Sounds pretty lame right? Are there any popular bands that play live without a real drummer? I've heard of bands doing it, but I've personally never seen it.

not many that interest me. the two I know of that still do very good/did very good live without a drummer was Plauge Bringer and Cloacal Kiss. The latter did get a drummer before they broke up. PB refuses to ever get a drummer.

I think I have seen a video of Mortician without a drummer. But I could be completely wrong! I think if you compensated the lack of a drummer with a good show you can be pretty cool. Drummers bring a lot of movement that guitars/bass players cannot so not having them feels awkward simply because of the lack of presence.

That's pretty much my thoughts on it, too...

When I get home I'm gonna look it up on youtube. It's kind of sad that drummers can be so readily replaced by realistic drumming software. Their stage presence however, cannot.

Not popular at all but I saw a one man black metal act where the guy had only a guitar and a macbook. He was one of the better acts that night and the music was passable, but this was in a small venue and years ago. I never saw them live but Godflesh is another example, having a drum machine is a big deal for their sound though.

The biggest band I've seen without a drummer would be Putrid Pile. Can't say it really affected the show much, especially for music in the brutal death vein, where the drummers try to be as accurate as possible. There's quite a few bands around here that do that, they often just use an iPod for the backing tracks. Off the top of my head, Regurgitate Life, Agonised Deformity, and Desecrator all don't have a drummer, and Laceration used to just use an iPod.

I don't really see a problem with it. Especially for bands where the music is very technically demanding, and so they could either sit around and wait for a drummer good enough to play the material (which could quite feasibly be years), or they can get out there and gig anyway, thus exposing the music to more people, who might know or be someone who could drum it.

My goal is to be a one man death metal act and actually play live. Seeing that people do it in other subgenres of metal gives me hope.

That's kinda ridiculous,and I don't mean the "playing by himself" part. I mean making black metal with a fucking macbook.

There are a few one man death metal 'bands' that tour like bloodsoaked... sorry not interested in seeing one guy just playing guitar and staying glued to the mic for the vocals.

at least the ones I meantioned they were high impact shows with tons of movement to where you forget it's only two guys (as in PB) or 4 (as in CK)

Funny thing about Godflesh: after their recent reunion I think they did some shows in Europe with a live drummer and people actually complained, hah. I saw them at Deathfest last year with a drum machine and it was fucking devastating.

I think the consensus here is that one way or another, you have to maintain stage presence.

I can't imagine watching a band that's basically like every other band out there, but doesn't have a real drummer. That would be a snooze fest to me.

Fuck...I'm Dead use a drum machine live, to my knowledge.

My band has rehearsed quite a bit with just drum tracks. If you all have stage presence and your songs kick ass, it won't matter one bit.

From well known bands, SAMAEL does it from mid 90's. Xytras still has some cymbals, a snare and a couple of toms besides his keys, but he plays them for very short sections in only certain songs.

Yeah this pretty much hits it on the head. I hate it when bands with 4 members do nothing do that so why would I want to see one person do that?

A good mention is Big Black. They used a drum machine and they wouldn't be the same without it. I think it can add to a bands sound. Drum machines can sound mechanical and lifeless and work great in certain situations.

The secret reason I brought up this topic is because I've been going back and forth on whether I should do shows without a drummer. I live in Phoenix, AZ, and all the good, technical drummers here play in death metal bands already.

Now a more technical question...and I may have to make this a separate topic to get more answers. What amp or PA would be good for handling a drum track AND guitars/bass all at the same time? I would think a PA would do this better, but I'm not sure. I already know that lots of people suggest keyboard amps.

One problem I think I'd run into is the beat from the drums would get messed up because it's being clouded by bass and guitars... On second thought, if I had a stereo 2x12 keyboard combo amp, or a stereo PA, I could mix it so the drums are on left side and the bass and backing guitars are on the right side. That way they wouldn't interfere with each other.

I know a one-man band here in Indy called Dead Princess Black Unicorn has played some shows around here. Have only seen him once but he does a pretty good job of it and the songs are great.

My band doesn't have a drummer. We get a lot of random dudes insisting we need to get them on drums though. My favorite was this one drunk asshole who felt his point would best be made by air-drumming at me while trying to convince us to jam with him. But we aren't very popular and we don't play metal so that doesn't really qualify for the original question, haha.


Well, you'd want to run your guitar through an amp to get a decent tone out of it wouldn't you? And you definitely would not want to run drums through that at the same time. As far as a PA goes, that would work fine- just run your drums and your vocals through separate tracks on the mixer. So if you are looking to have all the gear yourself, you'll likely need a PA and an amp. Venues have PAs though so you'd really only need to get one yourself if you want all the gear for practice or putting on your own shows.

I'm going to be doing the primary guitar parts on my half-stack, but the other guitars (harmonies and stuff) will have to be on a backing track. Same with the bass and drums. To make it clear, it would be my guitars on a half stack, the vocals on the PA on their own channel, then drums+bass+secondary guitars all on one channel on the PA because it would be coming from a singular source (my PC or MP3 player). That's where the panning comes into play.

I guess I pretty much just need a setup for rehearsal, and that's about it. I didn't really think about how most venues have their own PA system. lol

I could probably get away with buying a decent 15" powered PA speaker for rehearsals... Then when/if I play a live show, I could have a pre-mixed audio file with drums panned to the left and stringed instruments to the right for more clarity. Or maybe even drums centered, and the guitars/bass off the the far left/right. Sorry if I'm rambling...I'm getting tired. hahahaha

In the past, I put together backing tracks for playing live, which included drums, bass, and synth. I mixed it all in mono (or close to mono) and mainly used EQ and volume levels to get the mix balanced. It doesn't seem to me like a good idea to pan the drums off to one side like you are thinking.

Yeah I was wondering about the panning idea too, I don't think I have heard of using that as a way to clear up a live mix.

I can't believe nobody mentioned Insidious Decrepancy yet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kielk0G5GSE

I didn't know ID played live. and yea panning shit to one side or the other for a live situation would be a horrible ass idea. it won't create clarity. it would actually create more muddiness and no one will enjoy the show at all. one side will be all drum heavy with a mush of guitars coming to the side, the other side will be a mush of guitars and bass with no drums or barely hearing any. terrible idea.

Mix it all mono and be done with it.

Limbonic Art used to tour without a drummer, but I don't think they ever had a real drummer to begin with..

The panning idea is actually a really good way to go about it. You simply use a Y cable to split the signal in to two mono channels, plug them into separate channels on the desk, and you then have control over drums on one fader and guitars/bass/whatever on the other.

Well, my impression was that if you could separate the drums from the stringed instruments, that it would provide more clarity. I do understand that in in a live situation, having them obviously split would be a bad idea.

However, if you could make the panning/split less obvious, perhaps by using a 2x12 keyboard combo amp, you could retain clarity, while still having a seemingly "mono" effect. Following me?

Nah man, clarity comes from a good mix. Create a solid mix for your backing track and it will sound fine in mono. If you separate drums and instruments all you are achieving is having to rely on the sound guy to create a good mix at his board, which is generally a bad idea.

what corpsefister said. Not from splitting tracks, esp if you don't bother giving those split tracks any proper mix, it could still come out like a mess of shit no matter how you want to argue how much splitting might retain clarity. If you mixed everything else down properly as mono you wouldn't have an issue.

Sound Funny.. i Cant imagine that band.W/o there Drummer.. Are they playing in metal genre?

Liturgy have been playing with a drum machine for the last year or so, which I haven't seen but is probably super weird considering how much their tempo slides around intentionally.

don't darkspace do this? I'd love to hear darkspace live with all sorts of volume

also Genghis Tron but I know that's probably not your guys' thing

also I don't think they've done it more than a handful of times but Anaal Nathrakh has at least once played live in some radio station i think I remember reading

Genghis Tron shouldn't be anyone's thing. I think they have written one good song I've liked in their entire career.

Not a big fan of this, but in some cases it can work. drumcomputers are best used for stuff that would be too fast/hard to play behind a real kit. Like the already mentioned "Fuck... I'm Dead"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUhhTwZNtc8 < Fuck..I'm Dead live
or some Mortician stuff. I like it when bands don't try to hide their lack of a real drummer. Just program some of the ugliest fills and blasts. bands that use software for "realistic drums" should be shot.

like mentioned Godflesh does this, and the one unmentioned example is in the early days of Midnight, Jamie didn't have a backing band and did one man shows now and then.

its difficult but possible i suppose to do with an analog drum machine or proper equipment, or if you are willing to go more experimental like Sunn O))) but you have to really know what you're doing. Bands without drums like that need to compensate a lot more than having even the most basic novice do a few drum hits or have a half-assed drum machine backing.

Darkspace

hey, baron samedi -
I have seen Genghis Tron live opening for DEP and they were really good. That was my introduction to the band and I was turned off at first too because of the keyboard/drum machine, I figured they must be using a DAT player too. But the music seeped into my head and by the end of the 40-minute set I was really into it and wanted to hear more. The opening song they played was Board Up The House and I couldn't get it out of my head for two weeks after the show so I bought the album and now it's one of my favorite concept albums I own. I like every track, which is rare for any thing. I can't say that I love the rest of their albums though.

Why the fuck did you bump this thread from 7 months ago just to talk about a shit band? Also that guy you are responding to hasn't been in this forum pretty much since this thread.

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but Cemetery Rapist performs solo. Nothing but one guy doing vocals and guitar and I think he just runs the backing tracks off his laptop. I actually think his live videos are better than his studio recordings, haha. There were two occasions where I've done an open-mic night as a solo-act playing a few death metal songs. I just had the sound guy run the backing tracks from a CD I burnt through the PA and I queued him on when to start the next track. Most people really liked it, even non-death metal listeners, just for the novelty aspect of it.