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| Get our free newsletter for the latest releases Contents Music Software Quick Reference Resources Online Ordering Software Authors Company Info | Shareware Music Machine News Sampler Basics: The Drumloop (Pt. 2) Date posted: June 1 1999 AnalogX is a musician, a programmer, the King of all Midia and currently pumping out all sorts of music programs from his web site. Here he explains how to sample, loop and integrate drums into your music. Creating the patch On most samplers these days, you first make a sample, and then you make a patch that describes how the sample is played; whether it's looped, it's ADSR, stereo positioning, etc. There are several methods that people use, and which work better in different situations. The most straightforward method is just to assign one sample to the entire keyboard, so C0-C8 (on an 8 octave keyboard) would all just be pitched versions of one sample. This method is easy (obviously) to setup, and doesn't limit the range of the sample in any way, but it does usually leave a large portion of the keyboard entirely unused. How often do you use a drumloop sampled at middle C (C4), at C1, or even C2? It's pretty uncommon to say the least. The most complicated and limited by far is to assign each drumloop to a key, and make sure that the tempo of each loop matches, then create a number of patches for different tempos. Now while this method does make doing stuff like Jungle or Drum&Bass exceptionally easy to improvise, I have found it to be incredibly limiting. Two of the most notable problems you will run into with this method is that all controller information effects all of the sounds, so if you want to pan 1 loop to the left, and one to the right, forget it. My personal favorite is just a slight variation on the first method. What I normally do is split the keyboard into 2 layers, C0-C4 and C4-C8. Then I create a separate patch for each drumloop. Not too terribly different from the first method, but later on in the article you'll see the advantage it yields. Tuning the patch One of my biggest pet peeves is when I hear a cool song, and it's got a great drumloop, and it's just a tad off. Arrrggh! They were soo close and they just blew it! It isn't very common in commercially release music, but in the unsigned realms it's much more common that I would like. The sad part is, it's one of the easiest problems to fix! The problem usually happens when you're working on a song, you have a drumloop at 120BPM, and you're at 124BPM. The drumloop was sampled at C4, and D4 sounds about right; and with the rest of the track playing, it's hard to hear if it's on or off... WRONG! The rhythm is the driving part of the song, and you can't afford to have it off if you have any control over it. Here's the easiest way to fix this problem: Pitchbend. Yeah, Pitchbend, you know, that wheel on the side of the keyboard you almost never use... Well, it gives you the ability to dial that drumloop right in. I normally set up a drum track in the song with a constant 4/4 bass drum, then I create a 4 measure loop of the drumloop, making sure it loops because I SUSTAIN it, not because I retrigger it. This is VERY important! The key to tuning it is that you will hear the drift quite a bit more after it's looped at it's native rate 4 times and if you just let it go through once. The bassdrum track let's you hear how much it is off. Now, the Pitchbend has a range of -8192 to +8192, so it's time to tweak. At the start of the test drumloop, insert a wheel event, and set it to +1000. Does it sound better, or worse? If it sounds worse, try -1000; if it sounds better, try +2000. Once you have it within a block of 1000, drop down to 500, then down to 100. I almost never go smaller than that, since it's almost impossible for me to distinguish the difference. Remember, don't focus as much on the beat as the feel; does if feel like it's rushing, or dragging? If you do this simple trick I guarantee you'll have rocksolid drumloops (as long as you're sure the drumloop starts on the beat). Using more than one drumloop One of the coolest things you can do with a drumloop is use more than one! The interplay between the two beats can really bring out some cool nuances you weren't aware of before, but there's a few things you should keep in mind before attempting this. First is that you will tend to have better results when you attempt this with fairly simple drumloops, ie, ones that are only a bassdrum, snare, and some hihats. The more complicated the drumloops become, the more likely you are to end up with something that sounds muddy or confusing. Also, you don't necessarily have to start the second drumloop at the same time as the first, experiment with starting it 120 ticks (assuming 480ppm) after the first beat, or 240 ticks. Another super cool effect is two have two beats that started at the same time, transformer the two, but make sure when one is muted, the other is unmuted. And if you even want to push it further, add a controller fill for panning from 0 to 127 on the first beat, and 127 to 0 on the second for 8 measures. Try doing that with a drum machine; I think not. Using the same drumloop more than once Another very common technique used in Drum&Bass or Breakbeat tracks is to simply retrigger the same drumloop 120ticks or so after the initial trigger. You can also vary this a couple of ways, by either making sure the sustain doesn't allow the two to overlap, or better yet, allow them to overlap and hear them play off of eachother. Now the reason for the patch with that same sample split across it becomes apparent. On many samplers, they will only allow you to play one note once, so you can't have two C4's playing at the same time. For this eventuality, you simply use the upper split for the primary drumloop, and the lower split for the secondary drumloop. Wrap Up That's it! I hope you found this article helpful in getting the most out of your sampler, and drumloops. If you have any comments or suggestions, or would like to share your tips and techniques with me, please feel free to contact me at AnalogX. Enjoy! Check out the AnalogX site for more articles on MIDI, delay, and wiring up your MIDI studio.
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