Drum Tracks
 

Hi,

I am needing to sequence some drum tracks (to be saved as a midifile) which will become part of a recording project I am currently working on. I am using Composer for the arrangements for the other instruments but I am struggling with writing the drum track. Has anybody used Composer for this task? If so how do you go about it? What "notes" on the staff relate to what drum instrument? Is composer my best option for this particular task or would you recommend another program?

Any help / advice here would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Chris

Re: Drum Tracks
 

Hi Chris,

I've used Composer to do lots of drum tracks for recordings and for live accompaniment, but I typically "borrow" from drum files that I've found for other songs, or that I've gotten from MIDI Drum Files (http://www.mididrumfiles.com/). I then copy/paste bits that I want, and add or edit them to what I need (eg. add fills, or turnarounds or whatever). For filling in long stretches of a groove, there is a handy "Edit/Paste special/Paste repeated loop" that will let you copy a short section, and then it will repeat that copied section as a "loop" into the selected target region. You can take a single measure and fill up 20 (or more) using this method.

I've found it immensely helpful to use the "Staff/Split drums" command to "fan out" the different drum instruments to single-line staves of their own. That way I can see exactly what each instrument (eg. kick bass, snare, high hat closed, etc.) is doing easily while I'm editing. You can also edit how hard it's hit (note velocity) and overall volume of the instrument or changes in volume (eg. crescendos on a cymbal or whatever). After I get done, I can then merge all those staves back into a single Drum instrument staff using Staff/Merge staves to save space on the score. Composer uses the MIDI "pseudo-pitch" convention rather than the typical 5-line drum notation (we'll be working on better drum support for future versions), so the notes on the drum staff correspond to the different drum instruments that are available in the General MIDI drum instrument. That aspect makes it awkward (for me anyway) to work on the drum line as a single five-line staff. I like it fanned out much better for editing.

You can use the mouse to point and click to add notes, or you can select a staff and use the Record button to record hits/notes into each of the staves using a MIDI keyboard or control surface.

If you have a drum pad, you should be able to record a drum line directly into Composer using that as well, but I haven't done it that way, and so couldn't give you any tips on that (eg. mapping the MIDI instrument to each pad, etc.) Maybe someone else has used that method.

A major consideration is the actual sound that you get from the drum line you produce, and that of course depends on the MIDI playback device that you use. The default GS Wavetable drum kit leaves a bit to be desired for audio applications ;) If you have a good sound library or external synth that you'll be using, you'll certainly want to be sure that it is the MIDI device you use for playback while creating your drum line.

Other folks may have better methods, or other software recommendations, but that's how I do it :)

ttfn,
Sherry