Lessons

Lesson Info

MIDI Drum Programming

So let's make a drum track Just double click. And again, we're all set up already. So already have many going in. And now, which was a midi instrument. Now, this time I can't use the piano. We're gonna choose under instruments. The Native Instruments contact five. Now, this is a free player that you can get. You can just go to Native Instruments and download it. So all the sounds, everything here, here, you can get for free. Pretty cool. So we'll go over here to choose drums and here's our drum kits to choose from or choose a funk it try Get over here and drop it in And then we should have drums. I'm not gonna mess with this too much because what I'm doing here apply to any plug and you use so not to get too deep into the contact player. But you'll see that they should have drum sounds on this track. Now go down inactive, and we dio okay to record drums before record these drums, which is gonna be out of time. Because again, I'm not a great keyboard player. I'm gonna show another way o...

f quantities of them on the way in. Now there's a negative to doing this, and the negative is if you're a good piano player and you want to maintain something performance, you wouldn't want to use this because you can't undo it later. But if you sure you want quiet times before you go on the way in, just go over here, too. Where is our input and go to track record settings. And one of the options for this is to quantities track many recording on the way in, So this performance is gonna have 16th notes in it. So choose this and I think 100% strength of work and everything else looks good. As I perform this, it's gonna record it, and it's gonna quarante eyes. It doesn't have to worry about doing that afterwards, so let's give it a shot. Go back to dark two for one bar countin what's record gonna start just to kick. And in airports, so do the hi hats separately. That should be enough that would double click this and you could see if we zoom in. It should be quantities already. Just are grid to 16th notes. You could see that every note is on 16th. Now Now, what's interesting about this? Because it's drums, each notice actually separate. So if you want to just the volume of any of them, we could go right here. The keyboard, right? Click it and it just selects that note in this case, it to see to believe. So now I want to delete to kick I still have the sneer, or if we're just the velocity, what's make this smaller? Consuming a bit. I could just grab right here and make all the volumes fully, fully full level for velocity you seem to snare. Just right. Click it. Let's all the snare tracks and Hussein. I'm gonna leave that way I played it. So that's our kick and snare. We can give that a color. What's going on here? Let's go with some kind of greenish color, and then when your same thing with the glowing before we'll split it right here and here glue it and could drag this out and groups as well. Perfect. Now it's they want to have a high hat, but I want to create a whole new instrument. Instead. I want record more meaty to the same track. Now there's two different ways of doing it. I'm gonna show you the first way first, and then later I'll show you the second way, obviously. So we got our input. Besides being up to choose? Actually, it's the wrong thing. Want to grab here their inputs over here? Here's I midi input that we chose, but we can also right click over here and instead of recording input for Midi Weaken record meeting overdub right here. So if we choose me overdub, anything recording this track is going to be added to this. So if I going to record right now, I think it's added to that same item. It's on a separate item and so on a separate track, but uses the same instrument. And because we set up in proc warranties over here, it's gonna automatically quiet ized, So you could admit he to this part and this part to the same instrument. So let's do that. Let's name this drums. Also first, stop playing it automatically looped because this item is automatically looked nice so we can adjust the volume of these by sweating here and gets a little closer just in a velocity. I shouldn't say volume, so stop me once for calling volume. Even though it's really velocity. Different things. I think you get the idea those those high hats or the opener hat. It doesn't sound like one, but I promise it is get it perfectly loops. So once again will say that. And now I'm gonna record another part to it. This time I want to add a splash Cymbal to believe is up here, do it a different way instead of recording right to the item in opponent, different track. But instead of putting the different track, have another instrument on it. I'm gonna route that track back to this track so they both share the same instrument. So we're gonna take the routing here and just pull it out, See how changes right there looking a patch cable. That means I'm about to drag it somewhere. Drag it right onto here. And this part isn't that important. But it's worth noting it's sending audio. And maybe we could turn off the audio part because I'm not sending audio. We're just sending Midi to that track right here. Many all tracks. I'm sorry. Media channels to all channels on the received track, which is this track over here, so name it splash, but we're not gonna use his track for too long. And it's important because again, my performance, I should. Kwan ties this as well. So on the way in right cook track recording settings and this is gonna use Think just eighth notes. Start right here. I missed the part. Let's try it again. That's all I wanted to do. And you notice this track is now playing the instrument over here. There's no instrument in this track at all. See this one's green, this one still gray. So the Midi from here is being sent to here and against Quanta ized perfectly. Now, if later on we decide, we don't want it to be separate from this one. One of the scene track is a few different ways of doing that. First, make sure this is turned off. It usually is by default. Trim content behind media item. When editing. That's if you want one item on a track at a time. If you're okay with combining them, we could need this off. So again we'll split the size of this and do the same here. The loop should go, is faras here so empty. So doesn't matter. Glue this and we're gonna cut this, go up to this track and paste it, and it wouldn't run on top of it. Not in the way I wanted to. So let's not do it that way. Let's just dragging instead. There you go on top of it, and I see all of it is playing from this track instead of this one so you could delete this track. It looks like one item, but it really isn't the two items on top of each other. We could see that good options show overlapping media items in lanes and could see both. And right here, here's what Jones record before he hears a splash. So in separate items, But they're still playing on the same track, which is possible when this is turned off. Trump content behind media items. If you want to combine them, what's put this over here? I believe this piece and what's like both of them again glue them now. It's one item with all of it. I want to hear we see our drums, high hat and our splash, which is still playing Tom facilities. All right, so So now it's clued already so we can just loop this and we have a performance and what I'm noticing. One thing that's bothering me if we go to our sneer track well, no, says three. Different stance to choose from. Let me go back into a court here on the keyboard. There's a clip. Eyes are what you call that side stick, another snare, another snare and one more snaps was three stance to choose from. I want to see I want to change one of the sounds so you just double click it right Click over here to choose only have and just bring it up to this one instead, Phil, over here to make it to make it sound more natural, take this note Here, bring it down. Not to take the scale off here at the value. There we go. It's more of a rim shot. So it sounds more natural, Phil. So keep it like that. So it's very easy to separate the notes that way by just right cooking over here to choose that note. And now it seems to fix that problem. Here we go. Is a high hats Open our hat. Uh, way seem to have lost our splash somewhere in there. So let's just put it down again. Just make a new track, send it over there, throw up in the routing. So I have a question. I've worked in logic doing MIDI stuff like this. And if in logic, if you if you in the performance when you're recording, if you play it just even a millisecond before the playable area, like before it shows on the timeline, I won't play when it plays back. Is that the same in here? Because it's outside of that. It won't trigger that MIDI note. It's just down be. It would be that problem. I'm actually for some reason, I was doing it even after the fact and decided this still wasn't, which is weird. But I got to do with your time. Okay? Logic. Yeah, that's why would you like to start a few bars in right? Always try to play that down. Use the first. Notably first now. Yeah. Yeah. I've never figured out one out in logic, but twice as you like to go to court a little earlier on this could you myself, the opportunity. Thank you. Good. I think I have to. Kwan ties that good? No, I didn't like that. Quant ties it to grid. So now I will cut it and paste it here long enough for that leap. Split this here. You don't need that. Sort them both. And you believe them way Got my splash back. Not sure what happened there, but take more time to figure it out than to redo it. Complete this now. So again, we have all our notes here, including our splash. Nice. So getting will save it now. A lot of times we doing with drums, you want to separate them out into different tracks. You can treat them differently. Maybe put a Q a compression on each one of them. So the way to do that? Um, some V S T instruments give you multiple outputs because I'm using the free version of this one. It doesn't let me do it. So it's a pretty simple work around. You just duplicate the track. It's a different instance. Instance she ation for each sound, which is fine. So let's start by duplicating this track. What's mute? This one? I would say that that was double click this and we want this track. Name it first, to just be a kick. So we'll name this kick. Double click it now We'll go over to our kit track here and more. I click it so it's selected. Cut it. They will hit all and delete all that. Everything's off the track. What a bar. Three. Paste it and just paste the kick. That's what we cut as opposed to the leading. So now this track, she just have a kick. Perfect. So do the same thing for the snare. Stupid Kate. This track put it down here on mute it. Name of snare. This time it's gonna select just the snare by right clicking. Now this has to snare sounds this one, too. So hold shift. What right cooking and that grabs the other one. I also know before I copy this or before, cut this that it's not on the downbeat. It's on a par three. First, their hitters on bar three days two or the second beat of Bar three. So if we cut and paste this and place it in Bar three, watch what happens. We'll cut this slept on delete and we go here and paste it. Our snails and snare is now in the wrong place. That's what you do. Instead, is your right click paced, preserving position in measure remembers where it came from and put it right on beat, too. That's pretty handy. You have to remember where it was placed. It's not a kick and snare that is separated. Let's just do the same for the others. We will write, cook and duplicate, drink this to the bottom, make tracks a little smaller by hitting page down or page up to be bigger. You mean this High hats double click it from the high hat. If sharp and then right click for this one and the B flat. Cut them so all the lead thumb Good, Bar three and paste it. And now we just have the highlights. See that? Now we just have a splash to separate, so we can actually just use this one straight to the bottom here and do the same thing. Facts pushes already selected, but we'll start again. Cut it the week and then pasted a bar. Three. Everything is separated so we can treat them completely separate, so let's start off by first, giving them different icons. It's great kick, man. What's find? Okay? Kick should work. It s for snare and not sure there's a high at one. But let's find some symbols of these two at your work. So again just makes it easy to see what's on my track. And all of our drums are now green and they have a drum Cymbal with him. It's easy to say now. One of the benefits of doing this is we could add plug ins and effects to its what's do that a little bit. Let's go to a kick and what's add some compression or something to it. So it good or effects and we go after this plug in, you just double click open this window. We'll goto built in ones. These are all the things that come with Reaper, but actually come with more, uh, CVS T one to T J s plug ins. Whole bunch that comes with it. The main ones of these right here. So it's got a compressor. Bring the ratio up a bit. About we had a queue again. I'll just double click right here. Open up the repair e que Maybe it's a low into it in a low shelf at some top end to it, with a highly range peaking que we bring out the low mids total deeper and we have a kicks out. We could do the same thing with snare. Gonna make it easier. All of this sounds going to be a bit different. Tweet, different. We could just open it up. Grab these two tracks. Excuse me, grab these to plug ins and just drag them toe. A snare that way did. Now, if you go to a snare, we see that worry there. Now the settings are set up from the kicks will probably change it a bit. What? See where it starts? Well, so are snare. What's readjust our e que? It's put these back to normal by double clicking them. Maybe it's on top in shelf, maybe some beef by anyone here to turn this on. Not that one. Lo picky cure here. Give it some body, just the compress, a bit more and a kick and snare or tweet a bit. Let's make the high had a bit brighter as well. Thank you. Let's go to shelf. It's here that let's add that to our splash and a splash Looks like this. This plug in and any Q following. Each one of them has effects that completely separate. We could also treat them together by making a thing called a folder. So if we go over here, make a new track, drink it up here and look right over here is a folder icon with a plus. If you hit this, it pops these tracks out and of these tracks are all in this folder so called a strong folder. What we just call it drums. And now we can do things with this and treat the most like a group we commute doldrums for Saw them. We've been adjust their size with this right here. She's a little icon. Appear if you hit it makes them smaller. It again really hides them, so it makes a little more room. We're not working on the drums. Let's get this a little bigger here. And so we want to work on the piano chords. We could just make this one bigger and the drums a hidden when you work on the drums just opened back up and we see them again. Now another thing we could do with that folder, though, is already was actually being routed into it. That's why would be muted or just the volume. It actually affects it. So because of that, we could put plug ins on that track as well, so we could go into our effects, which are right over here. What's grabbing me? Que Now there's a now this in. Q is affecting all the drums, so it's just so it must make these drums a little bit brighter. Overall, that's pretty good. It's now this plug in. She took this folder. Let's make these Smaller is affecting all these tracks as the order is being routed from these into here before it comes out of our speakers. Now, when we done with this and we decide the way I broke this out, maybe it's too much. There's four tracks of instruments. Maybe that's required pushing your computer a little too hard. Well, you can print it using a feature called Freeze, and that's one of those powerful features in Reapers. Freeze for doing many recording because you have unlimited out of plug ins using no DSP. Let me show you why. What's grab all for these tracks. Right click, Actually. Still one of the time. Let's grab this right here. Now you could do it this way. Let me go back to the other way. That's Graham altogether. If we wanted to, we could right click, Go to render freeze and choose right here. Freeze tracks to stereo and it's gonna turn the Mito audio She has printing them. What's unlock them? It affords toe locking them. She can't move him, but let's just unlock him. You could see him better, but notice now they're audio because it printed those plug ins. So we're not using any DSP on these tracks. Makes bigger because no effects on these tracks. And you probably saying, Well, maybe I wanna undo that or figure out later I don't commit to what we just did. We don't have to commit to it at all. We just let all these tracks again, right? Click Gonna render freeze and unfreeze the tracks and it goes right back to where we started. So you go back to the mini. We're just comedy, get right and then refreeze it if you want to or not. But one of the most powerful things about freeze is you don't just have to freeze the entire track. You can freeze part of it. In other words, on our kick right here. What's going toe are effects. Obviously the contact five without drama set is taking up a lot of DSP, right? But R E Q and compressor probably aren't so. There's no real reason to freeze these two, so we could do instead is select this one and choose this option down here. Freeze track to stereo upto a selective effects. So because this one is selected and if we start that this one would do these two, it goes in order. But because he says, because we choose this one, just this one's gonna get frozen. So go back to freeze frieze track the stereo upto last selected effects and then a prince it. And you know what? The problem is known on the there. But we still have a compressor and every cue, so I could still but go back and tweet that stuff afterwards without having to unfreeze this audio. So our kick track is now audio, but we still have the plug ins over here. I think it's kind of a powerful feature for freeze and that you do not only committing to things you want to commit to, not everything. Let's unfreeze that, though by right clicking unfreeze tracks It goes back to our mini now back to me again. So what's if you want to add some mawr instruments Now? We'll get to say this. You don't want to lose our data. Do you want to interject? Any question is Jamil wants to know? Does Reaper have any built in drum maps so that I could just program drums without a keyboard, meaning, like using this keyboard or actually doing by Step Rick without, Like, I think, without a control, you can do this thing called a virtual keyboard? Cats do that. Uh, what's going on? Piano keyboard. You could choose the input instead of choosing this one. There's a thing called Virtual Midi keyboard. You just hit this all channels. If we go to view, there's the one down here called Virtual Mini Keyboard. And while this window is active, this is your keyboard. You see, it says the little letters under here, so I need to be in record on the piano track to do that. Ah, just the notes that limitations. I assume you probably can't do any volume adjustment. And you couldn't change the active by using the arrows. If you're okay with Noah velocity yet, you can do it that way.