issue of percussion. We are guitarists, not drummers. The best thing to do is get a drummer. But that is a huge task to schedule and so on. So we are vexed with how to get the percussion done. It is the nemesis of the DAW guitarist.

I may be one of the few people who use v-guitar to control drums and percussion. Yes there are spurious hits, but since I heavily edit my drums, those get fixed in the first round of edits. But there are good reasons why I do it this way.

First of all, what I hate about any form of drum machine or looping is that it works against the unique rhythms I am generating within my rhythm guitar part, especially acoustic guitar strumming. The loop changes my cadence, I feel like it even yanks the composition away from me. By picking out my own part in real time, the percussion is following me, the band leader.

Secondly, the horrid stiffness of machines and loops takes away the sense of organic playing. I play to metronome, but that still leaves room for varied interpretation of the beat - on it, in front of it, behind it, loud, soft, accented attack, slow velocity, etc. Yes, you can set an automatic % of error or swing, but this still is not following the sense of the song as expressed by the lead part.

I will sometimes even adjust the original rhythm guitar part where the percussion track reveals a poorly timed strum or note that messes up the cadence. To me this is like the band leader making an on the fly adjustment, and relying on the drummer for time.

The whole process requires patience and coming back several times for a fresh listen. It used to frustrate me but I have come to enjoy it and I see myself as sort of a v-percussionist-guitarist.

I sometimes use qwerty keys (but they are not touch sensitive) or an 8 pad MIDI controller, but when I am starting out, I want to experiment with all the sounds in a patch in varied combination. There may be 3 kick drums- which one works for this piece? So I want access to all the sounds. I can use my wife's digital piano or my good old GR-55, because they provide instant access to all notes without having to program the pad or change octaves.

I think the Beat Buddy looks great, and the Digitech Trio looks like fun, but to me that would feel a bit like collaborating with the pedal creators. Nothing wrong with that, just not what I am after. I have some seqencer and drum machine software, but using them takes me away from intuitive playing.

Starting point is what is at stake here. If I am starting with a loop, fine, that can be fun and work great. But if I am starting with guitar, then the drum needs to follow the leader. Both are totally legit ways of creating.


attached is an example of some virtual percussion I added to an acoustic track. To me the end result is pleasing because it is knit together, and does not stick out against the rhythm of the guitar.
Have you guys all struggled as much as I have to work out percussion?
The Roland GR-55 drum sounds are quite good and realistic, but a bit middle-of-the-road, so I often use soft synths and plug-in kits. GR-55 has no tabla drums, for instance, and some software-drums have wider selections of sounds or more unique sounding kits. The source does not really matter to me, because I convert MIDI tracks to audio before editing. I find it much easier to look at the wave shape than the piano roll. I can slice, grab, and add volume envelopes with a laptop touch pad mouse more intuitively than I can change MIDI settings.

[Kenmac]

Have you checked out Jamstix? It's a plugin for both Mac and PC and it'll actually follow what you play. From the website:

"Jamstix can interact with your MIDI or audio input by adjusting velocity and using play rules, such as hihat/ride switching and snare head/sidestick switching as well as rhythm reduction giving you the feel of playing with a human drummer!"

There's a limited trial version you can download to try out. Here's the website where you can read more about it : http://www.rayzoon.com/jamstix3.html