Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[dinoman]

Hi,

First let me say, I already have a lot of respect for your instrument. Even more impressive is the consistently positive feedback in this forum - and more specifically, the quick responses to questions or problems. (I Purchased Groove Agent 2 almost a couple of months ago, and I am having problems with it that make it unusable for me. I've tried Canadian and German support, and I am all but being ignored. After reading the forums, I am surprised how many problems Groove Agent users are having, and even more surprised at how many are getting no response to their issues.)

After playing with the Jamstix demo (1.5) for a few days, I think it may be more suited for my use anyway (I want to create arrangements for songwriting - with a fair amount of flexibility).

I have a couple of questions related to fills and accents:

-It seems to me that most of the fills are very complex or fast - even with the Funkiness and complexity sliders all the way off. It is often said that what we don’t want is that mechanical or "machine gun" drum machine effect - yet that’s what I think I hear on most of these fill. I think they are unrealistic. I'm not questioning your Limb-Priority-Control. It's not that a real drummer CAN'T play them. The question is whether a real drummer WOULD play them. I’m not a drummer, but I think the phrase “less is more” is often used with drumming, isn’t it? Accents (especially the tom accents) seem to be the same - just too many hits. A slower, simpler accent or fill would be more suitable in most cases. (This may be just fine to jam with, but not for creating realistic drum parts in a song)

- On a related note, when choosing fills in the Arrangement window, is there any way to identify them on a scale of simple to complex? There are a lot of fills to listen through. If they were arranged from simple to complex, for example, you could quickly find fills that are in the ballpark and choose one without listening through the whole list.

I trust you can sense that my purpose is not to criticize, but to learn how I can make this product best suit my needs. Is there something I’m missing or not understanding? Is it stuff that’s missing in the demo? Are there more settings I haven’t found yet? Am I just out to lunch?

I’m sure you can shed some light on this for me. Thanks.

Geoff

[Ralph [RZ]]

[PatrickH]

Ralph,

Maybe I'm missing something, but I have had the same issues that dinoman is talking about, and found that using the velocity/ and velocity envelopes are reducing the complexity of the fills.

I find a fill that has the general groove I am looking for, then when I use the velocity envelope, it "reduces" the fill to be more in line with that part of the song.

Dinoman, does that sound like what you are looking for? Or have I missed the point.

[dinoman]

[dinoman]

[Ralph [RZ]]

"Reduction" effects everything so it's not a good solution. We'll see what we can do in the next update.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[acabreira]

[prosodio]

Hi Adriano, I´ve downloaded your program but I can´t open it. It reports an error when I double-click the .exe.

Greetings

[Ralph [RZ]]

[acabreira]

Ops, I forgot to say you must have Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 installed in your system. Here´s the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856EACB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en

Not sure if this is the case, if you have a different error message, please let me know what it is.

Adriano

[acabreira]

Thanks for the info, Ralph!

Adriano

[paspallum]

Ralph
I do agree with dinoman's earlier comments.
The fills are mostly too busy.

A drummer who was practising alone or jamming with someone 'might' play fills that were so busy... but not for a song.

Most every recorded song the drums are 'contained'.
You look at famous recording from the decades...

The drummers really only play accents or 'hint's' of a fill... no songwriter, arranger or producer lets a drummer play a big long fill around a huge rack of toms (did I just say 'huge rack'??)... well OK Phil collins did it.... and Ringo did some long fills around 67-69 (but he is the best) and Mitch Mitchell and Keith Moon sure did hit EVERYTHING for EVER...

But with your average song... fills need to be just 'suggested' really.

It's very unsettling when you are playing along to an arrangement in JS with a song you've written and you decide to put a fill in... you play it back and there's this huge big fill that just puts you off what you are playing!

I prefer the accents in JS... they are way more subtle... but harder to insert into an arrangement ... they should be able to be used (inserted) the way that we insert a fill currently in JS..

And the actuall fills.... they sure could use some simplfying

Paspallum

[johnpdx]

I tend to agree. 100% of the drummers I have played with did not have the technical ability or more importantly the imagination to come up with many of those fills.......especially in a jam situation. Most working drummers keep the old moto KISS... ( keep it simple stupid) perhaps this could be a future update... inserting a function to assign complexity to the fills or better yet to assing fills in the style of famous drummers. ie. charlie watts would be much simpler than neal peart. Just some suggestions.

[woodshedstudio]

Just to speak for the other side - I enjoy the fills that are in Jamstix immensely. It's easy enough to simplify them if needed (and I often do), but if that was all I needed then jamstix wouldn't be as important to me. Don't get me wrong, I like the way JS can give some nuanced performance to the main beat in a song. But not being a drummer, I could never create some these fills on my own.

A complexity control would be nice, though I don't see the way it is now as a detriment.

my 2 cents...

[Ralph [RZ]]