Thread: How to make drum parts without the drums?

Hey all, I'm working on writing a new song, and I'm at a sticking point right now. It needs drums, but I don't have access to a drumset, I don't play drums, and I have no means for recording a drumset. All the other stuff - guitar, bass, vocals - are all finished, just need to record them, but the drums are holding me up. I tried making some drum sounds in Fruity Loops, but obviously it just loops...if there's something out there that would allow me to just write the drum part from beginning to end using sound samples, that would solve my problem. Obviously, this is just for demo purposes, but it's one of those things where I need to get it down soon before other things get in the way. I'm sure at least one of you knows what I'm talking about lol.

Thanks.

You can use a sequencing program like Sonar and use a keyboard to put in the drums. I usually put the notation in piano staff rather than percussion, as then I can see what note gives what instrument. ie. C# might be snare Then I just play along, usually laying down one or two parts of the drum kit at a time and layering.
Another good way is to use 'power chords' - by howling dog (not sure if it still exists or not). With that you can create patterns and pop them in each bar. It doesn't sound as 'fruity loopy' as using preset patterns.
If you don't have access to power chords, you can do it the same way by making midi's of a few bars (usually 4/8/16) and sticking them together by copy and paste.

back before we got a drummer my band used a drum machine we lovingly called "Bif 2000".. just a simple machine with like 8 buttons on it that you could program with different drum noises. Many o songs were recorded with good ol bif.. and for me ( a hardcore gamer) playing with my fingers was easy as pie :). We used Nuedo and plugged it right in like recording anything else.. wasn't that expensive, but was quite a while ago and couldn't tell ya prices now adays

You could try beatboxing?

If you're using ProTools there's a great program called Strike.

i used stike so if you have question about this program u can ask me

My advice, for what it's worth, is to go for real drums. No matter how sophisticated the software is, it never really sounds right. Unless you are creating electronic music of course.