Overview

Drummer overview

Drummer allows you to add virtual drummers to your project, using Drummer tracks. You can create as many Drummer tracks as you like per project. You can choose drummers from different genres—Rock, Alternative, Songwriter, R&B, Electronic, and Hip Hop. Each drummer comes with its own acoustic drum kit (Rock, Alternative, Songwriter, R&B) or electronic drum kit (Electronic, Hip Hop) and a distinct playing style.

You can change the drummer’s playing style in the Drummer Editor by choosing different presets, tweaking the generated pattern using various settings, or having Drummer regions follow the rhythm of another track in the project.

Note: To edit Drummer regions in the Piano Roll Editor, Event List, or Step Editor, you first need to convert them to MIDI regions.

You can further influence the sound of the drums by choosing patches in the Library or by exchanging drums and editing the settings of individual kit pieces in Drum Kit Designer or Drum Machine Designer.

Figure. Shows a Drummer track containing Drummer regions, and the Drummer Editor.

When you add a Drummer track to your project, a drummer and a default patch associated with that drummer are loaded. The default patch is based on a stereo mixdown of the full, multi-miked drum kit mix. These patches are optimized for performance and recommended while using the Drummer Editor to compose and edit the drum performance. Once you’re happy with a drummer’s performance and want to fine-tune the actual drum kit mix, you can replace the stereo mixdown with the original producer patch (Producer Kit), offering full access to all mix options.

Add a Drummer track

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Choose Track > New Drummer Track. (If you use this method, you can skip steps 2 and 3.)

    • Choose Track > New Tracks (or press Option-Command-N).

    • Click the Add Tracks button above the track headers.

  2. In the New Tracks dialog, select the Drummer track and choose a genre from the Genre pop-up menu.

  3. Click Create.

    • If the project does not have arrangement markers: A Drummer track containing two 8-bar regions is created. Two different presets associated with the drummer are loaded to the two regions.

      Figure. A Drummer track containing two 8-bar regions.

    • If the project has arrangement markers: A Drummer track containing as many regions as there are arrangement markers is created. The length and name of the Drummer regions correspond to the existing arrangement markers.

      Figure. A Drummer track containing five regions to match the five arrangement markers.

Create an additional region on a Drummer track

  • Control-click an empty area of the Drummer track, then choose Create Drummer Region from the shortcut menu.

A new 8-bar region is created at the downbeat that precedes the clicked position. However, if an arrangement marker exists at this position, the region will match the length and name of the marker.

Fill the entire Drummer track with regions

  • Control-click an empty area of the Drummer track, then choose Populate with Drummer Regions from the shortcut menu.

The Drummer track is filled with regions up to the project end point. Gaps are filled with 8-bar regions as much as possible, without overwriting existing regions. Any gaps smaller than one bar will not be filled; the expectation is that such gaps were created for short pauses, for example. If an arrangement track exists, as many regions as there are arrangement markers are created, with the length and name of the regions corresponding to the markers.