Live Drums Tutorial

So now let's talk about live drums. This is in one of my instruments right here. My drums are all controlled with these eight buttons, and I've got a particular drum rack set up from my super tape drums.

MIDI Control

• If you notice here, it's receiving MIDI from the MPK pads.
• Let's take a look at what's going on with our MIDI track.
• The MPK pad is this track here, and this is MIDI from the MPK mini.
• What I've put on here is just an arpeggiator , a bunch of arpeggiators, really.

Purpose of Arpeggiators

The reason I do this is that right now, with this off, these will just play once each time. But by mapping these controls to these buttons, I can turn on different arpeggiated lengths.

• 32nd note
• 16th note
• 8th note
• Quarter note

Playing Live Drums

If I hold down with a quarter note, I've got a four to the floor kick drum. I can also play my snare drum with that, and it comes in right on time.

• 8th notes are very similar, just a little faster.
• The same thing applies to 16th notes.

This technique is really nice for drum fills as well.

Adding Live Drum Fills

Say I've got my tune playing here, right? Let's turn off our metronome.

By doing that, I now have the ability to add in live drum fills that are always on time, which is pretty cool.

Track Setup

Something else I should mention about these live drums is that if you notice on my drum track, the input here is set to receive drums coming from my controller.

• Take a look at this little green light; you'll notice when I hit these, I'm getting a level here.

Recording Drums

If I were to hit record on this track, I can set my drums here. I'm putting on my arpeggiator for the quarter note.

On this track, when I hold down, I can launch one of these clips.

Let's just say:

• Now I've just recorded a clip really quickly.
• It's a 4 to 4 beat , a nice, simple thing going on there.

This is a great way to create your own beats and record them right into your drum track simply by routing the drum track to the input here.

So, that's the technique I'm using in order to play drums live.