The Steel Guitar Forum

Ok guys please do not laugh your self silly at me.
I am looking at EzDrummer or the equivalent.I have NEVER used MIDI before.For some reason I just cant get this MIDI thing worked out in my head I guess I am just SLOW!!! Question is can I make a drum track(easy the key word) with a CP software based drum machine such as EZDrummer and then just play it back through my(Yamaha AW1600)say on one channel? And is there a way to even use some free loops or loop machines out there in internet land that will help me out? I play mostly slow 4/4 gospel with mostly alot of rim shot.Hope your laugh was a good one lol.
Thanks

Wendell, nothing laughable about someone asking a question.

I use midi (musical instrument digital interface) all the time. Midi is not sound, in a nutshell, it's a set of instructions telling the computer, midi program, or midi sequencer what notes to play.

Yes you can make the drum track. Can you play it back through your channel 1? Not without midi sequencer or a laptop/audio interface.

You need something to generate the sound and then output that sound to the mixer.

For instance, you could play the midi file on your laptop with say windows media player and output the sound through your headphone jack to an RCA input on the mixer.

I have EZ Drummer and I don't find anything "EZ" about it. I bought it when it was on a special sale for $39. I can get the basic built in drum clips to work (it has a standalone player) but its not as versitile as my Alesis SR-16 drum machine. The Alesis SR-16 is my "go to" for drums in my home recording studio (I use Sonar X2 recording software).

EZ Drummer software has a standalone player mode that will play a drum loop thru your computer speakers. That could then be recorded into your AW1600 if that is what you want to do.

If you want to learn about the EZ Drummer software, this might be money well spent:
http://www.groove3.com/str/EZdrummer-fo ... ained.html

If all you want is to play a single loop, a easier method might a simple drum machine, such as an Alesis SR-16 or similar.

Hope this helps,
Al

There's many ways to do what you need. Using EZDrummer with Reaper will allow you to create a drum track that can be rendered to a .wav file and downloaded to your AW1600. I used the AW1600 and AW 2400 that way for years. A drum machine will also do that pretty well. If you use EZDrummer with a tool like Reaper, it's easy to edit the midi patterns, actually much easier than on most drum machines. I could show you how to do this in a few minutes but it's very tedious to type all the steps. EZDrummer in stand alone mode is not very useful.

Here's an overview of how I used the AW-1600 with the Boss DR-3 and 880:

http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Home%20Recor ... rding.html


Greg

I purchased an Alesis sr-16 several years ago. I'm just now getting serious about it. It's easy to use once you work with it for a while. I'm reprogramming the factory presets in "user" mode. I programmed 2 personalized drum sets. I'm duplicating what I hear from Vince Gill cd's. True 4/4 with rim shot on some programs and with snare on others. You have to get into the guts of the machine and tune your drum sets and reprogram the patterns. But, it's a studio kick @$$ sound. If anyone is into the step mode and drum set programming, I can mail the sound charts of what I have so far. It's a time consuming process, but worth it to fine tune the sr-16 to your own taste. I also have the 4 outputs on the sr-16 going to seperate channels on my mixer for fine tuning the tone on kick, snare, cymbals.

Dennis I sent you an email..

Dennis, I have also sent you an email. thanks Winston May