Staring out

[Clueless]

Please excuse my ignorance to all of this stuff. I'll try to tell you what I have, what I've done, and what I want to do.

My computer

600 Celeron
96M RAM
Crystal Sound Fusion CS4281 sound card (No MIDI jacks)
Windows ME
10 Gig Drive (half full)

I downloaded a 30 day trial version of Guitar tracks (Cakewalk) and I was able to record playback and add some effects to my creation.
What I would like to be able to do is to create drum patterns from my Computer instead of from my drum machine. There has to be a better way than looking at the little LCD on my old RX15 and hitting 100 buttons to edit a part. My friend gave me this other Cakewalk product called Guitar Studio Ver. 1.0. He's trying to tell me that this program has built in Drums sounds but it looks to me like it just has the capability of driving a MIDI drum machine. (my friend bought the product but never got anything to work on it). Do you guys have any experience with this program? Does it have built in drum sounds? Is this like an audio and MIDI recording program?

A'm I going to have to buy a newer drum machine and a Sound card for the computer that has MIDI jacks? Or can I buy some kind of program that will work with a program like Guitar Tracks or Guitar Studio to create and edit drum sounds.

I know I probably sound like an idiot to most of you but I have to start somewhere.

 

[dr.colossus]

software based drum sequencers are a dime (or free) a dozen, and you don't need midi for most of 'em as they are .wav based....

here's a virtual drum machine, not bad, the author of this has also created a program called "taureg" this is an excellent (drum) sequencer with heaps of features

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/HammerHead_Rhythm_Station/


this is a freeware four track recorder, real easy to use, but not a huge amount of effects features

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/QuartzStudio_Free/

for other downloads go to

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm

http://www.harmonycentral.com

good luck

 

[AlChuck]

What your friend was talking about may be a thing called Drag 'n Drop Drummer. It was included with Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, perhaps came along with Guitar Tracks too. It has a set of drum loops (WAV files) and a corresponding set of MIDI files of the same patterns plus a Sound Font, so you can use it either way. Look on the CD and see if you can find that name on a folder -- maybe it's there and hasn't been installed.

 

[Clueless]

I've downloaded some of these free programs and to be honest with you my 20 year old drum machine sounds much more like real drums than these free downloads do. If I have to spend some money that's fine but I want something that sounds like a standard 5 piece drum set. I really don't need special affects they don't fit in to the kind of music I do anyway. There's got to be some program out there that I can integrate with Cakewalk to get good drum sounds. Isn't there? Price range of 100$ or so.