My question is, why use a drummer?

Good question John.

The drums on my KB ( especially my Audya) sounds fantastic. So why use a live drummer? The simple answers quite honestly is for the visual aspect. Canned drums are simple not accepted in certain situations. It gives a group a very fake look. It just too obvious.

Besides the visual aspect, a live drummer can add so much energy and visual excitement by using rhythmic accents and interactions .

For that low volume duo event that you pñsyed at John, it sounds like a drummer was not the best option but a drummer that has trained their whole life with a click and lots of experience with playing live with tracks could have totally pulled it off. Besides having rock solid time, a good drummer has excellent dynamics and has no problem playing whisper soft.

I think the question should be why not go 100 percent live ? That’s a whole new topic! But my short answer is my clients budgets and my left hand are not up to the task!