One-man Bands?

Walkscore wrote: I have to say I don't like programmed drums, regardless of the genre. Even in the electronica genre, I would prefer to have no drums than to have programmed drums. Even Tangerine Dream is, I think, best when there is no drumming going on.  I am in awe of excellent drumming. Would love to hear ideas for checking out new awesome drummers (outside the obvious ones that we all already know, of course).

Kingsnake wrote: Walkscore wrote: I have to say I don't like programmed drums, regardless of the genre. Even in the electronica genre, I would prefer to have no drums than to have programmed drums. Even Tangerine Dream is, I think, best when there is no drumming going on.  I am in awe of excellent drumming. Would love to hear ideas for checking out new awesome drummers (outside the obvious ones that we all already know, of course). I saw a documentary of heavy metal, and most drums were programmed in the studio. At least back then. When you carefully listen you can recognize it. There are still a lot of metalbands that rely on programmed drums in the studio. When a cd-booklet says the band uses a drummer, they mostly mean they use a drummer on tour. And nowadays drums are tweaked in DAW's (like protools), to make them sound perfect or sloppy (whatever the producer wants). So not everything you hear on record are actual live-drums. Same goes for old-fashioned guitar and organ-sounds. They are mostly made using plug-ins. Even Tomas Bodin (with his oldfashioned sound) declared it. On the other hand, programming drums can be very hard. It can take months and months to create a good beat. While sitting at the drumstool and just play is much easier. And I know what I'm talking about, I'm a drummer and I tried my hand at programming. It's so difficult and frustrating.

I somewhat agree with both of you.  I, too, am (or was) a drummer.  And I've used a DAW (Cakewalk) to program drum patterns.  It was tedious work, and I hated how robotic it sounded.  But, with a lot of effort, and some signal-processing prowess on my part to put a narrow-band random variation on the beats, it could sound OK.  But still, I just ended up wishing I could sit down and play it on my drumset (which I no longer have).

So kudos to those musicians who can program realistic sounding drums.  I can still discern them, but its getting increasingly harder.  Maybe it's just my advanced age...  Sigh...

MortSahlFan wrote: Music has become more and more dehumanized, with machines doing more and more of the work... Auto-tune, "drum machines", computer programs, etc... You can say the same about movies - the writing and acting stinks. The ones you usually fight this argument the most are those who'd quit playing an instrument after 30 minutes of trying. Or the "You just like the music cuz you were young" (I'm 35).

Stevie Wonder didn't use a "drum machine".

MortSahlFan wrote: dwill123 wrote: MortSahlFan wrote: Music has become more and more dehumanized, with machines doing more and more of the work... Auto-tune, "drum machines", computer programs, etc... You can say the same about movies - the writing and acting stinks. The ones you usually fight this argument the most are those who'd quit playing an instrument after 30 minutes of trying. Or the "You just like the music cuz you were young" (I'm 35). Stevie Wonder didn't use a "drum machine".   Exactly --- talent.. 40 yrs ago, it was a requirement.. And I know that video is over 40 yrs old.... Decadence.

Edited by jayem - May 01 2018 at 13:16

Prince (Rogers Nelson)

Nine Inch Nails (crossover) is pretty much just Trent Reznor with a handful of guests on every album.

I am a huge fan of a guy called Nikolas Golas and his "band" Zero Absolu. Well, I kind of dislike his vocals, but his instrumentals are sort of great. 

Robert Berry is a massively talented individual. I was amazed to find he had play everything on the recent album The Rules Have Changed including a very passable go at styling the keyboards like Keith Emerson . He really does sound like him!