The drums are my problem? Seriously? Nah....

Ok, so this one is likely gonna be more of a rant than most, but so be it.

In tandem with my "write at least one complete new song every week" project (up to #73 this week, started back at the beginning of 2012) I've also been trying to get a fully functional performance rig going.  This rig has been in "development" for several additional years and has gone through so many variations that I will not list them all here.

The idea of the rig has been to push the Singer-Songwriter concept as far as I can.  In fact though the rig is intended for live performance, in truth it really is about the songwriting and finding new ways to inspire myself through the spontaneity of performance.    Easier said than done it would seem.

I posted a video several weeks ago that shows the fundamental concept:


Since then the entire rig has been modified to improve the sound quality of all the elements, but the one aspect that has been alluding me is how to handle drums and percussion.

Hold on.  Let me back up a sec. The main idea of the rig, and the video, for all it's flaws, gives the basics, it that nothing is looped or prerecorded, but that I can play the rhythm guitar, bass, percussion/drums, and even solo, all spontaneously, just as though I was using a full band.  Again, all with no loops or prerecorded bits.  Seriously.  And it works.  Really.

Actually, the main rig, after many years of dabbling in loopers and software like Ableton Live (all of which I honestly love) has turned into something that is, when I step back, honestly kinda simple.  Simple in terms of musical execution.  Well sort of.  It still takes a lot of mental concentration, but that is not a bad thing. It reminds me a good bit of when I was learning how to conduct an orchestra (wow! that feels like a lifetime ago. More on that another time...)  Over time it got far easier to keep track of all the elements so long as I kept my mental focus up generally, so I am confident that as I move throughh this self-imposed process it will get easier and easier.  Or so I naively am going to claim.  Anyway...

As I was saying/ranting, where things break down for me is with the drums and percussion element.  I've been playing with Slicers and beat sync effects (Boss SL-20, Adrenalinn III, etc.) and it just always comes out to "electronic."  That's not a cut on Electronic sounds.  Not at all.  In fact I plan to keep using the AD3 as part of the rig, but conceptually, this needs to feel more organic overall.  More acoustic.  And so the slicing of the guitar (again, check out the concept video above) is not gonna cut it.

It would be easy enough to just use a drum beat from a drum machine of some kind - again the AD3 is a perfect candidate - and while I may wind up there in the end, right now that feels to much like it's still a prerecorded bit.

I should mention that the prerecorded thing is not just 'cuz I want to have rules.  In fact it's the exact opposite.  The prerecorded stuff limits my flexibly ultimately to create the music as  I feel it. This rig cannot have any preconceived bits - beyond basic textures and sounds I suppose - or it will not be musically workable.  Once again, see the video for the concept...

In any case, what I am not trying to do is create a kind of stompbox execution to generate a bass drum.  Easy enough actually.  The other MIDI communication elements that this rig has required are in many cases far more complex - more on that another time, too.  But how to do I get the back beat?

The answer, and I hope I am not jinxing it, is to make use of some creative MIDI sync delays to the MIDI triggering itself.  (My apologies to those of you kind enough to read this who I just lost in the music tech geekery of my thoughts...)  In any case, this is posing yet another puzzle but one that I can see the end of, I believe, soon.

For those of you still with me, what got me going on this rant - yeah, I warned you, didn't I? - is that once upon a time I played drums.  A lot of drums.  I guess it just strikes me funny that all that drumming experience, or perhaps because of it, and yet it's the drums that are holding me up.

Ok.  Gotta get back to it.  End of rant.   For now.