Improvising Grooves

[eyes cast down]

I'm interested in what people use to create grooves on the fly (esp yourself, John S-H), as I'll be turning my attention to that in due course. NI's new Maschine looks really good - thoughts? All observations much appreciated.

[eyes cast down]

Great observations all around. I use mainly Ableton's piano roll for drum loops, with around 25 Impulse drum machines loaded with bought samples andmroe coming for the homemade ones. An M-Audio Trigger Finger lets me make up stuff on the fly - I just gotta get my foot controller talking to Live and I'll be able to whip up instant loops. Redrum is cool but I haven't done much with it yet. I was a rock drummer in my youth, so there's a prog influence at work. I gotta record and deconstruct some djembe passages because I get some good ideas there. The hang and HAPI drums are pretty cool.

Mark Mahoney said:

I like Ableton's drumkits, and I like to use the pianoroll editor to come up with some grooves. I also like alot of the NI Reaktor grooveboxes. Recently I have been using my Roland Handsonic 10 to create some percussion grooves which can be mangled nicely in Ableton. Redrum is fun to use as well.

[Seren]

Steve Brand said:

Anyone familiar with Hand Drums or Hapi Drums?

Hang
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQXn5ba0aT8

Hapi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW-GZ05htLE

Can't access the youtube at work but if the hang drum is the metal one that looks like a 'traditional flying saucer' I have a friend who managed to get one. It sounds stunning and she played it in a very mesmeric way, very dreamy and hypnotic...

[Mark Mahoney]

I have been recently working with a Korg Electribe ESX1 sampler groove box and love it. It is perfectly suited for live performance and making up grooves on the fly. It is very well priced.