What's your work flow when producing/songwriting with a live drummer?

A friend and I have similar tastes, a similar vision, but we can't get a songwriting and production workflow to get this project off the ground.

Any ideas from the DJ Techtools readership? We've tried a few things, from live "jamming" to having me send little snippets his way to try to work out.

I don't want to be in a situation where I just write the entire track, and he just kind of plays along to it. But having me send loops and ideas isn't helping us flesh things out together, while playing live together with me sound-designing and programming on the spot hasn't been all that productive either.

Thanks for any help--I'd love to hear your ideas.

In my opinion live jamming should have already been the best option. Tbh, I normally produce my stuff without any second membber involved as all the people I aren't really on the same wavelength taste-wise. But this seems to be no problem in your case...

Anyway it looks like you have pretty much tried every style of working.

So just to give you maybe a bit of helpful information here's the way I like to produce:
Sitting in front of the MIDI keyboard and jamming until I'll come up with some nice melody lines. Sometimes I keep stepping through some synth factory presets to get inspired but most of the time I've loaded a standard piano sound that gives me a first impression of the melody without being as restrictive as synth patches sometimes tend to be.

After having worked out some nice piece of melody I through in a 4/4 kick beat combined with a snare or clap. I have some signature sounds there that were created myself and they're often what I would be looking for if I had to search sounds.
I don't get too crazy with creating beats at that stage but focus more on which synth sound could play the melo and having that done which other sounds or melodical parts could contribute to the vibe of the track. So I work out some bassline, pads, second and third synth melodies and after having finished that work (it normally roughly represents my refrain then) I start building the song intro and chronically build up the song by adding all the missing elements.

Some polishing and mastering in the end and then my track is finished. The first idea normally doesn't take more than 20 minutes to be recorded but the whole production process tends to last 3-7 days as I am really interested in getting everything perfect and don't use sample pack loops or even one-shots generally. Remixes don't take that much time though.

Thanks so much for the input, RockingClub.

I'm lucky to say that I am not often hurting in the creative process department when I'm on my own. We're not even really hurting for "ideas" per se, either. Just a way to get a good and mutually-productive workflow going for turning our ideas and sketches into an actual song when one person is using a live instrument and the other has to meticulously program everything.

Well, I understand where you coming from but it's hard to recommend you some kind of technique there as I think you already tried all kinds of workflows I could imagine.

I can imagine the person using the live instrument (drums if I got it right) is "much faster" than the person programming everything which means after both persons have a rough idea which direction to take, the second person could program the melody track and after that the drummer could take inspiration from this and play the drum part. If something doesn't appreciate both of you, you will probably want to give it another try. The drummer would play again then.
If using this kind of workflow it is highly recommended to have record always on when the drummer attempts to play something. Better recording to much than loosing the one epic take!
But as I see this, as soon as the drums are played the drummer will have to take part in the programming part as well as he's no longer needed in role of a drummer. Then all the pads, basslines and so on will have to be worked out.
This is the method I would consider as the best one. If it doesn't work for you then I am pretty much at my wits' end...

I don't assume this, but if the problem is that you both are not able to translate your ideas into musical reality then this problem probably could be solved by taking some time to learn everything about the DAW you're using.

Josephy - The creative and improvisation process is very quick in nature, so you need a workflow that is instantaneous and fluid.

The fasted way to do that in my experience is triggering loops or samples and build from there. Why? think yourself as a band and you need drums, bass, keyboard, vocals and guitars. Since it's only two of you, you can replace the rest by using loops or samples (how hiphop producers been doing for years).

Here's a workflow I used with drummers and keyboardists in the past.

Before jamming for ideas (creation process), I would load my favorite sampler with one shot chords that I like from my sample library. Maschine, Ableton's drumrack and Logic's EXS24 are perfect for this.
If my idea is in the key of D-minor - Gm, Am, Dm and C. These chords were mapped to 4 keys in upper octaves of my midi keyboard for quick triggering.
Then I would look for 2 or 3 bass loops in the same key and map them to 3 lower octaves. I also look for chopped vocal samples or effects and map them around middle C (C3) in the midi keyboard.

Fill the sampler with as much samples and loops just to get going, you can always replace the samples later or program your own chords, pads and basslines after you finish jamming. Try staying away from the mouse and computer keyboard during this process.

Hit record with a tick or a metronome and let the drummer jam away. Trigger chords and look for a chord progression that works. Once you nail that progression down, jam again and look for alternative progressions (bridges, choruses, verses). At the same time, trigger the bass loops with the progressions and see what works.

The logic here is to find a way to get those ideas out as fast as possible, without any hinderance by gear or software. Use loops, samples, real keyboardists or whatever it takes to seamlessly get them out.

Hope this helps.
K