Getting drum samples out of your head and into your sequencer can be a daunting task to noobs and the pros as well. There are actually many methods that are promoted on forums and other online spots, but two have come out on top in most debates over and over: tapping them in via dedicated MIDI controllers or using software to draw them in using a visual ‘piano roll’ editor.

Drawing in drum samples into a piano roll editor is very easy on the eyes and the muscles as well. No physical input or effort is required, and you can even do it while slouching in your chair! It’s also very fast to put out, because one can simply click and draw. Getting sounds from your head to the screen and out of the speakers has never really been easier than this, and that’s why it’s so popular!

Tapping out drum samples requires some MIDI hardware and a good sense of rhythm in most cases. These days, many programs actually supporting mapping the keys of a regular computer keyboard to musical notes in your sequencer program, establishing, for instance, the letter B on the keyboard to the note D3 in the piano roll, which could be assigned to a snare sample.

One of the advantages of using a physical, dedicated hardware controller to insert drum samples is the fact that you don’t need to be watching the screen every other second. It’s really easy to just sit back away from the screen, like on the couch or by the keyboard, and start tapping. For semi-permanent moving, some of the hardware devices even come with CC messages that transfer stop/start/pause commands to your sequencer host (like Cubase or Sonar), so you can control a few functions from here, too.

Each has their disadvantages as well. With tapping in drum samples, you need to be careful and pay attention to the velocity. Unless you want a very stale drum track, you should vary the velocity of the different drum samples and also the panning sometimes as well. It’s sometimes very hard to create a natural-sounding pattern by simply clicking in. One major drawback is that clicking can sometimes result in auto-quantization, where all the notes ‘snap’ to a grid structure, which sounds even more robotic.

Tapping in drum samples on your beat pads is another story as well. It can be very hard to come up with intricate patterns on the fly, and sometimes just as hard trying to do them one line at a time. Many of the top producers that use machines like the MPC2000 like to build the foundation drums first – kick, snare, hi-hat, before attempting to flesh out the rest. This is a good way to build up the beat without needing to think about 5-9 different samples at the same time.

Want to find out more about drum samples? Then visit http://www.mydrumsamples.com/ for all your needs.