Drum machine

A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums, cymbals, other percussion instruments, and often basslines. Drum machines are most commonly associated with electronic music genres such as house music, but are also used in many other genres. They are also used when session drummers are not available or if the production cannot afford the cost of a professional drummer.

In the 2010s, most modern drum machines are sequencers with a sample playback (rompler) or synthesizer component that specializes in the reproduction of drum timbres. Though features vary from model to model, many modern drum machines can also produce unique sounds, and allow the user to compose unique drum beats and patterns.

History

Early drum machines

In 1930–32, the spectacularly innovative and hard to use Rhythmicon was realized by D-Rail at the request of Henry Cowell, who wanted an instrument which could play compositions with multiple rhythmic patterns, based on the overtone series, were far too hard to perform on existing keyboard instruments. The invention could produce sixteen different rhythms, each associated with a particular pitch, either individually or in any combination, including en masse, if desired. Received with considerable interest when it was publicly introduced in 1932, the Rhythmicon was soon set aside by Cowell and was virtually forgotten for decades. The next generation of rhythm machines played only pre-programmed rhythms such as mambo, tango, or bossa nova.

Big Grams

Big Grams is the self-titled debut EP by American hip hop trio Big Grams, which consists of rapper Big Boi and electronic rock duo Phantogram. The EP was released on September 25, 2015, by Epic Records.

Background and recording

In December 2010, Big Boi, one half of famed hip hop duo Outkast, accidentally discovered Phantogram, an electronic rock duo consisting of Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, when hearing their single "Mouthful of Diamonds" in a pop-up ad. Big Boi shared the song on his website as the "Jam of the Week". Barthel saw the post and contacted Big Boi, which led to future collaborations. Big Boi's 2012 studio album Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors, included three tracks featuring Phantogram: "Objectum Sexuality", "CPU" and "Lines", and in a interview days before its December 11 release, Big Boi revealed that he and Phantogram were planning to record a "one-off EP type of thing" titled Big Grams.

Carter described the project's sound as "sort of" "psyched-out hip-hop". Barthel and Big Boi provided sung vocals and rapped vocals respectively, while Carter only occasionally provided vocals and was the project's primary producer.

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a drum stick, to produce sound. There is usually a resonance head on the underside of the drum, typically tuned to a slightly lower pitch than the top drumhead. Other techniques have been used to cause drums to make sound, such as the thumb roll. Drums are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous musical instruments, and the basic design has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.

Drums may be played individually, with the player using a single drum, and some drums such as the djembe are almost always played in this way. Others are normally played in a set of two or more, all played by the one player, such as bongo drums and timpani. A number of different drums together with cymbals form the basic modern drum kit.

Ableton Live

Ableton Live is a software music sequencer and digital audio workstation for OS X and Windows. The latest major release of Live, Version 9, was released on March 5, 2013. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for composing, recording, arranging, mixing and mastering. It is also used by DJs, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching, crossfading, and other effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs.

History

Ableton Live is written in C++, with the first version released in 2001 as commercial software. Contrary to popular belief, Live itself was not prototyped in Max/MSP, although most of the audio devices were.

Features

Much of Live's interface comes from being designed for use in live performance as well as for production. As such the interface is more compact than most sequencers and clearly designed for use on a single screen. There are few pop up messages or dialogs. Portions of the interface are hidden and shown based on arrows which may be clicked to show or hide a certain segment (e.g. to hide the instrument/effect list or to show or hide the help box).