Topic: Drum loops in live music--Majestic by Lincoln Brewster

[Robyn]

Here we go again.   Music leader sends me the following email:  "Here's a new song by Lincoln Brewster that's kinda fun called "Majestic".  Tricky thing about this song is that it is based on a drum loop track. 

I've included the files of the song and of the loop track (that I made).  I just trimmed the first bit of the song out and then looped it to create our loop track and then played it with the song to see if it matched up."

I explained to him that I'd asked here previously about playing live w/ a drum loop and was strongly warned not to do it. He wants to try it anyway.  Here is the song off of Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaLnEGzKo90&p=EE995EF31889DA5C&playnext=1&index=6
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Great song!  Doesn't sound too difficult to play.  He copied the intro bars into a loop and wants to try playing that w/ me playing over top, altho I personally think it will sound muddy. 

Any thoughts on this song?  Anyone played it and have some input w/ what they played?

Thanks, Robyn

[Bart Elliott]

My first approach would be to play a basic "two beat" groove; Kick on 1 and 3, Snare on 2 and 4. That's basically what the acoustic drums are doing on the recorded track as well.

Make it yours, play what feels right to you and makes the music feel good. As busy as the loop is, depending on how loud it will be in the mix, you can get by playing very little ... and is exactly what I would do. The only exception would be if it still sounded thin overall, then I might add more to the groove. But aside from fills, it's a Two-Beat groove.

[Robyn]

Thanks Bart--now I can hear the two-beat.  I'll work on it.

  Robyn

[Robyn]

This actually went very well!  We played it both Friday pm and Sunday am; the biggest issue was getting the sound guy to turn the loop off at the correct time.  But it came together and turned out to be one of the better songs we played.

Thanks again, Robyn

[JeepnDrummer]

I'm a little late to the party, but glad to hear it went well.  For the record, I concur with Bart. 

Another option is to use an auxillary snare tuned such that it replicates the sound in the loop.  Just an idea.

[Brian Hobson]

I'm really, really late to this party.  I was actually asked to reproduce these drum parts for some backing tracks.  I programmed a similar loop into Live and played the basic 2-beat as Bart suggested.  Let me know if you want the loop and I can send you either a Live file or MP3.