[tip] my drumkit

hi guys, i had an idea about mapping some drums the other day and finally sat down last night to implement it and it worked like a charm! the idea is pretty simple. personally i love having a ton of drum samples, but i mainly use the 808 and 909 with other drums layered to create my drum sounds. even though i was pleased with the factory 808 and 909 kits, i got annoyed not having them in one group. so i took the time to map the drum machine sounds i like across the keyboard for each sound. for example, i've got 808bd on c3, 909bd on c#3, 606bd on d3, etc.

there are some great advantages to taking the time to do this. #1 for me, i have all my 'bread and butter' drum sounds available in one kit without having to load or browse. so far the uses i've found have been: a) when programming your drums, you can go into 'keyboard' pad mode and audition your drum sounds.. when you find one you like, simply change the base key to set the pad to that drum. b) after you have a drum pattern recorded in step mode, you can hold down a pad and twist the pitch/transpose knob to change the selected drum sound. for me this is useful as i can sketch out a beat using an 808 that doesn't have much decay and if i later feel like i need the extra decay, i can simply select a kick i have loaded that suits my needs. since working like this, my eyes have been opened to the 'sampler' side of the maschine and i'm pretty impressed! its like a simple kontakt/battery.

if you like that setup, you can also map more than one sample to a key for some good results that really open up the step seq. for example, i have some conga sounds, closed, open, and mute. i'll set closed to one key, then open and mute to another key, with one sample going from 0-63 velocity and the other going from 64-128 velocity. this way i can select 'full velocity' or 'half velocity' when programming hits in the step sequencer to choose variations of the same sound.

just thought id share my little technique with you guys. does anyone have anything they can add to my tip? i'm all ears!