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I’ve been a fan of drum machines since 1985 when I bought a Roland TR-707. Since then, I’ve also owned Yamaha’s gritty RX5, Roland’s R8, Alesis’ HR16 and HR16B and a couple of others (including a rather twitchy Oberheim DX). I loved all of these machines for one particular reason or another and, admittedly, miss them all for their own special sounds. And I know I’m not alone in that. It’s no surprise, then, that so many people have turned to sample libraries to recreate some of those classic sounds. There have also been several virtual instruments designed to emulate some of these classic boxes.
I was pleasantly surprised recently when I discovered a website dedicated to samples of many classic drum machines. This is, in fact, the largest collection of drum machine samples I’ve ever seen. The website is samples.kb6.de and there are samples to download from over 300 different drum machines including the venerable TR-808, the TR-909 and even some modern classics like Roger Linn’s Tempest and Elektron’s MachineDrum. What’s more…they’re free! If you decide that you really like the samples, you can donate to help keep the site alive and the owner will even send you download links to every sample on the site as one large download and he even includes several more sets of samples that aren’t listed directly on the site. So, you get a bonus if you are kind enough to contribute.
So…how do you get those samples into Studio One in such a way that you can use them in your productions? Let’s take a look at three ways you can use them very easily in Studio One…
Drag and Drop
As with any pretty much any DAW, Studio One allows you to drag samples onto audio tracks and copy and paste to your heart’s content. This is the most obvious way, but can be a bit tedious at times.
Select the folder to tab.
1. Let’s start by creating a tab in Studio One’s browser for all the drum machine samples. Press [F5] and select files (you can also choose [F9] to go straight to the Files section). Choose the folder where your KB6 samples are stored and [Right]-Click on it and select “New Tab From Here.” This will give you a Tab where all these samples can be quickly found.
2. Now find the samples you want to use. For this tutorial, I went for a classic and used Roland TR-909 samples. First, I grabbed a kick drum that I liked and dragged it onto the blank arrange area. This creates a new audio track with that sample on it. Now, just repeat the clip as many times as you want either using [Alt/Option]-Click and drag. You can also repeat a note with it’s timeline position using the duplicate command [D].
3. When you’re happy with your first track (or 4 bar loop or whatever), move on to the snare. Just repeat Step 2 and drag the snare to the blank area in the arranger. Now arrange your snares as you see fit.
4. Continue this arrangement using individual samples. If you find your sounds are too static you can adjust the timing of individual notes or change the individual volumes of each clip (like on hi-hats) to give a more natural feel.
5. Now, mix your tracks. The beauty of this method is that you already have individual tracks for each sound so you can process each track the way you see fit.
Audition samples with these controls.
NOTE: When auditioning samples, click the loop icon at the bottom of the browser and then double-click the sample you want to hear. Two things will happen: (1) You’ll hear the sample repeated over and over; (2) You’ll be able to use the up and down arrows to move from one sample to the next and still hear them looped over and over. Oh, and if you rename your sample clip before you start copying it, it will retain the name you’ve given it (ie. Kick, snare, conga, etc.).
Create Custom Kits with Impact
This is, in my opinion, much easier in the long run than dropping samples on audio tracks.
1. We’ll start the same as in the previous section with Step 1 being to create your own custom drum machine samples tab.
2. Now, drag an instance of Impact from the Instruments section of the browser to empty space in the Arrange area. This will create an Instrument Track and route it for you.
3. The next step is to start grabbing your samples and dragging them onto the pad in Impact. Once you’ve chosen all your samples for your custom kit, you should save it. Now the fun begins…
4. Just below each pad in Impact, there’s a Solo button, a Mute button, and an output dropdown menu. Use the dropdown menu to select mono outputs for each of your main drum instruments (kicks, snares, claps, hats, etc). This makes mixing and processing much easier later. It also means you can add FX to individual drums on the mixing channels.
5. This is where Impact really shines. Impact features Choke Groups. These allow drums elements to function more realistically. For instance, click your closed hi-hat pad and select Choke Group 1. Now, click the pedal hi-hat pad and choose Choke Group 1. Finally, click the open hi-hat pad and (you guessed it) choose Choke Group 1. When you are banging along on your closed hi-hat and then hit an open hi-hat, the closed hi-hat will stop playing until the open hi-hat sample is finished. This makes the hi-hats sound more natural. The same can be accomplished with other percussive elements like shakers.
6. The other cool think about Impact is that you can take several samples of the same instrument (snare, for example) that are all at different volumes and drop them on one pad. Suddenly, you have a multi-velocity snare. As you hit it harder, the louder snares sound. As you hit it more quietly, softer snares sound. This can be adjusted to your liking and can make your drums much more expressive.
Adding Multi-Samples to Impact.
7. Now double-click on the instrument track to create a note container. Then, double-click on the container and it will bring up a drum note grid. Each percussion element will be listed at the left side and the lane next to each is where you’ll place your notes. At the bottom of this window is where you can adjust the velocity of each note.
NOTE: There are some other cool features in Impact like:
- Round Robin (where multiple samples on one pad are played one after another so it doesn’t sound so machine-like).
- Random (where samples on a pad are played randomly)
- Pitch (where you can transpose and tune samples per pad to your liking)
- Filter (this section lets you filter and tailor the sound of each sample)
- Amp (this section lets you adjust the attack, decay and sustain of the sample. You can also adjust the relative volume and panning of each sample and create a nice stereo kit).
Explore Impact – It’s a very flexible way to create (and recall) custom drum kits in Studio One!
Sample One
The third option is to use Sample One and create a drum instrument. This is just like creating a drum kit in a classic hardware sampler where each sample is assigned to a different key across the keyboard.
1. We’ll start the same as in the previous section with Step 1 being to create your own custom drum machine samples tab.
2. Now, drag an instance of Sample One from the Instruments section of the browser to empty space in the Arrange area. This will create an Instrument Track and route it for you.
3. Now, go through and drag samples onto Sample One. They will stack one-by-one in the right column of the Sample One interface.
4. Once you have all your samples in Sample One we can start assigning them to a key. The best way to do this is to select a Root Key by double-clicking the root key selection at the top-left of the interface. Repeat this step with the Low and Hi assign keys as well. Make sure you use the same note as the Root Key or your drum samples will overlap each other.
5. Once you’ve assigned all your samples across the keyboard, you can go back and select each sample for processing. Start by selecting a sample from the right column list.
6. Now you can Tune, Filter, change the Amp settings, and even set an LFO to modify the sound of the sample (although this is more intended for longer samples, you can certainly experiment here).
7. One last thing to mention here: You can also adjust whether the sample loops, sustains or plays as a one-shot sample by clicking the drop-down at the top of the sample window. Selecting Loop or Sustain will also allow you to change the start and end times of the sample.
8. Now that you’ve processed all your drum samples to your liking, remember to save your kit!
Sample One is also a very flexible instrument, which allows you to process your drums in many different ways and store your drum kit creations for instant recall. You could even create kits of just snares or just kicks so that you can audition tons of the same instrument – all from the keyboard.
Oh, One Last Thing…
Save your instruments with FX in Studio One 3!
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that, as of Studio One 3, you can now add FX to any instrument and store the whole thing as an Instrument/FX preset. This adds tons more flexibility to drum creation. Instead of just storing as a preset, you would store as an Instrument+FX Preset.
Conclusion
Studio One offers some excellent ways to create drum tracks. Each option has its strengths and weaknesses. You should try each and see what works best for you. Adding the KB6 Drum Library will provide you with almost any drum machine you could possibly want. You can also mix and match elements from several different machines and process them with the instruments in Studio One to give you the ultimate drum machine for use in your productions!
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