SAE Magazine 13-2

Working with samples has become rather sophisti- cated, especially in pop productions where in most cases it is false economy to pay the enormous expenses to record a real drummer. Generally speaking, the mastering of pop music limits its dynamic range rather drastically, so much so that the 128 velocity levels of electronic drums carry little weight anyway. Even drum rolls and quickly played passages, which contain inherent human fluctuations, will often be replaced with drum loops, perfectly edited to sound the same but contain no fluctuations. The drum does not have a stand-out role in this genre. However, this is different in disciplines such as jazz, where the music benefits from the interaction and interplay of the musicians and their range of dynamics. The drum does not play a subordinate role but is also played as a solo instrument. Yet it is not possible — due to the electronic drum’s techno- logical limitations and the missing link between the different pads — to play highly complex drum solos on them 100% authentically. n Index s will often produce dis- u then take into account er as well as drum trans- t the whole venture is very ore reasonable alternative udio or invest in specialist quite a few decent drum s than 200 euros. These r” by Native Instruments Steven Slate which have ware. logy it is possible to cus- arameters in order to pro- as authentic as possible. ded by gifted drummers programmed MIDI tracks, create timing fluctuations, be changed automatically. o chambers lend the sound acks. sound in your recordings, ronic drum kit (prices are euros), connect it to your a drummer play it in. ng with samples are clear. ent into software, maybe ectronic drum kit and the ou can create drum tracks and can sound great. n between opting for eal drum kit is one for the Sampling In its basic sense, sampling is nothing else than giving an analogue source a digital makeover. By converting it from analogue to digital, continuous physical signals are being separated into finite values and usually stored by a hard sampling or software sampler. Some parameters such as velocity, pitch, and envelope curve may be altered later by the sampler. n Infobox

SAE Magazine 13-2

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