By John Moxey
DrummerTracks DL Multibox - Sonic Reality
DrummerTracks™ is a collection of themed drum tracks specially recorded for musicians and songwriters of various kinds, to be able to play along with authentic drum tracks recorded by the very best of drumming professionals.
Each theme is a series of song length drum grooves that includes all the variation, nuance and detail that you just don't get in most drum grooves. This makes the grooves ideal for jamming along with and practice, or simply to help you find inspiration during the songwriting process.
Two different versions of DrummerTracks titles are available:
The Pro Wave Edition
- 10 CD quality WAVE file drum songs that lock to tempo
- Licensed for commercial music creation using the supplied drum tracks within that themed pack
- Bonus “live" tracks with natural drift and loose human feel.
Standard MP3 Edition
- 10 high-quality compressed MP3 format drum songs
- Recreational-use license only. It does not include the professional commercial use license that comes with the Pro Wave Editions.
A number of themed grooves are available:
LZ Grooves — Led Zeppelin and John Bonham style grooves. Recorded with the same type of vintage microphones and recording equipment originally used, using a Ludwig® “Bonham Signature" kit.
SD Grooves — Steely Dan style Jazz/Rock grooves performed by Ed Greene (Donald Fagen, Steely Dan).
60's Rock Grooves — Rock bands of the 60's styling covering The Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. All 10 tracks are recorded with the same vintage studio equipment used to make classic records.
Pro Wave Edition: includes 4 additional Bonus Live Tracks making 14 drum tracks in total.
70's Rock Grooves — This theme includes 10 tracks in a variety of styles including Queen, Pink Floyd, The Who, Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.
Pro Wave Edition: 4 additional Bonus Live Tracks
B Grooves — The Beatles style complete drum backing tracks. Each track is recorded using the same type of recording equipment including a Ludwig® Black Oyster Pearl “Downbeat"as used by Ringo.
Pro Wave Edition: 4 additional Bonus Live Tracks
Big Band — Authentic Big Band drums in the syles of the Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller bands. Performed by jazz drummer Danny Gottlieb.
Pro Wave Edition: 2 additional Bonus Live Tracks
Pop Country — Pop Country were recorded in world class studios and played by top Nashville session musicians.
Motown — If you want that classic Motown sound then you could do worse than play along with classic Motown recordings by The Supremes and Marvin Gaye. Like all the other themes these grooves were recorded with authentic vintage studio equipment in world class studios.
Pro Wave Edition: 2 additional Bonus Live Tracks
Progressive Rock — One for the Prog Rock heads, performed by Nick D Virgilio (Genesis, Spock's Beard, Tears For Fears). Featuring tracks by Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, and Gentle Giant.
Pro Wave Edition: 5 additional Bonus Live Tracks
Funk Soul — 60s and 70s funk and soul styled drum tracks covering artists like the Temptations, Otis Redding, James Brown, and other Staxx Recording artists.
Pro Wave Edition: 2 additional Bonus Live Tracks
Themes Reviewed
I reviewed 3 packs selected from the DrummerTracks DL Multibox package:
- LZ Grooves
- 70's Rock Grooves
- Big Band
All 3 packs reviewed were Pro Wave editions.
Playing Along
It couldn't be simpler. Any audio player should be able to play these tracks. For the review I used both iTunes and Cakewalk Sonar for playing back the grooves. While the portability of an iPod to jam along with is quite a fun experience playing back the tracks in Sonar or a similar DAW lets you easily set loop points, or indeed allows you to chop up the drum track however you wish.
I have to say it was fun playing along with some favorite tracks, and pretty good practice too. usually, lets face it, practicing a track is a loose affair with often no backing track or a simple click. To play along with only the drums was useful, but also playing with an accurate backing track does help with getting the feel right.
LZ Grroves is as you would expect a selection of some of their best hits, and I have to admit I loved playing along. Ok I'm not quite Jimmy Page but then, apart from yourself, who cares when it's just for practice?
No live grooves here which is a pity.
70's Rock Grooves was a similar experience. I hadn't really tried playing many Queen tracks so getting into something new playing wise was good fun. Playing along with Pink Floyd or The Who was something I was more suited too and very quickly I was playing along and getting into the groove. I picked up a few little timing issues with my own playing, some of which I must have been doing for some years!
There are 4 bonus live tracks with the 70's Rock Grooves pack give 14 tracks in total for the Pro Wave version.
For me Big band was more a voyage of discovery. not that I am unfamiliar with Big Band music, but I am far from experienced as a player in this genre. Apart from anything else, for me this provided some excellent Jazzy beats to play along with. I had deliberately picked this pack because I wanted to work on my Jazz guitar playing, and while Big Band only covers certain genre's of Jazz I have to say that I really did exploring the beats. I really can see this being an aid to exploring a new playing genre.
True, .MID files may be available for some of these tracks online, but in my experience they are very poor and not often accurate. They certainly miss the nuance of a live drummer and the accuracy and detail of these drum tracks. that said, perhaps a . mid file to accompany the grooves on Pro Wave version would have been a nice addition.
Supported Operating Systems and Formats
Wave files and mp3 files work in any DAW or media player.
Pricing
At the time of writing this article the prices of DrummerTracks DL Multibox Pro WAVE is $49.95, and the Standard MP3 is $29.95.
Conclusion
Overall, I am more impressed with this than I thought I would be.Years of playing with no backing track and occasional practice using a metronome or click track meant that I didn't overly appreciate the benefits that using a high quality backing track could bring to my playing.
It did leave me wishing that tracks for the other parts in the arrangement had been available so that the entire band had been represented, but that aside I did think this was a good product, ideal for practice or jamming some tracks.
I only tried 3 of the 10 packs available, but the quality of those I tried was exceptional and I have no reason to doubt that the rest of the packs are of a similar standard.
8/10
Additional Information
For more information visit http://www.sonicreality.com/products/drummer-tracks/drummertracksdlmultibox/
Discuss this article in our Music Forum.
About John Moxey
John Moxey started Songstuff in 2000 and is an active songwriter and musician as well as a regular Songstuff author of music and music technology related articles and member of the site crew.
John started playing his first instrument (piano) in 1971, and has been writing songs since 1979. He began playing his now main instrument, the guitar, in 1982. In 1986 he finished training as a studio engineer and in 1997 obtained an Honours Degree in Electronics and Music from the University of Glasgow.
John now plays several other instruments including mandolin, violin, bagpipes, didgeridoo, bodhran, and vocals.
John has a broad range of performance experience from choirs and orchestras to pipe bands. He has sung for, played in and written for various bands, and produced songs across a number of genres.
John Moxey - Full Site Crew Profile
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