Drums for the nondrummer in Sonar?

  • Thread starter Thread starter travelin travis
  • Start date Start date
T

travelin travis

New member
Ok, I know I'm not alone here. I would like to make some drum lines in Sonar. I have no clue how to use the Piano Roll and as I've seen here in the forum there are plenty of others. Please excuse the ignorance. I am requesting a tutorial/how to from the good people of the homerecording bbs. I know there is someone in here that could give a good explanation to get us ignorant folk going.

I just started using Sonar a couple days ago. It's been on my desktop for awhile but I was so used to using Cool Edit that I never messed with it for fear of another learning curve. After trying it, I see that it has alot to offer. I have used FL Studio to write some simple drum loops. In FL, you assign samples to sequencer channels and then create a pattern for each channel. I used free samples from a website that I found while searching for something to create drum lines. I don't understand what I need to do in the Sonar Piano Roll. Do I need something between the Piano Roll and the samples? I don't have any midi gear and I'm running through my motherboard's onboard sound for now.

So, I am requesting a simple tutorial. How to create a simple drum line using Sonar's Piano Roll and some drum samples. Can anyone here make this happen? It would be very much appreciated by me and the others I have seen searching around the forum.

Here is a link I found in this forum for free drum samples:

http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/nskit_wav.html

Heres one I found during my search:

http://meanbeat.cjb.net/

Heres an example of what I did with the meanbeat samples in FL studio:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/1/travisthompsonmusic.htm "drive" is the example.

If anyone knows of other free drum sample sites, please post them.
 
Yeah I've found leafdrums http://www.leafdigital.com/software/leafdrums/download.html. Works good and you can DL samples to it. Another cool feature is you can export .wav files. Then Import them into Sonar - each drum part (Kick, snare, Cymbols, etc.) to a single track w00t. Theres another one called HammerHead http://www.threechords.com/hammerhead/introduction.shtml haven't used this :/. I've found that DFH is the bestest ever. Haven't used it but from the demo sounds from it it r0x. http://www.toontrack.com/. Also Sonar has a thing called Session drummer. Look in Sonar/help/session drummer. Then after you get a basic beat you can edit it within piano roll (haven't done this either :/. Gl, HF.




L8er,
livilaNic
 
Last edited:
hey travis, what version of sonar do you have?

if you have version 3 producer then you are business as it comes with V-sampler. basiclly this plug in lets you program a bank of samples (in your case a set of drums) to each key in sonar's paino roll view. To use this effectivly, you should:
1. go through the tutorials that come with sonar, get the feel for midi in general. this helped me quite a lot actually.
2. go to the v-sampler website and on there is a video you can watch that has somebody go over the basics of v-sampler... again really helpful.
 
I have leaf, hammerhead, and fl studio. I just did'nt get good results with leaf. The interface although simple, is kinda awkward and the volume of samples seems low in leaf. Also it seems a little picky on the bit rates of samples. Hammerhead is just too simple. Not enough options for me. FL Studio 4 is my choice of the three. It has a nicely laid out, simple interface and it seems to be fairly pretty powerful. Only thing is, it's resource hungry. If I needed something completely free, I would go with leaf. I used it before getting FL Studio. Thanks for the reccommendations but what I'm trying to do with this post is get a simple tutorial for making drum lines in Sonar and if anybody has any, some links to free drum samples.

Back to Sonar. I'm using Sonar 3 Producer Edition so I will check out the v-sampler. The reason I want to use Sonar is so I can track audio, create drum lines, and mix down within the same application and I already have it so I might as well make use of it. Also, I saw other people in the forum looking for answers on creating drum lines in Sonar. I will check out the help files and v-sampler walkthrough.

If anyone can give us a simple walkthrough from beginning to end on creating a simple drum line in Sonar, please do so here. For example, how to make a two measure drum line using 4 samples. Again, if anyone has any links to free drum samples, please leave it here. Also, again, thanks for the reccommendations of other software but that's avoiding the point of this thread. If no one does this, I will figure it out and post a tutorial for the others here in the forum.
 
hey livilanic, you creepy person, lol, u got any music posted?
 
Not as of yet bro. I need to start recording again. My mixers in the mail. I'm so damn poor :/. It'll take me like a year just to get a decent setup goin :S.



L8er,
livilaNic
 
Hey we got something in common = poor. My setup is pretty damn ghetto right now too. I'm trying to get in some overtime at work to finish my basic setup: a couple of condensors, preamp, compressor, soundcard, monitors, another hard drive, another stick of ram. Right now I have one condensor, preamp, some cheapo monitors (I'm not liking them but they will work for now). Good luck, hope you get some gear to get going with.
 
At least you got some monitors I need those badly. All I got now is Yamaha 10/2, Alesis 3630/used for a gate, Peavey 35 watt crap amp, and this old ass Roland weighted Digi piano. Dell comp. with a santa cruz soundcard 18/48KHz :/. Plan on getting a Hughes & Kettner Warp 7 Half-stack or a Crate. Also need to get a bass rig. Electronic bass is ok but I need the real thing. Soundcard Emu 0404.It will all take some time but in the end its all going to be worth it. GL, HF. *edit* Whats the condenser for?


L8er,
livilaNic
 
I use the condensor mic for vocals and acoustic guitar. Right now, I have an old Yamaha f310 acoustic, a Lotus strat copy electric, a Samick bass, and a Line6 Duoverb combo amp. It's all shit except the Duoverb. The Duoverb rocks. I figure if I get a compressor, I can run the bass direct into my preamp. As far as the monitors, lol, they're pretty cheesy, Edirol 10dbk's. They sound boomy but so far, the things I have tracked with them translate pretty good to other stereos. The mic is an MXL990 and pre is an AudioBuddy. It's my first condensor mic so I can't comment on it too much because I have nothing to compare it to. It seems to do good on acoustic guitar and mellow vocals so far. I'm doing drums in FL Studio and trying to figure out how to do them in Sonar. Up until a couple of days ago I used Cool EditAdobe Audition for tracking and mixing. I still like it. Other than the software, you can see that my stuff is pretty ghetto. Oh well, if I can make this stuff sound good, I'm sure I will be able to take better advantage of any upgrades that I make.
 
Koo I was lookin at that MXL for vocals. But, you say mellow I'm a Black/Death Metal singer. Would it work for said genre? lol and forgot to ask or did I (I read so much I forget) if you got nething done that I can hear?* <---This statement is really retarded I heard your instrumental and even posted on it OMG!*. I was thinkin the same thing about the basic equipment that in the end I'll make it sound great. Damn phone gtg. lol I thought when you said condenser you meant a stand alone like the compressor. Not the condenser mic. How you get your songs copywrote? By the way Just A Song sounds like something I heard in deliverence or something. Not that bad under the circumstances.



L8er,
livilaNic
 
Last edited:
deliverance eh? I'll take that as a compliment, lol, I guess.
 
TravisinFlorida said:
deliverance eh? I'll take that as a compliment, lol, I guess.
Wow, did this thread ever change directions fast! :eek:
 
Back
Top