Audio tracks in your MIDI sequencer are great as you might have realised for adding drum loops... That is, whole bars or several bars of sampled real drum-playing or recorded audio patterns lifted from drum-boxes etc, in the form of loops... You can create a MIDI drum beat triggering your drum-box, soundcard-drums or your keyboards built-in drums etc.. whatever... and then simply add audio loops to compliment those MIDI drum parts.... so YES... the audio tracks on a midi sequencer are to me way desirable for adding LOOPS where straight forward 'Loop-playing' is called for... You can add Direct-x fx to those loops too, from compression & Eq to more wacky stuff, like filter sweeps etc etc etc... but...
If you are one of those midi sequencer users, you might have say an XG sound card , other budget device, or some other drum box as noted... but maybe cos you DON'T have a sampler, you're stuck for some more 'classic' dance drums such as Roland TR909 etc type analog or whatever sounds that you just cant get from your MIDI drum sound device and THAT can be a REAL irritating restriction !!.....Alot of generic drum sections have a useful range of drum sounds, but they often lack stuff like classic 909 and other analog drums, and certainly offer you no way to create monster custom drums..... You might think you gotta get a sampler, either s/w based or hardware... Well, whilst i'd be the first to advocate a REAL sampler as a definate first-buy worktool, you DON'T have to get one if you're a total broke poor-ass and still NEED to beef up your beats !!!...
All the popular midi sequencers now come with audio tracks and all of them feature automated mix-down facilities, allowing you to blend selected audio tracks, (complete with any added Direct-X FX , pan & volume fader moves. Eq etc), to a new mono or stereo track... Using those facilities you already have, you can EASILY utilise some sequencer audio tracks and a few 'single-shot' samples gathered FREE from the WWW or from sample Cd's, or from one of the various 'Drum-Synth free/share-wares (such as the Excellent STOMPER Drum-Sound synth from Master ZAP), to create custom beats, or just to add some beefed-up kik drum... whatever.... DIRECT ON YOUR SEQUENCER AUDIO TRACK/S...
Ok... I'm gonna add a 'How to do it', for all the 3 main sequencers, but Cakewalk is a s/w alot of newbies have, don't get me wrong, Cake is VERY powerful and has good solid clock timing from my experience.... and it has alot of users, but it does have a disproportionate amount of newbie users, so i'm gonna start with Cakewalk Pro Audio.... and show you simply, how to add drum samples to audio-tracks to create anything from a simple kik-drum pattern to say add rock-solid 909 kik-drum to your XG soundcard MIDI beats... all the way up to a complete pattern with fx etc all mixed down to an 'easy to use' stereo drum loop you can copy and paste around your track to compliment or even replace your MIDI drums....
Ok... first up create & setup an Audio-Track and a sequencer 'play-loop'... you should know how to do that, but for absolute beginners....
first up, select your track, and make it an audio track... to do that simply double-click on the MIDI panel next to the Track TITLE dialog box, and select your AUDIO CARD as the PORT... remember to make sure that little 'Pan' box down at the bottom of this panel is set to center - which is 64. -- we have now created a basic MONO audio track, panned center....
Ok... once you've setup the track for AUDIO, and set it to be panned center (you can adjust that later if you like), set the LEFT (A) & RIGHT (B) LOOP locator to 1 & 2, (1.01.000 & 2.01.000), so that we have a Sequencer Play LOOP setup for creating our audio drum pattern inside of.... and make sure the LOOP button is depressed too, otherwise it won't loop round it'll just play to the end of the bar and stop !.... Notice the little yellow flags that appear at the start & end of the Looped bar....
To quickly set a Loop bar Start & End number, just SINGLE click in the box (it goes blue), and type '1' or whatever Bar-number you want, then ENTER.. the sequencer will add all the fancy bits...
oki doki.. Next, go to the menu 'TOOLS', and select 'Global Options' -- set it as you see here.. This will make Cake copy audio parts when you Ctrl/click/drag them in the way we want them to work... You dont HAVE to do this, but if you DON'T, then each time you drag/copy a sample later on, this same annoying dialog box keeps on appearing until you DE-click it's 'ASK THIS EVERY TIME' box... Then, when you've told it to bugger-off and NOT re-appear again, you might have it set wrong and can't find it again... Doh!!... so sort it out Now !!... then it can be banished to the Cakewalk netherworld for good.
We DON'T want to tick the 'Copy Entire Clips as Linked Clips', cos we most likely will want to make volume/velocity adjustments to samples we copy in order to make the beat more realistic and give it a 'feel'... If we DID have that box ticked, then the volume setting of the FIRST clip would reflect in all the copies too... useless... so set it as you see it...
ok... Line up your cursor adjacent to the audio track in the part of the screen where the music 'Parts' or 'Clips' go... Right-Click the mouse button, and select AUDIO from the menu that appears...
Ok... Now we are in AUDIO EDIT mode....
You'll see the bar with it's Yellow flag L & R loop markers at either end, but this time we are in AUDIO EDIT mode... I have added the words: BEAT-1, BEAT-2, BEAT-3, BEAT-4 to the diagram in white text, to show you that the four little marker lines that run across the top are in fact beat divisions of the Bar.... 1, 2, 3 & 4 beats of that bar... I know it's obvious but er.....
now... that GRID Icon circled in red is where you set the 'SNAP'... We'll start of with it set to Quarter notes, cos we are going to put in a simple '4 on the floor' house/trance/club-sounds stylee kik drum beat, ... real simple no-brainer stuff.... but, get the sample RIGHT, and it can add huge amounts of power to your MIDI drum-box/sound-device drum pattern when it is all mixed together.... To Select/Change the 'SNAP' setting, simply hold down SHIFT, and click on the Grid Icon SNAP-Button... the dialog box appears, and you can select the appropriate setting for your samples to 'SNAP' to when you drag 'em around in the audio edit view...
OK.. for the 4/4 kik pattern we need therefore to copy & drag our choosen Kik-Drum sample around on the 4/4 or 'Quarter' beats... and by setting the SNAP to Quarter, it can be easily dragged, and will snap to the quarter 4/4 beats in a jiffy.... and more importantly.. Accurately..!! ... right slap-bang on the 1/4 beats of the bar !!
ok... Let's add our drum-sample to the track... I've used a straight 909 kik for this example... Make sure the song-cursor is set at the beginning of the bar at position- 1.01.000...(full left), then go to the menu: INSERT / WAVE FILE... browse your hard drive for the desired sample, and select it... then hit OK... the kik-drum sample will appear at position: Beat_1 on the audio edit view of the bar !!... like this...
Hit the play button on the Transport... You should hear the Kik play everytime the bar loops round between the L & R yellow Loop-marker flags !!... cool... now we need to copy that kik drum over to all 4 beats of the bar....
ok.... copy it by holding down: Ctrl.. then Left 'click/hold' on the sample image and drag the sample copy over to the right... Because earlier we set the SNAP to QUARTER beats, it doesn't move at first.... but as your mouse cursor reaches the next Quarter-beat marker, suddenly the sample 'Copy' flips over to the next beat... Release it, and there it is !!.. now we have a kik-drum beat on Beat 1 & 2 of the bar !!... simple huh !!......
ok... repeat that procedure twice more... dragging the same sample to beat position 3 & 4 and hey presto !!.. we now have a simple '4-on-the-Floor' 909 kik beat to lay over our MIDI drum pattern !!... and here it is....
This is what the finished 4/4 kik drum pattern looks like when you exit Audio-Edit mode and go back into the Arrange-Page.... Try playing that over your MIDI device drum beats for instant beefed-up kik drum heaven & get creative with the samples for more madness...
Remember, back in Audio-Edit mode, if you 'Click/Hold' the Right mouse button over the choosen sample, the Audio-Sample menu will appear as you can see above... allowing you to adjust the Velocity/Volume and even the Pan of EACH individual kik drum sample to add 'feel' or pan FX to your pattern.... You can also use this menu for a whole bunch of other stuff... add Direct-X FX, etc etc.... Lots of options here for customising each sample individually, or messing with the first sample you add before copying it over to other positions within the bar...
Ok.... if you want to add more samples, simply repeat the whole procedure... create a new audio track, go into Edit mode, select and Insert a new sample.... etc...
For a half-beat 'Boom-tish, Boom-tish' open hi-hat, you'll need to click the SNAP grid button and change the SNAP to: 'Eighth'.... This allows you to drag the hat sample in between the 4/4 kik beats on the half-beat/Eighth positions... just select the appropriate SNAP each time you want to move a sample.. the finer/smaller the SNAP resolution, the more divisions of the whole bar you have available on which to place the sample... For 'Swing/Shuffle' placed samples, select the TRIPLET SNAP settings....
Finally, here's the kik pattern as part of a whole beat created with 4 individual samples... Yup, that's all it takes... Four little samples...I used a 909 open-hat, clap, closed hat & kik... You can see the different samples are placed in various positions just like your MIDI notes would be in a pattern to create a final drum-pattern groove !!...
Next, I added some Cakewalk Delay FX in the 'Console-View' (the mixer), and then mixed the whole 4 tracks down to a finished Stereo pattern.... That is easy to do.....
Play the loop round and round.... Just get all the volume settings correct for each track and it's internal samples... add your Direct-X FX, Eq, etc.... then, when it sound right, simply select: TOOLS / MIXDOWN AUDIO.... select the next (blank) track, and hit OK... Cakewalk will create a new L & R audio track with the mixed-down final audio drum parts all mixed together into a cool stereo file !!.....
You can then solo that L/R mixdown, check it's ok... then use THAT new Mixdown file to drag around your Arrange-Page with ease for copying wherever you need it in the Song... !!!
To hear what it sounds like... check out the Real-Audio example below... Sure, it's simple ... nothing TOO creative for an example please :-)..... but you can HEAR it is rock solid timing wise, and although you cant hear the quality with the small Real_audio file, it does sound ok... The more you get into mixing it with your midi kit or with Direct-X FX, the better it'll sound... and of course, good quality samples help alot!!.... Pretty much just as good as the results you'd get from a sampler.... and for NO FINANCIAL OUTLAY !!!....
So... There ya go !... a cheap budget simple way to add drum sounds you DON'T have in your MIDI kit to your beats, without getting a sampler.... and it all loads with the Cakewalk Song each time you boot up !!.... Enjoy !!...
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