drum wavs in cubase ?

[williams]

hi everyone ...
i'm pretty much a cubase newbie ... anyway is there a way to compose drum lines using drum wavs in cubase ? or do i have to use drums that come in devices ( like hypersonic or lm-4 etc... )
if it is possible to make a device of my own using wav files or somehow compose drum lines using wav files pleaaaaaase help .............

thanks

[Agent47]

Well, you could place your wavs into position using snap-to-grid manually, but that'd take forever...

Otherwise use some MIDI drums or sample loops. Or a combination of both.

Which version of Cubase are you on?

[legionserial]

Originally Posted by Agent47

Well, you could place your wavs into position using snap-to-grid manually, but that'd take forever...

I used to do that. Its not that bad once you get used to it. With all the ways you can copy and paste and repeat and duplicate. At first it used to take me weeks but after a while i managed to get it done pretty quickly...

[staring]

Hi will, it kinda hard to do that. Run FruityLoop (do you have one?) VST in Cubase, do the sequencing there. Just my 2 cents.

[williams]

i'm using cubase sx2

[williams]

hey people ... i actually found a nice way of using wavs of my own
i just took a device that has samples of it's own and i replaced the wavs of that device with wavs i wanted to use ( i changed the file names of the wavs i wanted to use to the names of the device's wavs )
pretty cool ...
although now i'm trying to figure out how to add reverb to my drums ...
is that possible even ?
will it be better to just export the drum lines to a wav file and maybe edit it as wav ?
+ does anyone have a suggestion on how to mix drums in order to get a professional feel to it ? .. you know make it sound how drums sound on songs you listen to on cds etc...

[legionserial]

Yeah I would say mix it as a wav file. But possibly make each piece its own wav file by mixing it down, with only one of the drum pieces solod. Go through every piece and do that, then stick your new wavs into individual tracks, so you can mix the drum kit better in the mixer. Then run all the new drum tracks into a group track. Stick some reverb on the group track and all your drums with have reverb and you will have lots of control over the levels of each piece.

[staring]

how to mix drums in order to get a professional feel to it ?

Depends on what genre you mix for. To start, get good drum sample and analyze the kit - Kick Drum, Toms, Snare, Crash, Ride, ... use Spectrum Analyser. Take a snap of the spectrum, adjust EQ 'close' to that sample. For me, I'll start with a kick, make sure it's has the "ummp'. Then the snare, hi-hat, toms, and crash or ride. Good luck.

[williams]

what's that Spectrum Analyser iv'e seen it on the menu but i never touched it ...
what is it ? what does it do ?

[noisewreck]

I use a combination of different methods. Each has its stregths and weaknesses. This also depends on the musical genre.

When working on Drum and Bass for example (the genre, not the instruments), I'll start off with a sampled breakbeat, make sure it loops correctly, then chop it up with either ReCycle or using the HitPoints. At this point obviously I'll be at the audio track level. Next step will be either bringing in another breakbeat and layering that with the first one, or layering individual drum hits to support the main kick and snare hits for example. At this point it is important for me to work on audio tracks so I can zoom in and make sure I line up the layered hits so that they're in phase with each other.

Once the basic loop is done, then I bounce the whole mess, open it up in ReCycle, chop it up, and export MIDI. Then I'll load the chopped loop in either something like NI Intakt/Kontakt or shoot them over to the Kurzweil K2600. Back in Cubase, I create a MIDI track, set its output to whatever it is that's going to play the loop, and import the MIDI file created in ReCycle and sequence from there.

Other times, if I'm working with individual hits, I'll just load them up in Battery and sequence the drums that way. For the odd hits that occur once or twice in a track, I won't bother with loading them in a sampler, I'll just put them on an audio track at the appropriate moment.

[staring]

Spectrum Analyser is a small plugin that you can use to analyse the frequency spectrum. I am using Inspector.