Hoppo75 Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 Hiya folks, My Dad is hounding me to start creating some drum tracks for him, as I have done for many years, using a trusty old Roland TR707. While the Roland is a brilliant bit of kit, it is limited in terms of the drum sounds it produces. I bought him an Alesis SR16 a few years ago but I just can't get into the bloody thing at all, as the instruction manual may as well be written in Hebrew!!! The help I'm looking for is either; 1) Can anyone provide me with an idiot proof guide as to how I create a drum track on the SR16 - the manual is awful!!! or 2)Can anyone recommend a PC based drum machine - something that I can create drum tracks for use live and to record as backing tracks Plan is to go live at some point, so will probably have tracks mixed down along with Rhythm and keyboard lines, with me playing bass live. Anyone help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Funk Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 You should be able to programme any drum grooves you like in any MIDI sequencer (such as Cubase or Ableton but really, anything) and export it as a MIDI file. You should then be able to upload that MIDI file into the Alesis and get it to play the onboard drum sounds. Haven't looked at the manual myself so I'm not going to try to guess how (but something like an SD card might do it). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oscar South Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 Guitar Pro is good for programming drums, though its limited dynamically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eight Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 (edited) Are you wanting to select patterns or program drum loops etc. from scratch? If the latter... Something like Native Instruments Battery (http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=battery3) is a pretty easy to use sampler vst with a good library of drum sounds as part of the package. Maybe get a Trigger Finger or Akai MPD to give you a friendlier hardware approach to triggering sounds while tracking. Edited February 28, 2009 by Eight Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoppo75 Posted March 1, 2009 Author Share Posted March 1, 2009 Definately the latter mate, I'd like to create the patterns (fills etc) and then create a track by programming them in the correct order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eight Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 [quote name='Hoppo75' post='422242' date='Mar 1 2009, 10:20 AM']Definately the latter mate, I'd like to create the patterns (fills etc) and then create a track by programming them in the correct order.[/quote] Well... when I do similar, I tend to use "DrumKit From Hell Superior: Custom & Vintage" which works much the same at Battery. I might program one bar (sometimes using an MPD, sometimes with the mouse or a midi keyboard), loop it for three and wack in a fill etc on the fourth. Then copy paste the loop to a new position and write a different second fill etc etc. It doesn't take long to do, the hard part for me is knowing what to write since I only have the most basic knowledge of drums. You could look at using a step-sequencer vst to make the midi parts (some people prefer using them). Still with Battery or DFHS etc. as the sample playing backend. You'll certainly get good quality sounds doing it that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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