Help with Drums!

  • Thread starter Thread starter zoe
  • Start date Start date
Z

zoe

New member
Hi there!

Im new to this forum and new to home recording and was hoping for a little advice..

My friend has asked me to record one of my songs for her to walk down the isle at her wedding and I wanna do a good job of it!
I sing and play all the instruments myself and have managed to record pretty well so far, only problem is im a very bad drummer (though I understand the theory ok). I bought Mixcraft 5 and so far ive been using beatcraft.
I quite how easy it is to program beatcraft, but I think the sound isnt very good. Ive also got ezdrummer, which sounds great, but is very difficult to program...

Can anyone suggest another program, or any advice at all?

Thank you in advance!

Zoe
 
Is it not possible to program the drums using beatcraft, take the MIDI date from it and then use that to trigger ezdrummer? I don't know beatcraft to be honest, but I would assume both are compatible with MIDI data.
 
Spare Dougal said:
Is it not possible to program the drums using beatcraft, take the MIDI date from it and then use that to trigger ezdrummer? I don't know beatcraft to be honest, but I would assume both are compatible with MIDI data.
Click to expand...

Hmmm.. sounds promising... Though I have no idea how to do that!
Has anyone done anything like this before?

Thanks,

Z
 
Hi Zoe,

welcome to the forum!
I'm fairly sure that unfortunately you can't export midi from beatcraft.

Doesn't ezdrummer come with a whole load of built in patterns anyway? You should just be able to drag and drop them straight from the 'grooves' page straight into mixcraft on the virtual instrument timeline, and as i recall they were all fairly useable.

That way you don't have to program patterns or anything, and you entirely bypass beatcraft.

Simple.
 
A song for a wedding huh? Post up a rough of your song. I might be able to help you out by recording or programming drums for ya. Just post the link in your sig.
 
Last edited:
To edit drums in Cubase select a drum MIDI data and select "Open Drum Editor". Also if you select a drum map for that MIDI track it will automatically open the drum editor when you double click on MIDI data in that track. To select a drum map it's just below where you set the ins and outs for that MIDI track. GM Map does the trick most times.

EDIT: Nevermind, for some reason I thought you said cubase in there somewhere.
 
Last edited:
Yes I have done that before with ezdrummer, but these pre-programmed bits are too general for my song.. I need the precision of beatcraft where I can place each and every beat exactly where I want it.

Thanks again
 
thats for the off Jimmy, but Id really rather do this myself - I plan on doing a lot of recording in the future you see, so Its best I learn how to do it...
 
zoe said:
Yes I have done that before with ezdrummer, but these pre-programmed bits are too general for my song.. I need the precision of beatcraft where I can place each and every beat exactly where I want it.

Thanks again
Click to expand...

Then don't use the pre-programmed bits. You can place drum/cymbal hits wherever you want with EZD in the Drum Editor/Piano roll. Or I will program the drums or record live drum track for you if you ask nice. :)
 
Cool man, just ask if you run into any problems. I find EZDrummer sounds best with samples replaced with Steven Slate Trigger. But I'm a drummer and quite picky about drum sounds. Have fun man. That's the important part. :D
 
jimmys69 said:
Cool man, just ask if you run into any problems.
Click to expand...

Zoe = man?

The world is a strange place these days....

As others have said, you should be able to place each and every drum sound wherever you like via the midi editor in your program. Google Mixcraft Midi and you should find some training vids..

It's a piece of cake - I do it all the time with Addictive / Reaper.

You already have everything you need. Happy thumping...
 
I find the piano roll really awkward to use - Is there no more user -friendly drum editor (kinda like the beatcraft interface) that I can use with the realistic sounds you get in ezdrummer?

If not I guess Ill have to suck it up with the piano roll editor :(

Cheers,

Zoe
 
Cubase is the only DAW I know well. It's quite easy with the Drum Editor in Cubase. Or play your kick/snare with your typing keyboard, quantize if needed, go back and add hh/ride/cymbals, quantize again and use the drum editor to make any changes. I do it all the time for rough tracks before I get around to recording the live tracks.
 
Say you record a MIDI track and things are out of time a bit, you can quantize and line the notes up with the nearest 1/8th note for example.
 
You can downloand Reaper as a trial and even keep it for $40. I use it and find the MIDI editor a breeze, not having seen any other versions, that is. I'm not sure how different it is from this "piano roll" I keep hearing about on other DAWs. Some of those with more DAWs might tell you.

You can see every drum hit's position and volume (by colour) and move anything you want...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top