Do programmed drums loose 'the groove'?

ChrissyChichi · Newbie Alert Joined: 18 Jul 2008 Posts: 1

Hey guys, I suspect this may be a bit of a touchy subject but i really am in need of some advice here please!

My band are coming up to record and it would be the first time with our current drummer who has been with us for about 6 months. He is not an amazing drummer but certainly good enough we thought and drummers are so difficult to find.
He went off to record drums seperately at a friend of his's studio and came back with the tracks. When we put them to a click track it was clear they were not good enough, his double bass was pretty inconsistant and he frequently went slightly in and out of time. The sound he got was not great either.
We showed them to a music tech friend of ours who agreed they were not good enough and he made us drum tracks with his computer that really blew away the old recordings. We did not tell the drummer straight away that this was what we did and merely suggested it to him in practice yesterday. He got very angry and insisted that it was not because of his pride but because the electronic tracks always sound like trash and they loose all the groove from a song. My question here is, is this gibberish or is there truth in it? I am aware that Necrophagist for their first album used programmed drums and i do not notice the difference, same goes for Meshuggah. Yet our drummer was really very insistant that it is always noticable and always sounds *Poop*. We just want to get these recordings done as soon as possible so we have something new to give out at a fairly big gig we have upcoming and in the kind of music we play the drums are very important. We have arranged that the drummer will start practicing more but do not expect to see any huge improvement in under two months so are keen to just power through and use the programmed drums.

Thanks for reading this, sorry it is so long, any advice would be very much appreciated.

random white person · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:11 am Post subject:

i'd say in most cases, yes a programmed drum track really does seem to be missing something, whether it be dynamics, feel, or something we just cant put our finger on. programmed drums probably aren't very noticeable in speed/death metal tracks simply because the music is so loud and fast, and its quite common for human drummers to trigger their drums so you're essentially hearing a processed, computerized sound anyways. in most other genres where speed and precision are not the sole goals, a programmed track can stand out as almost too good... too polished.

your dilemma is more than understandable. i dont think anyone would want to sit around waiting for someone to rerecord all of their tracks cause they just weren't good enough the first time around. but, you would probably upset your drummer quite a bit if you switched in a programmed track. maybe give him an ultimatum- he records his stuff again, hopefully using a click track, and at the very least stays in time so it doesnt sound like a train wreck on the final recording. otherwise, you use the programmed drum track.
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tylerdrummer · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:22 am Post subject:

i would much rather do triggers, on acoustics, cause electric des loose a feal of realness. example
listen to like a NIN song, they are great but everythings computer, and it give a bit of mystery, but mosgt people arent looking for that.
Then if you can stil the the DTV101 rock concerts chanell, listen to the drums on the NIN song live, it sounds a 100 times better and gives a sense of realness.
but electronics being elecctronics, they are easy to use easy to record, and some have so ok realisticnesss sounds to them.
i would be really mad if i was told that, and i think should at least play it on the electric set, unless hes that bad!! because later down the road because of this other drummer he could be out roalties and copyrights, like said in a previous topic