For you experts: An Intro to Digital Drums

octoruss

New member
Ladies and gentlemen,

If you're anything like me, you're somewhat lazy. Yes, I'm embarassed to admit it, but I'll often whip together a half-baked drum track (something that I'm lousy at) so that I can move onto tracks where I have more skills, (ie guitar, bass & keys).

This logic has its obvious drawbacks, notably that my drums end up sounding like crap in an otherwise great recording. The problem is that I'll use my Roland XP-60 keyboard to either manually record drums in real time, or if I have the time, I'd use the sequencer and plan it out. But I am really awful with the Roland sequencer, and hope there's a better way.

Now I'm more of an old school musician, and my studio gear is DAW based. I do have a PC, but I don't use it for music composition or production. But it got me thinking--with all the advances in computer technology and digital drums, there must be an easier way of creating drum tracks on the PC, then exporting them either to my keyboard (via midi) or directly to my Roland 1680 recorder.

So my question for you experts is, is this possible? If so, what would I need to get started? Obviously a compuer program and I assume some drum loops/samples? If the latter is the case, how do I use those samples/loops to create a drum track?

I know this is a broad question, but I appreciate any help you can give.
 
Very Possible.
Get a program that has good midi sequencing. Do your drum tracks via midi from your keyboard. You then can edit the tracks by putting them in perfect time, changing the instruments, etc.. before you ever record to an audio track. You can use your existing soundcard (like a soundblaster) for this if it has a midi interface and all you want to do is use midi.
You can use external sound modules, keyboards, etc..
If you want to get into samples you will probably want to upgrade your audiocard.
 
octoruss,
For the PC, I think a great choice would be Cakewalk Home Studio XL; and if you can afford it, Cakewalk Sonar. I think
both include a great DXi drum sampler called "DR-008".
And both can do everything you are asking about.
 
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