Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Here is the drum machine mentioned in the booklet/used on Chinese Democracy

(http://i44.tinypic.com/2vil0rk.jpg)

Used on these songs:

If The World, There Was A Time, I.R.S and Madagascar.

Examples of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjnwuAyMjSk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_EgyQgjLd4&feature=related

 ok, i know everyone's thinking it, so i'm just gonna say it first
   
MPC2000 > Matt Sorum

 :hihi:

Pretty cool if you could recreate the drum parts on it.

I gotta get one of these for my bad ass ride.

Wonder how much it does cost to get one of them. Pitman and Brain used it on the album.

Damn, I thought chidem had real drums all around.

Kind of a let down.  :-\

why would they use this thing over brain? or any other drummer for that matter?

Dude, GAY, LAME!!!


 :peace:

Not something you see every day.

Not really. You can hear when the beat was programmed instead of played, it was meant to achieve a different effect and for one I think it works.

As long as it sounds good and fits the song...

Well, I do agree. If you've got two great drummers why would you need a computer to create a beat? Kinda reminds of the "Milli Vanilli" incident.

It's most likely used for that drum loop on Madagascar during the verses. Having a loop there adds to the song in my opinion, and it's something no drummer in the world could replicate, hence the machine.

I told u guys of the drum machines used on CD and u kept insisting how it was the greatest drumming ever laid down.

that machine has a stiffy drive at the bottom???
holy crap, how old is this technology..?

surely they used something a bit more contemporary than this...gnr drum loops seem a bit more complex, and would be bigger than 3.2MB than that little disc can hold...

Well, I have no idea but maybe because they used it because it had a vintage sound and not the more realistic one you'd get these days.

Just some guitarist would rather use lamp amplifiers in the age of electronic.

Well MIDI information is quite small, it's the sound libraries that take alot of space, so they come up with the drum loops with this, then take that MIDI to Pro Tools and in there associate the drum sounds to it.

So they have three drummers. Might this be the best one? Really hope he could go on tour with them.

???
yeh, the drum machine might not be available to tour
give me a break, Brain or Frank is all that is needed.

I'm pretty a drum machine made an appearance in NY in 2006.  : ok:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S32kwl8uQXs

But you said: "Prostitute is a fuckin' drum machine for christ sake", which it obviousely is not... :P

Just because you use a drum machiine to create some shit on a record doesn't mean the drumming on CD isn't fuckin' awesome, which it is imo. And this isn't some drum machine you use instead of a drummer like on the illusion demos. This is a creative tool. An instrument.

Don't slam the use of this device, you know not what you're talking about. Might as well slam guitar effects, synts, pittmans sub bass etc. Hell, why didn't they go all acustic and recorded everything live directly on to vinyl?...

Guns N' Roses isn't a garage band anymore. The band can actually affort really good instruments and effects along with high end recording equipment.

No, you told us you didn't like the drumming.  :P

By the way, since you're a musician, how does the use of a drum machine make it impossible for the drumming to be great? The drum machine isn't used on every track and even those it's used on features real drumming.



/jarmo

Everybody uses drum machines nowadays...everybody...even the most pure of rockers use it in the initial planning stages to get the compositions right before they go into the studio to record proper...

there is nothing wrong or weird about that...some may not like the chosen sound, but that's not because the tool used was shit, its simply because a composer preferred it that way.

If Pitman used this "stiffy" drum machine, my respect for him just went up a whole lot...i always thought of him as a bit of a purist even though he dabbles in experimental synth sounds...but i never really believed it...

good news...i only wish this type of info was available in the build up to chinese...we would have had a better understanding of it, and perhaps more respect for it when it finally got launched...

Wow, way too much shit people said here...

Get real: did you really think it was a real drum in IRS intro and the 1st verse of TWAT? But then, we have tracks full of real drums blasting out loud.

OMG. I can't believe you actualy said that...

You know exactly when the drum machine is used? You know it's almost only in the intro and some seconds of each song?

Exactly. Even if it has a drum machine in till the 1st chorus, TWAT's ending has an amazing and very real drum (I believe Josh Freese wrote it, but Brain's playing is also unbelieveble) going on.

If The World  has some little use of drum machines before the bass came in in the intro.

IRS has the machine on its intro and in Robin's 2nd solo (and also the very ending, if I remember well).

Madagascar has it all over the song, but mixed with real drums too.

I don't think the drum machine was used in place of drums, but rather as "icing on the cake" so to speak. It adds some fresh elements to the sound of the music (IMO). In fact, the beginning of TWAT sounds amazing with the drum machine and then the acoustic drums added after.

Linkin Park use one a lot as well, but is everyone bitching about them? No they're not, only the lovely GN'R fans that have nothing better to do than be a bunch of complaining fucks.   :peace:

AA.

Brain might have to turn it on when he plays If The World.

You can see it being used at the VMAs back in 2002 too.

Might be over at Pitmans side.

All "I want to know is ... Is C3po going to be on the next album??

I think it adds a cool mix to the album. I know some of you think its stupid.

Two pictures of Brain with the MPC Drum Machine:

(http://i44.tinypic.com/wiqz48.jpg)

(http://i44.tinypic.com/2cgxwm9.jpg)

What? Brain is friend with a drum machine?!  :hihi:

Machine Classics Of HipHop, Funk, etc, etc...

70's, 80's...

Only For Work Mind MASTERS

 :smoking:

HBK *

Their is a hip hop influence on Chinese Democracy. The Drums do sound hip hop on the songs mentioned.

Never leave home without it.

Not to be too much of a buzzkill, but chances are that even the "real drums" you hear on CD aren't real, per se. The performances are human, but it's pretty common nowadays to trigger samples in place of the actual drums that were laid down to pro tools (I'm loath to say tape, because recording to 2" is so rare these days, and for the amount of stuff in CD it is almost certainly pro tools), hell, this has been going on for years....even Nevermind's drums are triggered IIRC. Look up Drumagog or Aptrigga and do some reading. This is mostly used to get a drum performance as clean as possible for mixing, as there is usually tons of bleed on each track of drums (cymbals into snare mics, kick drums bleeding into tom mics). A program like drumagog, smartly paired with a good noise gate will kill the bleed between each drum hit, as well as replace the actual hit with a perfectly clean, eq'd replacement sound.

Considering how amazing the drums sound on CD I would bet that they are all triggered to some degree. Hell, it isn't out of the question that a performance by Brain could have been doctored up in pro tools and been used to trigger samples played by Josh Freese. I've done it before when mixing recordings for bands where a drummer's kit isn't sounding so hot and I've pulled samples I've made of better kits to compensate.

The debate over the real vs. fake drums is sort of a moot point these days, because in a lot of instances even the real drums aren't 100% real.

I'm familiar with drumagog and have done lots of drum mixing using that (as well as the drum replacement tool with the Pro Tools Music Production kit - I can't think of the name).  However, Brain did say that they had him redo all of the drum tracks, note for note, for what Freese played.  It would make zero sense to have him play the exact same notes, and then use the samples of Freese playing, or even bother with drum "triggers" at that point, since they actually wanted the drums to be note for note the same.

The line as I remember it was that they wanted Josh's parts, but with Brain's feel (whatever the hell that means). And you should try reading closer, I only presented that as a possible case to illustrate my point...that not even "real drums" are real drums anymore if you really want to split hairs. I never once stated as fact that they actually did that...but you just never know. Maybe they weren't crazy about a snare sound and rifled through the sample library and found one that someone else played and used it. You make your statement on the assumption that Brain's and Josh's kit sound exactly the same which is fundamentally impossible. It isn't a big deal, really, it's just the way things get done in professional recording studios these days. We should at least be thankful they didn't brickwall the final masters to shit like Death Magnetic.

And I'm sure they at the very least sampled his kit and triggered clean samples in the final mix. It is as ubiquitious as auto-tune these days in the world of production (which I'm sure got used here and there on CD as well...it's just everywhere in some degree or another).

I give them credit for whatever they did though because the drums sound great. Most of the time I just wonder why more people don't record drums like they did on Led Zeppelin 4, with a few mics as possible. Close mic'ing, drumagog and triggers really fucked up drums from a recording standpoint.

Well, I tend to agree that it's possible things weren't completely real, so there isn't much of a point in disagreeing, but what the hell..


You presented a theory.  I presented some evidence that seemed to contradict your theory.  I think I read and understood what you wrote just fine.   : ok:



I did no such thing.  My point is that they would fundamentally sound different, and if they had Brain re-record all of Freese's parts, as they would sound different than Freese's parts, why would they then use Freese samples on the trigger points of Brain's drums?  Again, I know you are only suggesting a theory, I'm just pointing out where it doesn't seem to make as much sense (unless I am, in fact, misunderstanding you).


I am thankful for that as well.


I have minimal experience in a professional recording environment, so that would not surprise me if it were completely true.  It would also not surprise me if they can gate out all the noise "bleed" without using samples at all either, with nice drum mics.


I agree, the drums do sound great.  I actually curious about your last statement, since you seem to be pretty knowledgeable about it. 

Feel vs. tone. Brain's "feel" is fundamentally different than Freese's, as is the actual tone of his drum kit. Brain swings differently. My example/theory was that you could envision a scenario where Axl could say "you know, I love this take but I'm not as crazy about that snare sound for this song as I am about take X." So you fly in a sample from another kit to replace the snare sound. Considering it's Axl we're talking about....I could see that. Take Freese out the equation completely if it helps and pretend that they liked the sound of a particular drum on an earlier demo Brain played on. Same thing.



You are most definitely right. But while a gate will pretty accurately kill any bleed between drum hits, you'll still hear the drum and anything else bleeding into that mic when the gate pops open. Taking isolated samples and triggering them leaves you completely isolated drum sounds, which gives you substantially better options for eq and compression (for example: you can tweak the high end of a snare drum to your hearts content because it won't accentuate any incidental bleed from cymbals that may be on the track). If you want to talk completely anal retentive, Dave Grohl's drums on Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone age were triggered from clean samples of his kit, and they also tracked the cymbals separately (overheads for cymbals generally pick up the entire kit). THAT is crazy.



Not nearly as much as I'd like to be man. But I do a lot of recording and reading about recording and learn more every time.  : ok:

I just feel as though as the technology gets better we have more options which isn't always better. The drum sounds on early Zeppelin and Beatles albums are so good, and they were made using a few mics with really warm sounding tube compressors...that's about it. They sound roomy and natural, and they feel like a human played them because every little nuance isn't edited and moved around in pro tools. Those old Beatles records are full of tiny mistakes and they are still amazing 40 years later...nowaday's producers will edit every last little micro mistake out, and I generally feel like it does wipe a little of that human factor out of music. Go listen to 'Since I've Been Loving You' by Led Zeppelin and you'll actually hear Bonham's kick drum pedal squeaking...that would never fly these days, yet that song is a classic and has endured for years and years.

I've been totally guilty myself of over editing in Cubase, but lately I've been trying to force myself to record with room mic's more when recording drums because it just sounds better to my ears. If you want you can hit me up on AIM (screen name: thrakk77) and we can talk some more about it because I will end up writing a novel here.  ;D

Everything on the album had to be played with pro tools to get the perfect tone.

Pro Tools is not an instrument. You cannot play it. It is software and hardware used to record with just like the old Real to Real Recording Tape Machines that were used back in the day. Yes, protools can replace sounds but I doubt that GNR would do that. Samples are great but your own recorded drums are priceless. The Drum Machine is used for loops which are all over the place on CD. Live, those loops are played along with the songs. You can see and hear Brain or Frank playing along with them. Someone would trigger the loops on before or during the songs at certain points while what they call a "click track" which is used to keep solid timing and is played through the headphones worn by the drummer or what they call In-Ear Monitors which are worn by all band members to keep in line with the tracks of loops the band is playing along with. Yes, the drums sound increddible on CD but I bet for the most part they were replaced by "sampled drums". They had a huge budget to get the amazing sounds that they did and here is a link with Brain talking about how they went about getting the drum sounds on CD. Brain uses those Drum Machines to create loops and drummers are not against them by any means. Drummers need to welcome change and keep up with the times. We are living in a hip hop/pop/R&B World right now and that would go into what Axl said about CD being more like Appetite as far as taking everything popular now and putting it all together. In the end, whether it would be real drums or drums programed on a drum machine by a drummer, you have to do what is best for the song. That's what matters most. I can't believe I'm saying this since I'm a drummer but people don't go home at the end of the night humming the drums.

http://eqmag.tv/

1. Click on In The Studio on the left side of the screen
2. Scroll down on the left side of the screen and click on Brain
3. Scroll down on the left side of the screen and click on Chinese Democracy

There are a bunch more links about Brain and the way he goes about recording on the left side of the screen also.