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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.synth
Subject: Re: Drum Machines - A Flame
Message-ID: <979@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-May-85 09:52:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.979
Posted: Wed May 15 09:52:48 1985
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> I despise drum machines.
> I don't mean drum synthesizers, these hexagonal contraptions that otherwise
> look like regular drum kits, and more important, are played by real live
> humans. I don't mean to flame electronic instruments in general either.
> No, this flame is directed at these little boxes, into which some guru
> programs a 6/8, say, and which continue to beat that 6/8 ad infinitum,
> ad nauseam or until the power is mercifully cut off.
> What is their purpose, beyond saving in recording session costs,
> and squeezing life from the recorded product?
> The greatest drummers, folks like Max Roach, Elvin Jones,
> Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, are constantly varying their patterns,
> shading ahead of the beat to push the melody, or laying back a
> fraction in a relaxed swing. The role of the drummer is to
> shape, mold, re-arrange Time and thereby determine the whole
> feel of the music. ...  Every piece of recorded
> music I have heard that uses them sounds DULL, flat, uninspiring...
> like something recorded by a machine, which in a very key sense,
> it is.   I HATE THE DAMN THINGS!!!!!!!!!! [Marcel Simon]

There are drum machines and there are drum machines.  The ones that come
attached to home organs or the ones used by many club date bands that basically
have a tempo control and a switch with positions labelled "FOXTROT", "SWING",
"SOFT ROCK", "HARDCORE" (really soft rock with the tempo on MAX :-) are
abysmal not only in rhythm but also in timbre.  Above these are varying degrees
of programmable machines, ranging in sound quality from mediocre to precise
digital reproductions, and ranging in programmability from mediocre to
elaborate.

Now that I've gotten the technical garbage out of the way, let me say that I
agree in principle that the drum machines are generally pretty silly in their
usage.  However:

1) Recognize that often the drum patterns recorded specifically for specific
	songs are often keyed in by studio drummers themselves at the studio.
	In effect, doing this frees them to let the machine roll on while they
	do other things of a more esoteric nature.  Tony Levin (at Fripp's
	suggestion) was going to program a DrumTrax for the last King Crimson
	tour, because Bruford was less interested in "timekeeping" than he was
	in experimenting adventures in percussion, and the band felt they
	needed the support.

2) They are fantastic tools for composers working on their own.  Though the
	machine I have is a piece of crap (the old Dr. Rhythm), I accompany
	that sound when I record with various sundry other percussion that I
	play directly (acoustic and electronic).

3) I wouldn't knock them wholeheartedly.  Even the cheap annoying rhythm
	boxes with "FOXTROT-SAMBA-WALTZ" switches have been used in very
	interesting ways by people like Brian Eno (e.g., "Great Pretender"
	on "Taking Tiger Mountain", and "In Dark Trees", "Sombre Reptiles"
	etc. from "Another Green World").  Groups like Our Daughter's Wedding
	(before they got swallowed up) made great use of such machinery, live
	and on record ("Lawnchairs"), with wild electric percussionist Layne
	Rico flailing away at Synare drums whilst the other machines backed him
	up.
-- 
"There!  I've run rings 'round you logically!"
"Oh, intercourse the penguin!"			Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr