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Download Drum Beats for Songwriting

Drummer — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 19:12:22 +0000

In this video, guitarist Evan Brown shows why he likes using full length drum beats to spark his creative process by laying down a jam in just a few minutes.

Featured Artist: Glen Poland

Drummer — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:41:34 +0000

“I’m in Djibouti Africa and I’m recording studio quality songs with no synthetic instruments,” says DrumTracks.com user Glen Poland. “I travel a lot, so carrying a drum kit around is out of the question, even an electronic one.” Poland, who is a drummer himself, only has his guitars with him where he works in East Africa. But he wanted to record some of his music as a hobby. “There aren’t many people to play with [where I am] so I decided to start writing,” he explains. “Just record as much music as I can and create a library of tunes.”

In order to start writing, Poland needed a great-sounding drum track to build from; and being a drummer, he couldn’t settle for anything less than the real thing. “I can hear the kick drum pedal squeaking in Led Zeppelin’s ‘Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You,’” he says. “Not many people can hear that and know what it is. These are real drums, and I can tell.”

Poland found DrumTracks.com while searching the Internet for drum backing tracks and was quickly sold on the concept. “After listening to a few, I was hooked. These tracks were real. I downloaded one and wrote an arrangement around it… It was great.”

Growing up in Plymouth, MA, Poland was exposed to the drums and rock music from a very young age. As a teenager, he started playing electric guitar. “A high school friend brought me to his house and did the Back to the Future thing with me: he slung a guitar on me, placed my fingers on the fretboard, cranked the amp, and told me to hit it,” he remembers. “It was a loud, electrifying A power chord and I fell in love.” Poland soon started playing in a band and listening to hard rock and heavy metal music, one of his biggest influences being Dokken.

Now in his new home of Africa, Poland found motivation to record his own music through his sister, who recently went on a world tour as a background singer for the Scissor Sisters. And his musical inspiration always starts with the drum track. “As a former drummer, I am inspired by the beat,” he says. “It will instantly give me a mental picture. Then I use chords and phrases to try to describe that picture with music.”

After his experiences with DrumTracks.com, Poland has many reasons to keep coming back to the site. “They are real drum tracks that I can buy and own, and it is thousands of dollars cheaper and takes less time than hiring a studio drummer. I get the studio quality tracks and, if I need to, they will make a special track any way I want. That’s priceless.”

He also has big plans for his new recordings: “My ambition is to see them sold for TV or movie production work. I had no idea some of these would sound as good as they do. The tracks are phenomenal when you play along with them.”

And what does Poland do when he’s not rocking out in his East African home? “I scuba dive and drink Jack Daniels. In that order.”

You can listen to Poland’s music here: http://drumtracks.com/glenpoland

Drum Loops and Sample CDs VS. FULL-LENGTH Drum Beats

Drummer — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:00:18 +0000

I remember a time when I was in college and I wanted to record a few of my songs. I didn’t have a lot of recording gear, and I didn’t have any good drum sounds in my studio setup. I wasn’t about to drop hundreds of dollars on a drum machine–I was a college student, after all, and I was still buying ramen noodles because they were ten cents a package. So I figured it was about time I stocked up on some drum loops.

Scouring the Internet, I looked for what my options were. To my surprise, many drum loop CDs cost hundreds of dollars. Not only that, I could only guess at what I would be getting because they didn’t provide much as far as audio samples went. Drum loops are short, so most “audio samples” would last as long as the loop itself! No wonder they weren’t eager to reveal too much…

Finally, I settled on a CD that cost about a hundred bucks and probably had about a hundred loops on it. I pulled out my nearly-empty pockets, scraped together what little cash I had, and bought the CD.

Looking back, I really wish that DrumTracks.com had existed back then. Here’s why:

100 loops doesn’t equal 100 songs

It seemed like a pretty good deal: a hundred bucks for a hundred drum loops. A dollar per loop is a pretty sweet deal, right? The problem was that I wasn’t really able to make a different song out of each loop. I wanted different drum beats for different song sections, plus fills and other variations. The loops on the CD were split into groups–slightly different version of the same drum beat with different cymbals or fills. When all was said and done, I needed to use about five of the drum loops for any given song. Unless I wanted to write a bunch of tunes over the same exact drum track, I could only squeeze a handful of songs out of a CD with a hundred loops.

I paid for loops I’d never use

I’d like to think I’m a pretty creative guy, but inspiration can really hit a wall when you’re trying to write songs based on drum loops that are very similar in style and tempo. Since most loop CDs stick to a certain genre, that meant the collection I bought didn’t have a lot going for it as far as musical variation goes. So I ended up never even using a bunch of the drum loops, and probably only got a couple songs out of my $100 investment. (And that investment was only in the drums!) It seems inefficient to pay for drum loops I’ll never use. What’s the point?

Piecing together loops just doesn’t sound like a real song

In the end, even the songs I did make from the drum loop CD didn’t sound too much like a real drummer was playing the part. The options are so limited–a few bars of this pattern, a few bars of that, maybe a fill or two that I would have to re-use over and over. With DrumTracks.com, the options are both natural sounding and cost-efficient. You’ve got the full form of a song played continuously by a real player, but it’s edited to a click so that you can cut and paste to loop certain sections if you need to. There are lots of fills and variations to choose from in a single drum track, and it costs a heck of a lot less than a collection of drum loops!

If you want to save some cash and get some awesome full-length drum tracks played by real drummers, sign up for a free account today!

Drum Beats – the Definitive Guide

Drummer — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:05:13 +0000

Drums are a unique beast in the world of music recording. These days, it’s pretty common for even casual musicians to be able to record guitar, bass, or vocals in the comfort of their own bedrooms. With some software and a little knowhow, guitars can be recorded directly into your computer and manipulated to sound like you played through an amplifier. It’s much less common to have the resources to easily record drums. Drums usually need complex setups of (sometimes expensive) microphones, and won’t exactly provide the silent recording experience you would need to lay down some late-night grooves in your apartment complex.

But unlike guitars and vocals, drums are much more easily reproduced using synthetic methods such as sequencing and drum loops. And recording over a drum track played by a session drummer isn’t nearly as limiting to your creativity as hiring someone to play guitar–you can easily change notes and chords in your song without needing to alter the drum track.

So along with a few limitations, drums also come with their fair share of freedoms and options, as well. Now, what exactly are your options when it comes to making drum beats for your songs?

1. Play them yourself

There is, and will always be, the old fashioned way of recording drums: by playing them yourself. If you have a drum set, you’ll have to set up several microphones–typically on the snare drum, the kick drum, the tom-toms and “overhead” mics to capture the ambient sounds–and hit the record button! After you play, you can edit the beat if desired, and then mix the individual drum mics to taste.

Another option is an electronic drum set, such as the Roland V-Drums. In this case, no microphones are required. You can simply connect the output of the electronic set to your recording interface and play away. This is a more viable option if you don’t have the freedom to make a bunch of noise any time you’d like.

If you don’t have access to your own drums, you can always rent out a recording studio. Many of them have in-house drum sets, and they always have high quality microphones and staff engineers who know how to set them up.

2. Use samples

The V-Drums that I mentioned above use “samples” to simulate a real drum set. Samples are audio clips of actual drums that are triggered each time you hit one of their electronic pads with a stick. So every time you hit the snare pad, an audio recording of an actual snare drum will sound.

Samples are incredibly flexible by nature. You can manually piece together drum samples in a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Pro Tools to create your own custom beats. Most DAWs also have MIDI capabilities, which allow your computer to communicate with external drum machines, keyboards, or other MIDI controllers to sequence drum samples into beats.

Samples are very versatile–they aren’t limited to “normal” drum sounds. Although you can use samples to imitate a real drum kit, many artists use electronic drum samples in their songs that sound nothing like an organic kit. (You won’t hear too many songs with “fake” sounding guitar parts!) One of the beauties of sampling is that you don’t have to commit to a sound while you’re recording; if you’re using MIDI, you can actually change the sounds of your drum set after you already sequenced the drum beat!

One drawback of sequencing samples is that it can be difficult to get a “natural” drum sound… It’s actually the little inconsistencies in dynamics and time that make a real drummer play something that sounds more “human.”

If you’re interested in going the sample route, you can buy sample libraries and CDs online.

3. Use loops

A drum loop is just what it sounds like: a short clip of a drum beat that is recorded in such a way that it can be played repeatedly–or “looped”–and it will sound seamless. You can buy drum loop CDs or purchase individual loops from countless websites. Some software, such as Apple’s GarageBand, come with a library of drum loops.

There are two basic types of drum loops: audio and MIDI. Audio loops are usually recordings of real players jamming out a groove. The loop files are labeled with a tempo, so all you have to do is adjust your DAW to the specified BPM, then drag and drop the loop into the software wherever you’d like in the song. A MIDI loop is similar, but instead of being an audio recording, it is made up of samples that have already been sequenced into a drum beat. This way, not only can you play it at any tempo you’d like without any sound degradation, you can also change it around if it’s not exactly what you want.

Audio loops might be slightly more limited in options than MIDI loops, but they often sound more “real” and “natural,” since they are usually clips of real drummers. A downside might be if you want specific drum fills for your song, but don’t have a loop or recording of it. In this case, real drummers–or at least talented drum sequencers–win out again.

4. Pay someone else to play them

You might not have a lot of confidence in your drumming, or maybe you have no experience playing percussion at all. You may also not be a skilled sequencer, or loops just fall short of your vision of a completely natural sounding drum part. All hope is not lost, however. You can still get somebody else to play drums for you!

One option is to pay a session drummer in your area to come into a recording studio and play drums for your songs. If you don’t have the cash to pay for that, there are a several online alternatives that might keep a few bucks in your wallet.

You could, for example, use this very site (DrumTracks.com) to find full-length tracks played by real drummers. If the arrangement doesn’t exactly fit your song, you can easily rearrange it in a DAW, since they are played and edited to a click track.

Or, if you want to pay someone to play exactly what you want for your song but don’t want to break the bank, both DrumsForYou.com and Studio Pros hook you up with top Los Angeles session players for very affordable prices!

There are a lot of great options for recording drum beats for your music. The key is to find the best one that suits your song’s specific needs, and realize that these days, nothing’s standing in between you and your creativity!

And You Thought Stevie Wonder Only Played The Keys…

admin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:03:22 +0000

I found this clip of Stevie Wonder playing the drums and thought I should share it with you all. As if he didn’t make us feel bad enough with the way he can play the keys? I guess some people just have talent. Wouldn’t you want Stevie to record a drum track for you? I know I would.

Drum Tracks With The Slapstik

admin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:12:51 +0000

Pushing your boundaries is fun… It’s even more fun with a slapstik! Drummers – if you haven’t heard about this neat new contraption, don’t worry. I’m here to tell you all about it!

The slapstik http://www.theslapstik.com/ is a new and exciting tool that can bring your creativity to a whole other level! It basically consists of a regular drumstick, with a small bendable attachment on the end that lets you create upstrokes and down-strokes on the hi-hat, or anywhere else on the drum kit, with amazing speed and agility. It is intended to be used in the dominant hand, with a regular drumstick in the other hand. With the slapstik you can produce AMAZING new rhythms, and styles that haven’t even been invented yet!! – and anyone can use it! Whether you’ve played the drums for 7 years, or 7 days, you’ll find sounds coming out of your sticks you never thought could be possible!

New sounds, styles, and techniques are emerging from drummers such as LA artist Yotam Rosenbaum, check out his site at http://www.yotamrosenbaum.com along with his band, The Capitalist Hippeies http://www.capitalisthippie.com

The Slapstik. Let’s you end on an upbeat!

Drum Tracks sounds from the 60’s

admin — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:08:05 +0000

Everyone always seems to be moving forward in music. New ideas are being brought to the table every day in the music business. Technology changes, things become digitalized. People replace live drummers with machines. But what about when we want to bring it back? I thought it’d be a good idea to take a minute and look back to what has worked in the past and use it today. Drum tracks for the future, using the tricks of the trade from the past. Good idea? I thought so.

Sometimes I get sound alike projects where customers are looking for the old sounds of the sixties. As a producer, I have to go into the studio and set up the kit to get that “old sound”. Here are tricks I have found to work to get that 60’s drum sound:

I use my Rogers Dyna-Sonic snare drum that captures that old sound
I use two condenser mics as left and right overheads and a SM57 in front of bass drum
I try to make the drums sound as natural as possible and capture that sound

Apart from the miking and placement of the drums, the performance from the drummer was different back then. Players from the past used different playing techniques. In most cases, old drummers used more snare drums and the hits were less aggressive than the drums of today and more prevalent. The ride cymbal wasn’t as heavy as today’s cymbals.

Check out some drum tracks from the past. References are a must when you’re about to record drums. Experiment with your setup and listen back to your recording.

But Drummers Do!

admin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:33:39 +0000

Admit it. We’ve all used drum loops or drum samples at some point in our songs. It’s a quick fix to the huge problem of finding the right player and place to record your own custom drum tracks.

At first, drum loops and samples sound really good. Most of them are being recorded in commercial studios with professional drummers so they sound flawless. Most loop libraries are taking well known session drummers and putting them in a box for you. Drum loops have individual creative characteristics like live drums do, but that manufactured beat wasn’t created with you in mind.

You know those hit songs you can identify in the first five seconds? Think for a minute why those songs stay so fresh in your ears. The answer is simple. Those songs have a unique sound and way of performing that even your grandma won’t forget. When you’re tired of sharing the same drum loop with a thousand other songwriters, custom drum tracks will be worth the effort and the money. A live drummer creating custom drum tracks will get you a unique sound, something that belongs only to you and separates you from the crowd of everyday songwriters.

Find a drummer or an easy way to record your custom drum tracks at http://drumsforyou.com.

Download Free Drum Beats

admin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:47:40 +0000

We had such a great response from our last free drum track that we decided to go ahead and post another for everybody to have. This one is a slow jam, meant to break hearts and take names. Lay some smooth guitar over the top and really let yourself croon. Do what you can with it and see how many tears you can squeeze out of someone, moms are a good target. Hit us back with what you got by sending your completed tracks to drummer@drumtracks.com.

http://drumtracks.com/free

Heyo!

JRafter — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:52:28 +0000

Welcome to the blog o’ drum tracks! There is no bigger hook-up on the blogosphere for drum tracks than at Drum Tracks dot com. Did we mention the free drum tracks? Oh yeah, there’s free drum tracks.