Adding a drum beat

[pklost]

I am very new to home studio recording. I use Sonar. I want to lay down a basic drum track first then write my other instruments over top. I don't understand the drum map manager. I just want a basic kick snare high hat beat. Any suggestions?

[guttadaj]

The Drum Map manager just basically lets you tweak a note-drumsound mapping that a MIDI synth uses. Let's say for example that you record a MIDI drum part and you use a GM (General MIDI) keyboard drum patch to produce the drum sounds and everything's sounding cool. But say that you decide later that those drums don't really sound quite right, so you're going to try out a softsynth or soundfont or some other MIDI synth where those MIDI notes don't produce the same hits. (snare hit on the original is now sounding as a cowbell and stuff like that - could be just a few notes are off, could be a bunch) So, instead of going through and moving all your MIDI notes, you could just load up (or create) your MIDI-synth-#2 drum map and send the Out of your track to it.

That's one use for it. It helps with other stuff too, like it shows you the drumhit name in the Piano Roll view. Also, say you are just going to be using a basic kit's hits, not the extra stuff like bongos and whistles and all that crap, then you can make a Drum Map with just those notes defined, so then when you go into the Piano Roll view, you'll just see those.

Anyway, you don't NEED a drum map, but in some cases, you might find that it makes life easier. So, that being said, if you just want a basic kick/snare/hhat track, you can just... go to a MIDI track, assign the Channel to 10 (most likely - can go to Options->Instruments to see how your channels are mapped), make sure that the Out is something that will produce sounds (most higher-end soundcards don't have onboard MIDI synths even though they may have MIDI In/Out) like a soundcard's synth, a softsynth like the Edirol VSC DXi, or an external MIDI synth. Draw in a basic beat - copy and paste 'til your heart's content.


-Jeff

[pklost]

What about the session drummer, is that any good? How does it work?

[rguagenti]

I've found the session drummer to be a bit unwieldly and it sounds electronic.
Plus, by the time you decipher all of the different descriptiond in the thing you can lay down a good hard drumbeat.

At the end of the day concern yourself with the following:

Lay down a kick drum track
Lay down your snares and hats
Add in cymbals where needed
Add in a Tom where and if needed

Then tweak away.

I suggest laying each piece in it's own track, this way you can tweak each part independently. You can mix them all down later when you are done.

Good luck.

[guttadaj]

It's a good idea to put each drum in its own track, so that it makes it easier to mixdown each drum to its own audio track when it's time for that. However, it can be tedious to lay down the drum track that way from the start. I find that it's easiest for me to create the drum track in a single track and then use the provided CAL script "Split Notes to Tracks" (or something like that - not at my DAW) to move each one to its own track after I'm done. Whatever you're more comfortable with...