Step 4 - Drums

Installing drumming software is about as basic as installing any other software on your PC.

Whether you chose to use Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums, or BFD2, the set up process should be relatively similar. I happen to use Superior Drummer 2.3, so that's what I'll focus on.

S2.0 Features: http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=30

An easy to follow installation guide can be found here: http://www.timespace.com/content_handler.php?name=sdfaq

Once you have Superior Drummer 2.0 installed. You'll want to make sure you've configured it to work within Reaper, or whichever DAW you decided to use.

First of all, make sure your VST is in the right folder so that your DAW can recognize it. Now load up your DAW and insert a new track. Click on FX, which should show up as a small green icon in the track. When the window pops up, click Add, VSTI, then look for Superior Drummer 2.x. Once you have it loaded, it should look something like this:

Pretty sweet looking, I know....

Try playing around with the different kits available in the version you downloaded. Remember that you can purchase additional kits that have the same sound style your looking for. My recordings on Youtube have several kits from a basic rock kit, Drum Kit From Hell, Metalheads, to Superior 2.0 avatar with a nice set up I downloaded for free online.

If you've made it this far, you're about to see how painful making a drum track can really be. Don't worry though, because the end result is always worth the headache.

Select the track with your drum software, now hit insert in the menu at the top of the DAW, and select Midi Item. Each piece of the drum kit is recorded as a midi file, so you'll want to start plugging in your hits in the midi sequencer. Example:





Usually line C2 is the bass drum, start exploring above and below that line to hear what each line is going to trigger. From that, you should be able to get a sense of where to insert a hit/trigger in order to make it sound like a real drummer is plugging away on a real drum kit.

Check out some tracks on my channel and listen to the drums and how I've programmed them. It might give you an idea of how to create a basic drum track on one of your riffs.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JFoBTQ

Please subscribe, comment, and ask any questions if I've missed anything.

Thanks for reading,


JFoBTQ