Review: Submersible Music DrumCore 2.5
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Mix-and-Match Down

The last step is to convert the MIDI clip to audio and, if your DAW allows, convert that into a clip that will let you create iterations of your one- or two-bar phrase like Sonar's Groove Clip feature does. This is where you can stop the microsurgery and get on to recording.

When you get comfortable with this technique, it's time to mix and match. The many variations of each groove you get with DrumCore make that easy. If you used a simple groove to start with, you can more easily find a variation that you can use with little trouble. Notice in Figure 7 how I've put a second DrumCore groove on track 3, below the one I already modified on track 2.

Fig. 7: You can line up two variations of a MIDI groove file to mix their contents.

Obviously, little or nothing in the first three beats of these two grooves lines up and they'll sound awful together:

• Two Bad Tracks (52KB MP3)

But, the cool little 16th-note fill on the fourth beat has potential to add interest. So I deleted everything in the new track 3 groove from beat 1 up to beat 4. Then I deleted the second note of the 16th-note fill, and quantized the three remaining notes to 8th-note triplets to give a shuffle feel. (See Figure 8.) Then I deleted all the notes in the last bar of track 2, and copied the two 16th notes into that track in the same location as they are in track 3. That gives a nice fill that works well at the end of a two-bar phrase:

• Two-Bar Fill (52KB MP3)

Fig. 8: By deleting redundant or incompatible notes, and re-quantizing what's left, you can create a new groove.

These changes are small, but provide a simple, effective way to add more life and realism to a drum track. It continues to amaze me how even a simple phrase like this played by a pro sounds better than anything I could produce without hours of tweaking.

Conclusion

I also had fun using grooves from different styles — like jazz brushes with a rock tune — and mixing audio grooves from different drummers, and even styles within the bar and swapping instruments. DrumCore's top-notch sounds and unique database design make it so easy to find and adjust grooves that you may discover, as I did, that the hassles of producing quality drum tracks in a home studio melt away.

To hear some samples using DrumCore on a commercial movie soundtrack, check out Astropuppies in Space, my new DVD for children. For even more audio examples, along with the surprising story behind the company, visit SubmersibleMusic.com.