Heartland

I'm a real drummer myself playing in several bands,and believe it or not,Dr Avalanche was one of my inspirations in the first days.Crazy or not,it is...

But the real worry to me is that Dr Avalanche sounds outdated now.The drumsound could be used certainly in the 90's,but there are more proper and real sounding sounds than the sounds uses.
If they ever planning to record again (yawn ),i'll hoping that the Dr sounds better than now.I can live with the bassdrum and hihat,but the snare sounds.... outdated.

But no disrespect to the unbeatable Dr Avalanche

The question is : would the Sisters still have a signature drum sound? And if you check the tech side of things on the site, you know they can't use the modern day drum samplers, because their drivers are written for XP/MacOS. So unless they decide to ditch their military spec and barebone OS laptops, I won't see it happening, really...

Lightshade wrote: But the real worry to me is that Dr Avalanche sounds outdated now.

Agreed, but...

The drumsound could be used certainly in the 90's,but there are more proper and real sounding sounds than the sounds uses.

... what's the point of using a drum machine if it sounds like a human drummer ? You might just as well hire a real musician.
I do want the good Dok to sound like a machine.

I just love the dear one the way "he" is...

Whilst I hold dear the Doktor Avalanche drum sound, I'd really prefer it if his bass was augmented by a real live flesh and blood plank spanker.

And no, I'm mos def. not applying for the job.

James Blast wrote:Whilst I hold dear the Doktor Avalanche drum sound, I'd really prefer it if his bass was augmented by a real live flesh and blood plank spanker.

And no, I'm mos def. not applying for the job.

I just imagine what you as the sisters´s Lemmy would look like..

The reason the Doktor sounds outdated is that when they play live a very limited palate of sounds is employed in order to make it easier to mix the sound. I am quite confident that if another record is made, the drum sounds will be different from what we hear live, just as they are on the other records.

For the record, I don'r ecall where I read this. Maybe the official site?

James Blast wrote:Whilst I hold dear the Doktor Avalanche drum sound, I'd really prefer it if his bass was augmented by a real live flesh and blood plank spanker.

And no, I'm mos def. not applying for the job.

Indeed!

They need a real bass player.

Lightshade wrote:but the snare sounds.... outdated.

But no disrespect to the unbeatable Dr Avalanche

hah i'm a drummer too and i love the snare the most! the ridiculously amplified sound, especially on tracks like never land, is a signature of the sisters and the rhythms on ToL orginal version really hit the spot for me too.

god please don't let lose that sound...

The more artificial sounding the better in my opinion.

Werent the Sisters always about Dirty Guitars and Drum Machines ?

As for the bass. It's got to be flesh and blood

You mean the Doc is a f**king machine?

weebleswobble wrote:You mean the Doc is a f**king machine?

now that you say it, i've actually never seen a drummer...

weebleswobble wrote:You mean the Doc is a f**king machine?

No, it's God.

only in the world of snare, it would seem...

Badass wrote:

weebleswobble wrote:You mean the Doc is a f**king machine?

now that you say it, i've actually never seen a drummer...

he's in the box

I believe the recent drumkit (wich they have been used along the way till now and ..) is the kit from TOL 92.

On the other hand like somebody said,they have the trademark drumsound,why should they change if nobody bothers I agree.

But you know real drummers....always complaints.

All of this reminds me...13 or so years ago, I used to know this guy who played drums for a crap gothic band who insisted until he was blue in the face that the Sisters recorded with a drum machine but always used a real drummer live. He was a tool in many, many ways, but this was maddening. He also used to claim that he knew Von personally and that he had worked on a record with him in the early 90's. I should add that this sh!tbag was from suburban Texas, had never left the country, and just...oh god, it all comes flooding back. What a loser he was. And he wasn't even a good drummer.

Of course you need to look at the long list of advantages of the Dok.
Never late for reharsals/ gigs.
Never sh!tfaced
Can turn down the volume in case the old lady next door gets p!ssed off
Doesn't argue with Von (poss the most important thing)

To name a few.

But, I agree that a real flesh & blood bass player should come back into the scene.

One main advantage of a drum machine over a human drummer: you only have to punch the rhythm into a drum machine once.

(Cue drummer jokes)

But yes, a permanent human bassist on all tracks would be nice.

"you only have to punch the rhythm into a drum machine once"

not in the early incarnations of the dok you didn't

Well yes. There's that tale of Ben accidentally switching the Dok off halfway through a gig isn't there. And in those days his memory was wiped when he was switched off.

markfiend wrote:Well yes. There's that tale of Ben accidentally switching the Dok off halfway through a gig isn't there. And in those days his memory was wiped when he was switched off.

someone told me that one of claire's original roles in the band was helping re-program the patterns into the dok if/when they got lost...

dunno how reliable that source was, but when one also factors in her doing the "front of house" sound stuff, that makes her a very early version of the "nurse" doesnt it?

markfiend wrote:Well yes. There's that tale of Ben accidentally switching the Dok off halfway through a gig isn't there. And in those days his memory was wiped when he was switched off.

IIRC that was at their first gig on the mainland, at Mallemunt Festival in Brussels. Perhaps that's why the playlist of that concert is different from the others in that period.

kazamel wrote: IIRC that was at their first gig on the mainland, at Mallemunt Festival in Brussels. Perhaps that's why the playlist of that concert is different from the others in that period.

Brussels, 05.08.83 ? I didn't notice.
I'll go and check.

Badlander wrote:

kazamel wrote: IIRC that was at their first gig on the mainland, at Mallemunt Festival in Brussels. Perhaps that's why the playlist of that concert is different from the others in that period.

Brussels, 05.08.83 ? I didn't notice.
I'll go and check.

Von wrote:Ben Gunn once managed to press the TR808's dangerous red button as we were about to go onstage in Brussels, so Andrew had to reprogram the whole damn machine while everybody else was tuning their guitars up (slowly).
http://www.thesistersofmercy.com/tech/doktors.htm