Arranger style Drummer mode

[NwaGod]

I’ve had some time to think this over, and I think SD 3.0 needs an arranger style drummer.  I grew up messing around with yamaha psr keyboards, and I’m well acquainted with how the styles work that allow you to trigger intros, drum groove variations and fills with buttons all synced to time.  I’ve been searching for a VST plugin that does this.  I’m primarily a keyboard player, but also play drums.  I play a lot of solo gigs where I could use an arranger style drums with flexibility of being able to trigger fills and different variation of grooves.  I think SD3 is more than halfway there with it’s massive grooves library.  Being able to take SD3′ into live situations and have that level of control will make it a killer drum environment. It already has all the grooves and fills to make this a possible.  It’s just missing a “live drums arranger mode” or something like that.

I envision the arranger mode having 3 categories. Intros and endings, Grooves, and Fills with the flexibility to have different variations in each section.  Of course the intro and ending will start and stop the sequence.  Once the intro is done it transitions automatically into a groove which loops until either a fill or another variation within the groove is triggered.  Having subsections in the grooves category maybe helpful with logic of the drum sequence.  For instance, the groove section should be divided up into subsections of verse, chorus. bridge etc. Going verse to chorus should trigger a fill automatically and vice versa, or not.  Make it an option.

The fills section will need to work like a drummer would.  the system will need to keep track of where the “1” beat is because that’s where fill should always end.  there are three points a fills should start; on the 1 beat for a whole measure fill, on the 3 beat for half a measure fill and on the 4th beat for just a beat.  I think it would be good if the user could choose the length of fill they wanted, but if not, base it on when the the fill button is pressed.  I think if it’s done this way, it should be limited to just whole or half measure fills always ending on the “1”.  Also allow the fills to have a pickup note.  not every fill starts on the down beat.

the one vst I’ve found that comes close is Fanan’s Callisto and Ringo plugin.  Callisto is more of a “full style” plugin with the ability to program other instruments. Ringo is just for drums.  It works fairly well but it’s limited.  I also think Toontrack will do a better job at this if they were to decide to add this feature.  I don’t know why this is not a common feature given that Keyboard arranger have it and they seem to work pretty well.  I just would like to do it with vst’s.

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