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Drum Samples Don’t Cut It: Get Custom Drum Tracksfrom an Online Session Drummer
Drum Sample Software
 will make your music sound stale and take upall your time. Get
Custom Drum Tracks
Online.This article is for the benefit of you, the songwriter/composer.Undoubtedly you need professional soundingdrum tracksfor your music.But how to get great drum sounds without breaking the bank?Many folks see the solution to the problem in drum samplesoftware, such as the BFD premium drum module.People feel this is the solution because, admittedly, the drum samplesinvolved in the software tend to have drum sounds that are very good.Generally, the drums are well-tunedand recorded well. But there aredrawbacks.The biggest two drawbacks to using drum sample software are:1)“Canned”, uninspired results -- drum tracks that sound disconnectedfrom your music.2) Large amounts of time being wasted putting together “custom” tracksslice-by-slice with individual-hit drum samples.Most of these drum sample software packages give you pre-made loops youcan use. Most also give you the option to construct your own beats usingseparate, single-hit drum samples.Lets talk about the loops for a minute.
 
 You
may
be able to occasionally find a pre-made pattern in the packagethat basically fits your song.But even if a pre-made drum pattern works partly, there are inevitably parts of your song that could use a little bit of variety. Certain parts may  benefit from a change in the bass drum pattern, for example, or maybelooser hi-hats or some extra snare hits. At any rate the chances of drumsample software containing a loop that has
exactly
what you need for thatsituation are very slim.Confronted with this situation you are likely the think something like “Ineed my drum tracks to sound more organic than that”, or perhaps “thisloop or that loop won’t cut it because I need the drum part to highlight the vocal rhythms on the third pre-chorus”.Of course these are legitimate concerns as you want your music to sound
alive, not contrived 
. And at this point you may decide that you need to
construct the drum parts yourself 
, hit-by-hit, slice-by-slice, using single-hit drum samples. Admittedly, you’ll probably get a better result this way as you at least havecontrol over specific cymbal crashes, adding bass drum notes, fills, etc.There is a big problem to this approach however: It takes up huge amountsof your precious time.If you have been through this before, I don’t need to tell you: puttingtogether “custom” drum tracks using single-hit drum samples will take upso much of your time that you are likely to compromise your artistic needsin the end anyway. You will put in so many hours, and the tracks will sound better than just using factory loops, but you will probably give up realizingthat they will never really, truly sound and
 feel 
like custom drum tracks
 
that were played by a real person for
your 
song. You would look at how much time you have put in to them, and settle for your cobbled-together tracks because you couldn’t bear to do such tedious busy work anymore. You wouldn’t even end up with the result you wanted .It would only be closer to that goal than the factory loops -- closer, but nocigar!They say say 
time is money
, which everybody knows is true. It seems like you'd save money painfully cobbling a drum part together slice-by-slicefrom a drum pattern /sample software package, but in reality its just not worth the time you'd waste, and the frustration you would feel. As you look at it that way, its obvious that approach would really end upcosting you. A much better idea is to take advantage of a recent development, theappearance of online session drummers. You can now get real, custom drum tracks from session drummers over theInternet and save a whole lot of money over conventional recordingmethods. Conventional recording methods tend to involve having to pay several people (rental of the studio for every minute of usage includingsetup and teardown; carting the drums there; paying the producer, theengineer(s), drummer, etc.). All that can really add up. With an online studio drummer you only pay one person, which obviously saves you a bundle.Be sure to shop around -- all online drum track providers are not equal. Of course you should base your decision on which session drummer wouldmusically fit your project best, but you must also compare the actual sound
of 00

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