help with pc drums

[DMB35]

I have Sonar and Cakewalk's drumtrax...the beats are neat, but have the horrible GM sound to them...... is there anyway to make these beats sound more realistic? other than buying something outboard?

Thanks as always, Gare

 

[tdukex]

First, GM (General MIDI) is just an established set of instrument patches. It is not the sounds themselves. The quality of sound you get is dependent on your synthesizer--whether soft of hardware. So, the "horrible" sound you are refering to is probably the soft synth built into the drum program. Or if you are using a cheapo soundcard it could be the crappy built in synth.

If you don't want to buy anything outboard, there are several software solutions. Someone else will have to fill you in on the various programs, but some you might check are Reaktor, Reason, Gigastudio, Reality.

A less expensive solution--the one I use--is to get either a $40 Soundblaster Live or $70 Audigy and use Soundfonts. You can find hundreds (if not thousands) of free soundfonts on the web. Or you can buy CDs in the soundfont format.

You also might want to utilize Sonar's looping capability by buying loop CDs like Sonic Foundry's Drum Tools.

 

[DMB35]

thanks, about the soundfonts, are they particular to each sequencers? Like are there soundfonts for sonar, cubase, etc? and also once you download them, what to do next? Do you have to manually place them in a folder or something?

Thanks again

 

[AlChuck]

about the soundfonts, are they particular to each sequencers? Like are there soundfonts for sonar, cubase, etc?

They are not particular to any type of sequencer, but they only work with something capable of playing them. That's the SB AWE, Live, and Audigy soundcards, and a few others, and also a couple of software samplers/synths.

and also once you download them, what to do next? Do you have to manually place them in a folder or something?

Well, yeah, you put them on your hard drive wherever makes sense, and load them from there. The SB Live works by using up to half of your system RAM for loading Sound Fonts off the disk.

 

[tdukex]

thanks, about the soundfonts, are they particular to each sequencers? Like are there soundfonts for sonar, cubase, etc? and also once you download them, what to do next? Do you have to manually place them in a folder or something?

Thanks again

Here are some instructional articles to get you started on soundfonts. There are also some links to soundfont sites.

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/E5F90F70241EFF6D862566B20024C532

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/E8FC6F1272005BC0862568D700634565

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/95FF388F66E4334786256B47001C295D

 

[DMB35]

thanks again, although I dont have a soundblater right now, I've been playing around on a laptop with some cheep integrated card......Im getting a delta 66 though, so thats what Im looking to build around.