Years ago, in our college band “Maxwell Grant”, I used to point at our drummer and joke “YOU can be replaced by a machine!” I was actually just joking – no one could replace Dan Snyder, current drummer of Rochester’s band “5Head.” But in a way, I did replace Dan with… well, KYLE.
Our band broke up in part because I went away to another college and in part because I put the band second and my education first. Dan went on to play in “Dog’s Life,” a band that turned down a record label deal (because it wasn’t fair). But I wasn’t involved in the decision that the band was no more – I was merely informed. I don’t blame my band mates. But I also hated the idea that anyone else could scuttle my musical plans.
I always loved the Steely Dan/Alan Parsons Project idea of “we make records, we don’t need to perform live.” Funny that years later, both of those bands DID tour, but I digress…
I wrote a few songs here and there, but mostly it was priority number 12 on my top 10 list of things I do for fun. Then came GarageBand and Logic Pro, and I started writing again, with my old trusty Alesis HR 16 drum machine. And then came Drummer in Logic Pro, and I gave the HR 16 to a friend and dove into Drummer. I loved Drummer. It wasn’t perfect, but it was really easy to use. And Kyle was the drummer who sounded most like Dan to me.
I’ve also used drum loops from Drums on Demand, which I think are great, but a bit limiting.
To me, Kyle was an AI Drummer. He wasn’t actually AI, but it seemed like it. He could listen to your bass line and adjust his playing. In my tracks, Kyle played drums and I played everything else.
So NOW Logic Pro has an AI bass player and an AI keyboard player to match the AI drummer. The names (like Kyle and Logan) are gone, replaced by, well, math. That was a major league mistake. Kyle seemed like a real person. Now there are no friendly faces in Drummer, just cold math. Sometimes Apple is stupid.
If you have a chord progression and you type it in, you can have the AI drummer, bass player, and keyboard player generate some semi-predictable mediocre playing and poof, you’ve got the modern equivalent of the Lowry Organ of yesteryear. Boom chicka boom indeed. Um… fuck that.
How can I justify the AI drummer as OK, but stick up my middle finger at the other two? Is it hypocritical? Yes, but I never claimed to be perfect. No one is. I’m willing to sell 20% of my soul to the AI devil when I record, because the AI drummer can still play better than I can. The bastard. He’s not even real. Or she. Actually, now it’s “it.”
I miss Kyle.
