Drum Machine Designer overview

Drum Machine Designer lets you build custom electronic drum kits from a wide selection of drum and percussion sounds. It also provides controls that change the sound characteristics of each piece in your kit. It is compatible with the General MIDI (GM) standard.

The interface is divided into the following main areas:

Figure. Drum Machine Designer showing the drum grid and Smart Controls area.
  • Drum grid: Click a drum cell to play its sound. Each cell offers its own kit piece or sound.

  • Smart Controls area: Updates according to the currently selected drum kit or drum kit piece. You can edit individual parameter values.

Open Drum Machine Designer

  1. Choose an Electronic or Hip Hop drummer track, or a software instrument track.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • In the Drummer Editor: Click the plug-in button (shows the default patch associated with the drummer) at the bottom of the drummer’s card.

      Figure. The Drum Machine Designer plug-in button in the Drummer Editor.
    • In the inspector or Mixer: Click Drum Machine Designer in the Drummer track’s respective channel strip slot.

    • In a software instrument channel strip: Click the Instrument slot, then choose Drum Machine Designer from the pop-up menu.