SORTED....Drum machine or app for singer/songwriter

Castro

Hey songwriting types.

I'm looking for an authentic sounding drum machine and/or iPad drum app to help with my writing and potentially to use live too.

Something easy-ish to use as I'm an old git and technophobe. It'd be great to be able to store drum tracks for complete songs rather than just a have a repetitive loop.

What do you use or recommend?

Bridgehouse

iPad? GarageBand.

paganskins

Beat Buddy, or Beat Buddy Mini for a smaller budget

steamabacus

I'd recommend a combination of computer software (to create the drum loops) and a looper to store/play backing tracks for live use. The sound of modern drum software is much more authentic than any drum machine I've ever used.

There are quite a few options for both. I use Addictive Drums which is quite easy to use (I'm a luddite) with a choice of preset drum kits (which can be easily tweaked with the inbuilt 'mixer' set if desired) and a whole load of built-in midi drum grooves and fills - you can also download any midi drum loops (some good free loops online) and use them with Addictive Drums. I use AD as a vst plugin to Cubase (which does the actual midi sequencing) but you can run the loops direct from AD with any software that will accept vst plugins.

For a looper I have a Digitech JamMan Solo XT which is fully usb connectable for loop management (software included) and has a good amount of inbuilt storage space (which can be massively increased with the addition of a micro SD card).

Castro

Thanks for the replies folks.

Castro

Bought an iPad with Garageband.

Would still like ideas on how to get great drum tracks for use in a live situation, just me and a bass player.

TimmyO

There's an app called Drum Perfect - which has a slight learning curve but which is stunningly convincing for putting together 'real' sounding drum tracks (rather than electronic music type stuff that many apps lean towards)

There should be some Youtube vids of it

If you do Facebook also look for the Ipad Musicians group for lots of good info about music making generally