Do I need a drum machine?

[Dniss]

Hi guys,
I'm buying a few more synths to create my own little world of music and songs, like so many of you guys do.

Owning a Kronos with its drum features, do I need a drum machine? Anyone has any thoughts on this?

Cheers!
Den

[GregC]

you didn't mention type of music.

I rate Kronos drums a '9' on a scale of 10 being perfect.

For my +60 original songs, Kronos drums are excellent.

The only missing element is a variety of fills and rolls. Of course, some, can roll their own. Karma also is a star with drums

with my Nowhere Going Fast I think the Kronos drums are convincing - they don't have that obvious electronic drum vibe

https://soundcloud.com/user-898236994/n ... going-fast

[Dniss]

Hi there Greg!

The type of music...humm I guess some kind of urban style. I like Enigma and JMJ style.

There are some pretty sweet drum machines that uses samples instead of drum kits. Can that be done with Kronos? Might be more work though.



Den

[GregC]

Hi there Greg!

The type of music...humm I guess some kind of urban style. I like Enigma and JMJ style.

There are some pretty sweet drum machines that uses samples instead of drum kits. Can that be done with Kronos? Might be more work though.


Den

I would need actual examples of the percussion samples . Guessing that Kronos does not have everything in the electronic genre. The basics are there.

I have added some drum samples in the SEQ to add some spice to my recordings. So thats a decent workaround to get more variety into your musicc production

[KK]

There are some pretty sweet drum machines that uses samples instead of drum kits. Can that be done with Kronos? Might be more work though.

The Kronos is also a complete sampler. I enjoy creating my own instrument multisamples on my K2 and it's very easy to create percs/drums non-looped samples.

[Poseidon]

For my +60 original songs, Kronos drums are excellent.

Hmmm … +60 ? … I find Kronos drums not convincing at all in this category.

You should try virtual drums BFD3, the best acoustic drum kit you can imagine.
The mixer allows you to blend all sounds with ease, just as you would with a multitrack recording of a real acoustic drum kit.
The results are fabulous !!!

If you want I can post the same drum track played on Kronos and BFD3 to compare them.

[GregC]

For my +60 original songs, Kronos drums are excellent.

Hmmm … +60 ? … I find Kronos drums not convincing at all in this category.

You should try virtual drums BFD3, the best acoustic drum kit you can imagine.
The mixer allows you to blend all sounds with ease, just as you would with a multitrack recording of a real acoustic drum kit.
The results are fabulous !!!

If you want I can post the same drum track played on Kronos and BFD3 to compare them.

I get you would like to show a ' shoot out '

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0q07KTTioU

at first listen, the quality is a step up and more from Kronos.
Tons and tons of drums with BFD3.
Thats what I would expect from a tool with specific samples.

I still enjoy the immediacy and the ease of Kronos drums.

For my context and approach and to my listening audience, I still say '9'.
I am ok keeping Kronos drums and bass in place 2019.

Simplicity is an art, too. Thats a quote from Leonardi DaVinci.

There will be a time[2020] when I will move to better tools and instrument sources. I added BFD3 to my shopping and project list.

Thanks

[Poseidon]

I added BFD3 to my shopping and project list.

You will not regret, it’s worth every penny, and remember that expansions are even better than the core libraries.

In practice: In Logic Pro with my Mac Pro syncing and CPU usage is 9.5/10 (higher = better). I usually have 2 drum sets on each musical composition.

[GregC]

I added BFD3 to my shopping and project list.

You will not regret, it’s worth every penny, and remember that expansions are even better than the core libraries.

In practice: In Logic Pro with my Mac Pro syncing and CPU usage is 9.5/10 (higher = better). I usually have 2 drum sets on each musical composition.

I am glad you told me about BFD3. I f'--g love drums and rhythm.

It takes some effort to get realistic drum sounds on a multi track recording from Kronos.
On 1 song, I split the kit on 3 different midi channels to get a ' less electronic ' drum sound. Just 1 example. I am sure there are better approaches than this !

[yeskeys]

I'd say the EXS14 EDM Drums is worth the 40 bucks it costs.

I'm kind of obsessed with drum sounds/samples. I've also purchased the EXS48 KApro Infected Drums, which gives you a couple additional kits.

I'm always on the lookout for the greatest sounding drum libraries for the Kronos. I'd prefer to not integrate my computer anymore at this point.

[Poseidon]

I f'--g love drums and rhythm.

We are in the same boat.
To me, drums ( if present in a song ) are the backbone ! They give a fundamental feel ! " Rhythm is a dancer, It's a soul companion !"

Good luck with BFD3, and happy drumming !
By the way, Korg NanoPad 2 works great with BFD3.

[19naia]

Kronos is able to do the basics of most modern drum machine and the vintage style TR that Roland does.
Of course you will do TR drum machine differently on Kronos and maybe not as straight forwards as you would on the actual drum machine.

What Kronos lacks is the arranger style drum machine with fills, endings, intros and such. If you are good at making your own patterns with separate fills, intros and endings, than you can make your own on kronos.

Kronos pretty much gives you all you need to make what you can on other machines. It just happens differently on Kronos and maybe even more complicated in some areas.

In kronos, you have a number of drum pattern options.

You can use Karma for some unique drum machine work.

You can use the drum track feature for ready made drum patterns on call and open to editing and adding your own patterns made from scratch in sequencer mode.

You can use sequencer mode to make drum beats and RPPR is there to let you have drum pattern trigger in ways that are more flexible and multi layered than Karma or drum track.

You can also use step sequencer to make patterns in the TR style but without the ease of input from TR pads.

So you have a lot of option for drum patterns on Kronos and i would not get a drum machine until you try Kronos out and see if it has ways of doing beats that suit you as a workflow.

I got the DR-880 drum machine because i used it before and adapted to its work flow, but mainly because i am not good at making my own complex patterns from scratch, so i save time by having DR 880 where i can call up patterns with each having a set of dedicated intros, fills and endings.
I even load the DR 880 patterns into Kronos and Kronos patterns into DR 880 where i draw Intros, fills and endings from DR 880 to mate with the Kronos factory patterns.

Kronos has so much going on, that my drum machine saves me time from making beats the hard way on Kronos, and that saved time lets me use more of the other features in kronos.
Kronos is packed so full of features, you won’t have time to use or explore them all if you want to get much playing and song projects done.
And still Kronos manages to lack some things that leave me needing to add iPad apps to my Kronos combi play, along with the DR 880 drum machine.

[19naia]

Also when i got the DR 880, it gave me finger pads that Kronos does not have, but can be used to play Kronos or DR 880.
Also DR-880 has foot switch and pedal inputs which can control both Kronos and DR-880 via midi.
Kronos has two foot control inputs and DR 880 has two that can split 4 ways.
So i end up using two foot switches in my setup and each is assigned to do something different, and the DR-880 foot switch controls Kronos and DR-880.

Just to mention that the right drum machine can bring extra midi control utility to kronos.....adding more physical controls to kronos.

[pete.m]

I don't think you need a drum machine.

The Kronos drum sounds are a reasonable mix of basic vanilla sounds, but you can make them more interesting by tweaking them and adding effects, not to mention resampling your patterns. What has made a huge difference for me is to sample in some of the vast numbers of drum wavs that are available - commercially, or (mostly) for free. I've gradually accumulated about 6,000, arranged randomly into about 100 of my own drum kits. I just go straight to them when making a piece, rather than use the Kronos sounds - it's far more satisfying and inspiring for me.

I can't comment on the built-in patterns on the Kronos. I make my own music, and so I'm not interested in the preset rhythms.

[GregC]

I tend to agree, esp if a K owner is starting out recording/creating.

Kronos drums, FX, patterns, kits, some Karma. Most of the basics are there.
I think its best to get experience/skill with the basics.

Worth repeating- I use Audacity when I want to add outside audio FX/speech, nature noise etc. Cleaning it up on Audacity , and having a final WAV file to insert into the SEQ audio tracks is a good process IMO.

I recall there are many K owners who are into ambient, JMJ , Enigma, etc.
I only touch on the genre so I can't add much knowledge.

I think Kronos synth sounds and FX are attractive to keyboardists into ambient.

Good idea for the O/p to talk about solving drums for ambient.