E drums vs acoustic ... opinions?

[William ClarkParticipant]

Currently working on a rock blues project and all of the drum tracks are recorded with a roland e kit through either active drummer or ezdrummer, The studio and gear are excellent. I also use many samples including the ones from Warren and a myriad of techniques. Fast forward to now, we recently have a new drummer and he is pretty adamant that the process using edrums and samples is a waste of time and only good for demo material. He believes the only way to go is to start over with an acoustic set if we are trying to achieve CD quality. He is not familiar with the new technology and software, however he is one of the best drummers I have ever had the privilege of working with, good to get along with and has exceptional skill. I think the drum tracks we have so far sound pretty darn good, but he believes that you can only use an acoustic set on a 12 song project. I am not quite sure how to handle this and I really don't want to start all over. Has anyone ever heard of a successful material being recorded with the edrum-sample process I have described? Thoughts anyone and thanks to all of you.

[JJ WrightParticipant]

Well, one of the most commercially successful blues-rock albums of all time is ZZ Top's Eliminator, which was all done with 8 bit drum machine samples in the 80s, before they had things like humanize functions and velocity layers and room mic samples, etc etc. So the idea that you have to have a real drummer to be commercially successful or "CD quality" is nonsense. That said, a human playing a real drum set can bring a certain something extra. So really, it's up to you and whether you think he can add something. Maybe you should just try recording him for the *next* song and see how that comes out, see how it compares to the previous recordings and whether they sound out of place now alongside it.

[William ClarkParticipant]

Hey JJ that information is exactly what I am looking for, and I mean exactly, because he used ZZ Top and Frank Beard as an example of why acoustic was the way to go. Thanks so much.
I am much more comfortable now.....and frankly amazed

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