Yes, we have another article discussing AI and production tools. This time, we’re going over drum sample generation and how a little program can save you a little time during the production process.
Artificial intelligence has been a popular topic of discussion over the last few years, and for a good reason. It’s revolutionizing how we do things in life, including how we, as producers, approach music production.
One of the biggest benefits of using AI is the ability to automate tedious tasks. This makes it so music producers can focus more on the creative aspects of music production vs mundane tasks.
That’s What Sample Libraries Are For, Right?
Yes, sample libraries make a producer’s job easier, but it can also be a time sucking process when the producer is looking for something unique.
Drum samples are a crucial element for many music genres: Hip-Hop, Drum & Bass, EMD, and Pop, Trance. They provide the foundation for a track’s rhythm and groove and can be a track’s make or break factor.
Some music producers spend hours browsing through samples trying to find the right drum samples. Others, at times, settle for mediocre drums so they can get their idea out. Both are acceptable approaches.
Just think about it, most hits have nice sounding, complimenting drums that fit perfectly within the song.
What if we had a tool to take care of this for us? Think about that…You hit ‘generate’, and an application does the work for you, creating unique drum samples on the fly!
Say Hello To Audialab’s Emergent Drums
Check Out Emergent Drums Full Features Here
Now, this is quite a unique drum tool. It can serve as both a drum machine and a drum sound generator. What you have are 16 cells or pads that host samples.
Each cell gives you control over the following parameters:
Attack: Controls when the sample comes, which can sound less abrupt and smooth or omit initial transients
Release: Controls the decay of the sound, where you can make sounds choked up or tighter
Clip: This makes your audio signal louder but has a bit of saturation, thus rounding off the source sound.
Gain: This slider controls the level of the sample, resulting in a louder or quieter sound.
Frequency: This acts like a filter. For example, adjusting the slider from the bottom up acts as a high pass filter, and from the bottom down serves as a low pass filter. Or, if you choose, you can set both ends of the slider somewhere in between.
You can generate or regenerate the entire sample bank or regenerate specific cells, a snare or hi-hat for example.
Let’s Look Specifically @ The Generator Section
Looking at the Emergent Drums generator section, you can choose from a total of three settings; ‘Similar,’ ‘Random,’ and an intermediate setting that falls between these two.
Although, one could argue that there are additional settings that fall between ‘Similar and Random,’ but we’ll keep this simple.
Now, you can generate drums simply by hitting generate, but I have a more strategic approach to this. Hear me out
First Method: start by auditioning a kick drum sound, and if you find a sound that you like and want to generate more, you can adjust the slider towards the middle of the range and keep generating samples.
Second Method: Use the randomize setting until you find something that catches your ear. If you want more of that sound or something closely related, move the slider closer to ‘similar’ and continue generating until you have enough variation of the tone you liked.
Drag and Drop Functionality (Gotta Love this)
Aside from generating original drum sounds with Emergent Drums, you can also drag and drop your own drum samples into the drum machine, thus making it a sample player.
Use the ADSR settings as well as the clipper feature to tweak your drums and play them back in your daw. Or, if you don’t want to use the sample playback function, you can drag the generated samples into your DAW.
There are two options for this function.
1. Individually drag out your generative generated sounds into your DAW or into a sampler of your choice.
2 Drag a group of sounds (all 16) into your DAW at once.
Listen To This Audio Example Of Emergent Drums
What’s On The Horizon For Audialab & Their Drum Generator
At the time of this post, it is not possible to generate drums based on drums you personally load into emergent drums, but that is a feature that’s on the horizon as the tech exists, and Audialab simply has to incorporate it into their program.
This is coming directly from the developer, and I can’t wait to have this feature. With that said, it will be very interesting to use, as many of us are probably sitting on terabytes of sound libraries that we would love to mimic, especially when it comes to our having variations of our favorite kicks, snares, claps, etc.
Overall Thoughts About Emergent Drums
I find Emergent Drums fun to experiment with, and I’m excited to see where the continued advancements in AI will take us. I love the fact that the dev stays in touch with their customers and continues to bring updates to the software.
It feels like we’re on the cusp of something amazing with the drum generator, and I can’t wait to see what other exciting updates emerge.
