Saturday, November 26, 2016

Soundfont with Akai MPD and Live Drums

This is a type of track I’ve wanted to do for a while. I’ve had the idea of making a song on the Akai MPD24 and playing drums to it, but was stuck with how to use the MPD with Linux. I finally figured out how to create a soundfont from samples I cut up myself and using fluid synth as a means to play them. Using a soundfont gives me nearly as much control, and in some ways more than Ableton’s drum rack. I don’t have anything against Ableton, it’s great software. I just wanted to produce this whole track within Linux. I mixed it all in Mixbus, but still edited the video in Windows, Vegas Movie Studio. My cameras record in MTS which kdenlive in Linux has some problems with. I worked around this on the last few vids, but forgot this time, so rather than go convert everything again then re-edit in Kdenlive, I thought it would just be quicker and easier to do it in Vegas.

Sorry for the long-winded explanation. thanks for watching and commenting 🙂

Drum setup:
Custom Tama Imperialstar Hairline Blue finish 18×20 kick, 8×12 rack, 14×14 floor, 5×14 snare
Tama Iron Cobra hi hat stand (main hats)
Vintage Olympic hi hat stand (trash hats)
Ludwig flat base straight stands (crashes)
PDP boom stand (ride)
Vintage Nuvader Nickel Silver 15″ Hi Hats
Meinl HCS 8″ Bell
Kasza 17″ Dirty Bell crash cymbal
Vintage NuVader 22″ ride cymbal (Nickel Silver)
Meinl HCS 16″ Trash Crash / Generic 16″ brass crash bottom (trash hats)
Vintage Camber 18″ Crash Cymbal (Brass)
Aquarian Studio X on tom batters
Tama single ply clear tom resonants
Aquarian Studio X Dot on snare batter
Tama thin clear snare resonant
Aquarian Response 2 Coated kick batter
Remo Vintage Emperor w/ Kickport 2 on kick resonant
DW 6000 kick pedal (sucks, I want a new pedal)
Vintage flat base Slingerland snare stand
Vintage MIJ canister throne

Mics on this one I did something new. I used only a kick and overhead, then blended that with the camcorder mic from my Sony HDR-CX240. It made it a very raw and cool sound. There is also some slight decimator (bit crusher) effect on the kick and overhead mics.

Updated drum lesson playlist

It's hard for me to update this website constantly with all of the new drum lessons I am making, so I figured I would make a playlist wh...