Getting drum tracks into multitrack recording software

Jared

New member
Even though this message is somewhat off topic for Cakewalk I hope you folks familiar with Cakewalk can help with the generic question of creating drum tracks from nothing but drum samples. Please help me with all the other questions as well if you can and I will get grateful. I did post the following in the Drums group as well:


Hello, I am looking for the right and best way to record drum tracks into Cool Edit Pro. I have been looking at either a drum machine (DR-770), a PC based drum program like "PC Drummer - <A HREF="http://www.pcdrummer.com"" TARGET=_blank>http://www.pcdrummer.com"</A> or prerecorded drum samples and loops like what I've found at http://2dcd.com.

I could spend about $400 and get the DR-770 drum machine, hook it up to a mixer and load a pattern directly onto a track or I could spend about $50 for PC Drummer which has a good sound and create a drum track, export it to a WAV file and import it into a Cool Edit Pro track. The other option that I think I have is to purchase a bunch of great sounding samples and loops like I've heard at http://www.2dcd.com and figure out how to get them into a drum pattern for creating a track.

Will Cool Edit Pro even allow creating tracks from individual samples and if so is it extremely painful? I know most folks have Cakewalk so how is it done in that program? Thanks in advance!
--
Jared
 
I would recommend using MIDI drums but I haven't heard a lot of sound cards with
good drums. I think the drum machines of today have about the best drum sounds
you'll find and they come with built-in patterns for all styles of music. You can convert
the patterns to MIDI in Cool Edit (I'm assuming it's like Cakewalk) and move the
notes around like you wish. Then send them back out to the drum machine. All you
have to do then is record the drum machine output. Yamaha and Roland make the
best of these that I've heard. As for the sampled drum tracks, unless you're a really
decent drummer or know the fine art of drumming in theory, I wouldn't recommend
it. If you have a large music store that carries Yamaha products ask to see the
QY series which gives you a full set of killer GM sounds as well as multiple drum
kits and styles. Good luck....pete o
 
I've done drum tracks with little sample wav files (bass drum samples, snare samples). It's not that difficult, Cakewalk allow you to paste your wav file where you want on your track, you just engage the grid feature and select the resolution you want (16ths, 8 ths...). You can hear it here: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/67/generator.html
The two firsts songs use drum samples mixed with MIDI drums on my XG sound card. (the 2 others are strictly MIDI drums)
 
I use an SBLive with a couple of drum kit Soundfonts. The sound is certainly good enough for me. However, the basic sounds need some reverb to beef them up.
 
With a Yamaha XG card you can add reverb on the drum tracks, and also that nice effect called Early Reflection which makes it sound 3-dimensional. What you can do if you don't have DSP on your card is record your midi track as audio tracks (loop-back recording) and then use your DirectX plug-ins to add reverb.
 
I use a SB Live! as well and I have a pretty extensive set of sound fonts but none compare to the dedicated drum machines I have. I'm sure with some effects
and EQ you could beef them up to sound pretty good. However, when I record I
generally have enough things to do to get the overall sound I want. Playing
with sound fonts just adds one more thing to the list. Most drum machines come with
pretty good sounds built in. The Yamaha XG card may sound good. I haven't tried it.
The drum machines I use have the XG sounds built in and they may be the same ones.
If so, those sounds are really good.
 
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