Do you split your drum parts into separate MIDI tracks?

[V0RT3X]

I like to keep the midi as a single track but split the audio.

same

Is it possible to explain how to do this ? In reaper ?

I don't have Reaper since I use Ableton Live, but It depends on the virtual instrument you use.

Like in D16 Drumazon for example.

For me I would load Drumazon up on a midi track and change the internal audio settings so the audio from each drum sound would have it's own individual output. Once I did this I would have to create the same number of audio tracks for each individual output sound of Drumazon and then re-route the sound from the drums to be played through each audio track.

Not sure what the process would be like in Reaper. Some DAW programs do all this routing for you automatically like in Studio One.

[ghettosynth]

The problem with splitting them all up is that it makes them more difficult to work with as a cohesive unit.

That's what I always thought too, but it turns out that it's not too hard to just lasso all the parts and move them around as one. Alternatively, you can work like this: have all the parts on separate tracks in the experimentation phase, then bounce them all to single MIDI clips for the song arrangement phase.

How do you bounce the individual MIDI clips to a single MIDI clip? I don't know anything about Sonar, I'm using REAPER...I know how to bounce them to audio, but to MIDI?

I rather like to have every drum element in an individual track so that I can process them with different effects. Then I group them together in sub groups (for example all "Kicks") and main group ("Drums").

Right, I used to do this as well, but, as you know, in Reason it's trivial to treat midi clips as a unit and process the audio separately, but, live drum racks are also able to work in a similar way.

To be clear though, I do often separate out kicks from the tops. This is common in EDM though.

[Sendy]

For house and techno flavoured drums I use individual channels. For breakbeats and "real" drumming I like each rhythm section to be all on one midi track, because it makes creating complex syncopations more intuitive.

[abovethoughts]

did a google search "Split Midi drum track into several tracks Reaper" and got this hit from the Reaper Forums ...

How to Split a Midi Drum Track Into Multiple Drum Tracks
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=17866

then there is ....

explode midi item by note row (right click on the item/item processing...)

except that now I will have multiple midi tracks, rather then multiple audio tracks ....