My recordings

Here's my website. These are songs I wrote and recorded in my studio. Nothing too exciting here but it's all me! Thanks for listening! Any comments are welcomed.

McMakin Music

Hey, I checked out some of your tracks and they sound great!

I think you're going to vibe really well with our instructor Anders Mouridsen. He is WAY into that Americana / rootsy / country stuff. Covers a lot of it in his Country and Acoustic courses.

Thanks for sharing it.

-Carl.

Originally Posted by: Carl King

Hey, I checked out some of your tracks and they sound great!

I think you're going to vibe really well with our instructor Anders Mouridsen. He is WAY into that Americana / rootsy / country stuff. Covers a lot of it in his Country and Acoustic courses.

Thanks for sharing it.

-Carl.

Thanks Carl! I will check out the lessons by Anders!

I checked out your music. I really like A Captain Finds Peace, the lyrics pulled me in right away. Nice cover of Highway of Pain, too. You really pull the emotions through with your playing and your voice.

Originally Posted by: DavesGuitarJourney

I checked out your music. I really like A Captain Finds Peace, the lyrics pulled me in right away. Nice cover of Highway of Pain, too. You really pull the emotions through with your playing and your voice.

Thanks for the kind words!

Hi and welcome Todd,

I listened to your songs and enjoyed them. I do have a question on drums. I began writing and recording songs and for now all my drums are digital. I started using Drumbit, then moved on to Cubase and some other digital platforms. These give a big clean sound, but I would like to start playing the drums myself and using these in my songs but don't want to mic a drum kit.

I have been thinking of buying an electronic kit and then running this into my audio interface and then to my DAW.

Can you provide any comments on how you record your drums and what you use?

thanks

Originally Posted by: William MG

I have been thinking of buying an electronic kit and then running this into my audio interface and then to my DAW.

By the way William -- you can even record electronic drum kits through MIDI (probably USB) into your computer and skip the interface (which probably has limited audio inputs). THEN, you can completely change the drum sounds / samples later, and clean up the MIDI. Same as recording MIDI keyboards. That way, you can use any drum / sample library you want and not be stuck with the sounds that come with your electronic kit.

(You maybe already knew this but it gives you way more power do it that way.)

I have used Cubase and Toontrack for years, along with some Slate Trigger samples, depending...

-Carl.

Originally Posted by: Carl King

By the way William -- you can even record electronic drum kits through MIDI (probably USB) into your computer and skip the interface (which probably has limited audio inputs). THEN, you can completely change the drum sounds / samples later, and clean up the MIDI. Same as recording MIDI keyboards. That way, you can use any drum / sample library you want and not be stuck with the sounds that come with your electronic kit.

(You maybe already knew this but it gives you way more power do it that way.)

I have used Cubase and Toontrack for years, along with some Slate Trigger samples, depending...

-Carl.

No, I wasn't aware Carl, thanks for this. I am learning step by step with all this stuff as I go along so really appreciate the input. At lunch time I picked up a Roland TD-1 kit from our local music supply. I will begin setting up my room for it tonight and hope to have it together by the weekend.

Originally Posted by: William MG

No, I wasn't aware Carl, thanks for this. I am learning step by step with all this stuff as I go along so really appreciate the input. At lunch time I picked up a Roland TD-1 kit from our local music supply. I will begin setting up my room for it tonight and hope to have it together by the weekend.

That's awesome. I'd plug it in through USB and use something like Toontrack / Superior / EZ Drummer. You'll get more realistic sounds that way.

Here's an article I found for you, which you'd probably run across yourself.

https://rolandcorp.com.au/blog/recording-the-roland-td-1-drum-kit

One final tip -- you might run into difficulty with the Hi-Hat on your kit, simply because they don't really react with all the nuance of real hi-hat cymbals. You might find you're thinking it's open and you end up getting a closed sound at random, or vice versa. That's a pretty normal problem. The main cymbals might also mistrigger from time to time. You can fix it later in MIDI. :)

Now that you have the trigger pads, you can change the sounds to anything in the world.

-Carl.

Originally Posted by: William MG

Hi and welcome Todd,

I listened to your songs and enjoyed them. I do have a question on drums. I began writing and recording songs and for now all my drums are digital. I started using Drumbit, then moved on to Cubase and some other digital platforms. These give a big clean sound, but I would like to start playing the drums myself and using these in my songs but don't want to mic a drum kit.

I have been thinking of buying an electronic kit and then running this into my audio interface and then to my DAW.

Can you provide any comments on how you record your drums and what you use?

thanks

My drums are all EZDrummer or Superior Drummer. I do have the ability through a drum pad or midi keyboard to make my own loops or modify existing loops, but having purchased enough kits and samples now, I really don't need to do much. Like many of these types of samples though, it's a money pit. You can endlessly throw money at new kits. Another good source is Groove Monkey, but you will need at least one kit (EZ Drummer works) to play them.

Thanks Todd.

Originally Posted by: Carl King

Originally Posted by: William MG

No, I wasn't aware Carl, thanks for this. I am learning step by step with all this stuff as I go along so really appreciate the input. At lunch time I picked up a Roland TD-1 kit from our local music supply. I will begin setting up my room for it tonight and hope to have it together by the weekend.

That's awesome. I'd plug it in through USB and use something like Toontrack / Superior / EZ Drummer. You'll get more realistic sounds that way.

Here's an article I found for you, which you'd probably run across yourself.

https://rolandcorp.com.au/blog/recording-the-roland-td-1-drum-kit

One final tip -- you might run into difficulty with the Hi-Hat on your kit, simply because they don't really react with all the nuance of real hi-hat cymbals. You might find you're thinking it's open and you end up getting a closed sound at random, or vice versa. That's a pretty normal problem. The main cymbals might also mistrigger from time to time. You can fix it later in MIDI. :)

Now that you have the trigger pads, you can change the sounds to anything in the world.

-Carl.

Thanks again Carl, I'm really looking forward to the new learning curve. I wrote a song this morning that uses this simple beat I threw together on Drumbit knowing I was buying the kit. It's one thing to program using a mouse clicker and will be entirely different getting my hands and feet coordinated, but I'm looking forward to it.

Todd, seems we may have hi-jacked your thread, my apologies. That can happen around here. Best of luck with your music and I look forward to hearing more of it.

Originally Posted by: Carl King

That's awesome. I'd plug it in through USB and use something like Toontrack / Superior / EZ Drummer. You'll get more realistic sounds that way.

I'll add to Carl and agree with everything he said. electromic drum sounds are dreadful at the when you're looking at more budget friendlly kits (under $1000). I'm about to do the same and get a kit like the Simmons SD600 ($750). Before doing so, I've been researching how to trigger. I already have a number of EZ Drummer packs I've used (here's an example of a short track I used them on..ignore the crappy sounding ride up in the beginning..gives you an idea). I wanted to be sure that I could trigger the drums using EZ Drummer and I can. For me, I get the least processed sound in the pack. The most natural. That way I can mix and EQ for the sound I want. The drums in my sample are not what the original sound was but what I wanted to hear post mix (with some tricks I've learned).

The point being is that you can get a good sounds that is more natural doing what Carl said. I'd suggst starting with EZ Drummer because it is a very good pack and very affordable. For my use, I've got the standard EX Drummer and Ameracana amongst others.

Good luck!

Thanks Jeff, those drums sound pretty good to me.

Maybe if I can get up to speed on coordination quickly, I will post a sound sample. That little tune I put together using Drumbit is at 130bpm. That is going to be a challenge.