[ddots-l] How to Access the Session Drummer Features using CakeTalking for SONAR 6 Producer (Was: accessible drum machine)
- From: "William R. McCann" <BillList1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 16:17:44 -0400
Hi, All,
Since there has been a fair amount of discussion here lately on options for
creating drum patterns, I have decided to paste in most of the documentation
we provide with CakeTalking for SONAR 6 on the Session Drummer soft synthe
that comes with SONAR 6 Producer. I think you'll be interested to see how
much is now possible, especially if, like me, you are not a trained drummer.
BTW, Gordon Kent is almost finished an audio presentation on the general
features of SONAR 6 including some use of Session Drummer.
BTW, for customers in the U.S. and Canada, Dancing Dots is matching the $50
discount for all orders of upgrades to SONAR 6 which Cakewalk Music Software
has offered recently.
There are a number of tutorials which install in a folder in your My
Documents folder when CakeTalking gets installed. One of them describes
features
of supported soft synthes such as the Session Drummer which comes with SONAR
6 Producer. Below I will paste in the text of that portion of the tutorial
for your review:
...
4. Session Drummer.
CakeTalking has made the Session Drummer accessible, via its F4 Options
dialog. Here is an overview of Session Drummer, with a description of the
hotkeys
that CakeTalking uses to make it accessible.
1. The session drummer is a marvelous soft synth that allows you to load a
large variety of complete drum kits. You can also completely customize your
drum
kit by assigning different drum samples to each part of the drum kit. Each
part of the drum kit, is called a drum pad.
There are 10 drum pads. Here are the parts of a drum kit that are assigned
to each pad.
Pad 1. Kick
Pad 2. Snare
Pad 3. Hi Hat
Pad 4. Hi Tom
Pad 5. Mid Tom
Pad 6. Floor Tom
Pad 7. Cymbal 1.
Pad 8. Cymbal 2.
Pad 9. Percussion 1.
Pad 10. Percussion 2.
2. If you want to load a complete drum kit, then press F4 to open the
Session Drummer Options dialog, and press ENTER on Program. You will be
place on one
of 2 controls, either of which will give you access to a complete drum kit.
The first control can open a conventional dialog with the programs in
folders.
The second control can open a tree view containing programs.
3. If you would rather assemble the drum kit yourself, then just choose one
of the 10 drum pads, by pressing a number from the number row. Then, you can
load your choice of instrument into it. For instance if you picked Drum pad
1, by pressing number row 1, then you can right click to bring up a context
menu containing options to load or load an instrument. If you press ENTER on
Load Instrument, then a dialog box opens up with folders of drum
instruments.
Open the kick folder, choose a kick and then press ENTER. That kick is now
assigned to drum pad 1. You can audition the sound of that kick by pressing
ENTER on drum pad 1, or by pressing the assigned key on your MIDI keyboard.
The keys that are assigned to that instrument are listed at the bottom of
the
drum pad's context menu. If you don't like the instrument, in our example
the kick, then load another kick and then audition it. Note that you can
also
load an instrument into the current drum pad, via the instrument section of
the Session Drummer. You can access the instrument section by opening the
Session
Drummer options dialog.
3. When you’re satisfied with drum pad 1's assignment, press number 2, from
the number row, and you will move to drum pad 2. You can then load a snare
into
that drum pad via the same process. Once you've finished assigning
instruments to your drum pads, you can return to the track pane and play and
record
the the drum set via your MIDI keyboard.
4. But the fun doesn't stop there. You can also have Session Drummer play
patterns. The patterns can be short fills, or long grooves. There are up to
8
preset patterns available at a time. To pick one of the 8 patterns, just
press letters A through H. Letter A, picks pattern 1, letter B picks pattern
2,
etc. Letter H will pick pattern 8. Then to audition the pattern press the
letter P to play it. To stop auditioning the pattern, press the letter S to
stop
it. To toggle Looping on and off, press the letter L. When the loop is on,
and you press the letter P, the pattern will keep playing until you press
the
letter S, to stop.
5. Now, once you have assigned your drum pads, and chosen your patterns, you
can trigger the patterns from your MIDI keyboard and record them in the
track
pane. The patterns are available in the low octave below the C that triggers
the Kick drum.
6. Finally, you can tweak the parameters of each drum pad instrument. For
instance, after pressing number 1 to move to drum pad 1, you can then TAB
and
SHIFT TAB through 4 different knobs that control the sound of the instrument
in drum pad 1. The 4 knobs are for Volume, Width, Pan and Tuning. You can
move the knobs with the ARROW keys, and the PAGE DOWN, and PAGE UP keys.
Each drum pad has its own set of knobs. Obviously, this gives you a high
degree
of control over the sound of each drum pad in your drum kit.
...
HTH,
Bill
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