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Re: Meditations on the awful sounds of the Alesis SR-16 drummachine



on 7/10/02 8:38 PM, Rick Walker/Loop.pooL at GLOBAL@cruzio.com wrote:

> I can always tell keyboard or guitar players who program because they
> overprogram almost universally:    In a wierd way, I have found that the
> most useful drum programs (or rhythmic 'bed' loops for that matter) are 
>the
> ones that are incredibly minimalistic and almost always only one bar or 
>two
> bars long.............this gives one much more room to layer on top
> of the piece to create interest and diversity.

This reminds me. One of the most effective drum machine loops I ever
recorded with was probably a metronomic single hit from a Korg DDM-110. It
worked perfectly with the bass line a friend was playing through my Boss
RDD-10. I've long since sold the Korg (though I still have it's brother the
DDM-220 Super Percussion). The RDD-10 sits waiting for me to figure out 
what
to do with it in my setup since it overloads in a rather nice way.

On the other hand, this same bass player would tend to look at me with a
sort of "what? are you kidding?" look when I'd program in drum loops 
playing
a cycle of 2 against a cycle of 3 against a cycle of 5 etc..

By the way: When people on this list talk polyrhythms, do you generally 
mean
multiple ways of dividing a single bar of music or multiple bar lengths?

I had an SR-16 for several years that I never got into programming because
it's pads felt too harsh coming from a Korg DDD-1 (which sounded worse but
was actually pretty nice to program). Now, I have an MC-505 that mostly
leaves me feeling too annoyed to program it. It could find itself replaced
with an ER-1, an EM-1, or a Machinedrum.

Actually the only percussion I've actually bothered to record recently came
from me playing a Handsonic through a Mo-FX into an EDP, but while I can
handle basic kick/snare patterns and some amount of ornamentation, I've
never quite figured out how to play a hi-hat line that pleases me.

Mark