I am new to Digital recording, just bought Tracktion, and am starting to understand its features and capabilities, but am not sure how to go about laying down drum and bass tracks easily. Can someone explain to me the different options available in doing this. Is there a free plugin that will give me drum sounds, and way for me to arrange and sequence them into Tracktion(Such as a virtual midi controller). I downloaded Drumatic 3, but I do not have a Midi keyboard controller yet(Hopefully soon), but I have to believe there is a way to do it with the tools I have(Including fee plugins) - Are there tools available such as Virtual Midi controllers that allow me to do it through the computer, or a way to assign notes to the computer keyboard, so I can input them Forgive my ignorance on this - I have read the Tracktion tutorials and they are very basic, and have been scouring the internet, but have not been able to find a resource that teaches about ways to do this. The VST plug-ins for Traction seem very powerful, but do not seem to provide any info on how to use them, which is okay f effects modules, but instrument plugins seem complicated to me. Thanks for your help.
Mh
Creating Drum Tracks easily in Tracktion
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- KVRer
- 14 posts since 5 Nov, 2004
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- KVRist
- 235 posts since 16 Apr, 2003 from Norway
Hi,
If you don't have a midi keyboard/controller, you will need to input notes for your drum & bass tracks using the mouse.
This is very easy though, and is a perfectly valid way of going about it (atleast it's what I do, and I'm happy
)
For drums you have all the tools you need to get started. You can use Drumatic, or even the built in Tracktion Sampler if you have some suitable .wav files on you hard drive.
Here is an explanation using the Tracktion Sampler:
1. Drag a "Sampler" filter on to a track.
2. Click the "add" button on the sampler control panel at the bottom, and load a .wav file of a drum (you can get some for free by searching around the net if you don't have any).
3. The filename of the sound you have loaded will be marked blue in the sampler, and some arrows have appeared over the virtual keyboard. Map the sound to a key (or several keys) on the "virtual" keyboard by dragging these arrows left or right until you are happy.
E.g. drag the left and right white arrows until they are on top of the green arrow, and watch the "key range" and "root note" readouts. You can change root note by moving the green arrow. If you have done this, the sound will be mapped to note C3 on the virtual keyboard.
4. Load in another sound, and map it to C#3 (both key range arrows and root note arrow).
5. Now you need to add a "midi clip" to the track. Click track1 to mark it (it should turn red). Press the "G" key on your keyboard. A midi clip will appear (G is the shortcut for adding a midi clip to a track).
6. Double click the track. It will become larger, and you will see a note grid appear. Hover the mouse over the midi clip, and a piano will appear in the left part of the track/clip.
7. Locate C3 and C#3 keys on the piano. Now, click the pencil tool and draw in some notes with the mouse on the grid. Experiment with this, as it will perhaps be a bit strange at first.
8. Helpful tip: Drag the right edge of the midi clip so the clip is one bar long. Zoom in to the clip with the scrollwheel on your mouse until there are 16 rows in the grid. This is a basic and easy setup for entering drum notes.
Phew, that's long winded.
If you don't have a midi keyboard/controller, you will need to input notes for your drum & bass tracks using the mouse.
This is very easy though, and is a perfectly valid way of going about it (atleast it's what I do, and I'm happy
)For drums you have all the tools you need to get started. You can use Drumatic, or even the built in Tracktion Sampler if you have some suitable .wav files on you hard drive.
Here is an explanation using the Tracktion Sampler:
1. Drag a "Sampler" filter on to a track.
2. Click the "add" button on the sampler control panel at the bottom, and load a .wav file of a drum (you can get some for free by searching around the net if you don't have any).
3. The filename of the sound you have loaded will be marked blue in the sampler, and some arrows have appeared over the virtual keyboard. Map the sound to a key (or several keys) on the "virtual" keyboard by dragging these arrows left or right until you are happy.
E.g. drag the left and right white arrows until they are on top of the green arrow, and watch the "key range" and "root note" readouts. You can change root note by moving the green arrow. If you have done this, the sound will be mapped to note C3 on the virtual keyboard.
4. Load in another sound, and map it to C#3 (both key range arrows and root note arrow).
5. Now you need to add a "midi clip" to the track. Click track1 to mark it (it should turn red). Press the "G" key on your keyboard. A midi clip will appear (G is the shortcut for adding a midi clip to a track).
6. Double click the track. It will become larger, and you will see a note grid appear. Hover the mouse over the midi clip, and a piano will appear in the left part of the track/clip.
7. Locate C3 and C#3 keys on the piano. Now, click the pencil tool and draw in some notes with the mouse on the grid. Experiment with this, as it will perhaps be a bit strange at first.
8. Helpful tip: Drag the right edge of the midi clip so the clip is one bar long. Zoom in to the clip with the scrollwheel on your mouse until there are 16 rows in the grid. This is a basic and easy setup for entering drum notes.
Phew, that's long winded.
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- KVRAF
- 6490 posts since 14 Jun, 2004 from Rochester, NY
I posted a request to jules maybe that we could have a step track where we can "lock down" the steps, like say 1/8th would remain the same no matter how far you zoomed in...
I requested more I hope he saw it
RonC
I requested more I hope he saw it
RonC
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- KVRAF
- 3441 posts since 15 Mar, 2003
There are a number of free tools that will let you use your computer keyboard as a midi controller.
I use Trollo which you can find in the instrument links in the upper right corner of this website.
You will also need midi-yoke which crerates virtual inputs and outputs.
You can play vst instruments by putting Trollo in front of the Vst, but to input midi data Trollo's output must be routed to the tracks input. That is what midi-yoke does.
You can also try Mkey which you can find at http://www.adbe.org/freebies/plugins/mkey.html
There is also information about midi-yoke there.
I use Mkey along with Trollo so that Keystrokes don't
activate Tracktion shortcuts. Just put it in any unused track and disable it. Or use it instead of Trollo.
Tobybear also makes a keyboard plugin as does Bome http://www.bome.com/.
I use Trollo which you can find in the instrument links in the upper right corner of this website.
You will also need midi-yoke which crerates virtual inputs and outputs.
You can play vst instruments by putting Trollo in front of the Vst, but to input midi data Trollo's output must be routed to the tracks input. That is what midi-yoke does.
You can also try Mkey which you can find at http://www.adbe.org/freebies/plugins/mkey.html
There is also information about midi-yoke there.
I use Mkey along with Trollo so that Keystrokes don't
activate Tracktion shortcuts. Just put it in any unused track and disable it. Or use it instead of Trollo.
Tobybear also makes a keyboard plugin as does Bome http://www.bome.com/.
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- KVRist
- 235 posts since 16 Apr, 2003 from Norway
I second rpc9943s request (I've made the same request too in the past). Locking the steps is absolutely essential to midi editing/programming.
It would be nice if we had a slider somewhere we could just drag to choose between e.g. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 steps per bar. Zooming in would then just make the grid/notes larger.
It would be nice if we had a slider somewhere we could just drag to choose between e.g. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 steps per bar. Zooming in would then just make the grid/notes larger.
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- KVRist
- 93 posts since 12 Sep, 2004
Being a guitarist, you may find it more intuitive to create your bass lines in a midi-based tablature editor like Powertab (which is free) or Guitar Pro (which is $60 but worth every penny) then export to a midi file and import into Tracktion... rather than drawing the notes in Tracktion, or even using a midi keyboard (depending on your keyboard skills... personally I have none). In Guitar Pro you can also tab out your drum parts and export to midi if you want.
For drums, I use my ancient Roland R-5 drum machine to input the notes rather than a midi keyboard... so I get all the flexibility of this new-fangled technology with a comfortable old interface that I've been using for the past 15 years or so.
For drums, I use my ancient Roland R-5 drum machine to input the notes rather than a midi keyboard... so I get all the flexibility of this new-fangled technology with a comfortable old interface that I've been using for the past 15 years or so.