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Can't Get The Hang of Logic "Drummer" ---???


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Me: Old geezer guitar player

System: iMac 27,Catalina, Logic Pro 10.7, Scarlet Duo, Alesis midi, various mics, acoustic and electric guitars.

 

I've had Logic for about a year. I mostly used it for recording my guitar and vocals on one track, until a few months ago. I've been trying to produce tracks with more instruments - like basic pop songs. And the TROUBLE begins whenever i try to add drums! First off, I'm not a drummer. So, my first step is to try to add the Apple Drummer to my guitar and vocal tracks. No matter which of all the numerous choices available, they never even remotely match my track. I've tried everything i know to set the tempo settings, etc. but all these drummers are too complicated for simple songs--too wild, too offbeat (pun not intended). I've wasted so much time trying to add simple drums to my tracks.... it just consumes all my energy and nothing good ever comes of it.

 

Questions:

1. Does anyone find these Drummers effective and useful?

2. If I'm doing a simple pop song cover that has a simple 4/4 shuffle, are any of those Drummers useful?

3. Almost all the pop music i listen to has VERY simple drumming, yet all the DAW based drum things are crazy and wild. I must be miss understanding something, but i just don't know what? I don't even know what i don't know, you know? :-)

 

I mistakenly thought all drums were supposed to lock onto the tempo setting. They sure don't seem to!

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It’s not perfect, though. Sometimes it will give me something that’s just spot on. Sometimes it’s like playing with a drummer that’s on a different planet. There’s a quite a bit of apple magic involved.

 

I will usually do one of the following:

1) Make a groove/cue track for drummer to follow with acoustic guitar. Making downstroke on low strings for kick and upstroke for snare.

2) make a basic midi region/track with drum synth with just kick and snare

3) record with a mic myself saying boom / click for kick/snare (like one of those rappers).

 

Then I’ll “audition the different drummers take” on it till I find something I like.

 

But it can be a very tedious process and with mixed results.

 

I really wish that rayzoon and his jamstix worked better on Mac. It has a very clumsy interface and steep learning curve, but it gives you max control over details and great drums. There is a Mac version but I find it very unstable.

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And theoretically you can make your groove/cue track (without singing!) and get logic to create a tempo map of that by analyzing the transients. So tempo will not be constant throughout the song, but you’ll still get a grid for drummer to lock on to.

 

Again there’s a bit too much Apple magic involved and it will often create too many tempo changes or guess completely wrong with a factor 2. You can adjust it afterwards.

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