[linux-audio-user] RE: More Homemade Muzak

[Steve D]

On Wed, May 18, 2005 at 10:37:44AM +0100, james at dis-dot-dat.net wrote:
> Damn you.  The drums are really good.
> 
> I just hate it when people can be so good at something first time.
--- ---

Thanks James-- ;-) You have no idea how hard I tried and how many
"takes" it took and how many progressive versions of just the
drums-played-on-a-MIDI-keyboard track existed before the one that's in
the file now.

But you know, it was kind of fun using my fingers like drum sticks. Of
course, I had to pick percussion sounds that were all (or mostly) within
finger-span distance of my hands in order to play them fast enough in
real time to record. Fortunately, a "dry kick bass," two high-hats that
gave me that shuffle beat, a rim-shot snare drum, and two congas were
all close together enough on the keyboard that they were directly under
each of my hands. All of the drums were recorded at the same time on
just one digital-audio track in Audacity. I didn't try to get fancier
than that, for this time at least.

Using a MIDI keyboard to play drums, whether to create a General MIDI
percussion track or record the patches in real time, is definitely a
challenge. But it's also kind of fun and I think that a keyboard player
could get used to it, although the results would be limited (a keyboard
player might have trouble perfectly recreating some of the fast rolls
and riffs and fills that a real drummer can produce).

-sd
-- 
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