I’m going to start this second part with something practical. I use Cubase for all my midi work but the general approach is much the same for any sequencer. As mentioned before, I think that the volume of each note is crucial to the overall feel of a drum track. Download the: midi file and have a go at this:Midi File. Play around with the velocities. As you’ll see I use key edit for drum editing rather than the drum edit window simply because I find it easier. In this midi file I've programmed in all the notes at 100 velocity so it sounds very bland. Let it cycle for a while and get used to the way it feels in its bland state and then have a fiddle with the velocities as I’ve done in the diagram. By doing this you’ve taken the first steps towards programming a drum track close to the way a drummer would play it, for example; Notice the two kicks that are close together, the first one in the bunch should be much softer than the one following it so cut these ones down and FEEL the difference. Much the same with the snares really except snare programming can be more involved because a drummer would tend to be flasher with his/her snare work, not always of course but generally speaking. The snare triplets in the midi file sound terrible in their un-edited state as I’m sure you’ll agree so we’ll look at them next.

To be honest I don’t think there’s a set way of doing this, it’s really up to you what sounds good and what doesn’t. This is just a starting point. We’ve got four snares close together for the triplet. Take the first down to about 20vol, the second to around 40 and the third to lets say 60 keeping the fourth as the main snare volume at 100. From there, play around with them until it sounds good to you. It’s irrelevant how good or bad your programming really is. If you like what you hear then it’s job done as far as I’m concerned! Same with music in general I suppose.

Now this is where it gets good. We’ve looked at note volumes, we’ll now look at drum sounds. If you’re using the same snare sound for all the different velocities it will sound better after editing but when a real snare is hit at different velocities it produces a completely different sound altogether, not just a quieter version of the main snare. If you are able to edit sounds then find a dull DOOOSH!! Sounding snare, hard to explain in words! Take the attack out and try to make it very tinny sounding if you can. Doing this will make it sound more like a lightly tapped snare and can be used for the first three snares in the triplet bunch, making sure that the tuning is as close as possible to your main snare. We can go another step further with this…SOUND FONTS….Pheeew!! Now we’re really talking.

Editing snares etc is great if this is all you can do but sound fonts are a different world altogether!! Real sounds recorded in top studios. The major advantage with fonts is you’re not only playing around with for example a snare that’s been recorded separately from the very light grace sound right up to the main hit and rim shots etc but they’re also what is called . This means that on one note of your keyboard you can have all your snares if you want, for example; grace snare 1/ 0-50… grace snare 2/ 51-70 velocity and so on. All totally editable with a sound font editing programme but you don’t need an edit programme to use them!! Of course sound fonts are not restricted to drum sounds, every other instrument you can think of were all notes have been recorded separately for every note on your keyboard. I used soundfonts for the DCCmp3 sample.

If some of the things I’ve suggested are impossible because you don’t have the appropriate gear then GO & BUY SOME!!!! That’s the only way around the problem. You can buy a fairly cheap sound card that’s sound font compatible and the sound font CD ROMs are very reasonably priced. Don’t expect to beat world pole vaulting records using a broom handle. To be able to do a good job of anything you must have the tools. Don’t you think your music’s worth it?

Every thing I've written in this article is purely my opinion and again, REMEMBER…If sitting there playing the chord of G for 2hrs gives you immense pleasure then so be it…that’s what music’s all about.

DC Cornelius.