whats the secret to making good sounding drum tracks/beats with reaper? how do you guys do it, mouse and keyboard, or something special?
i have steven slate EX with all expansions. should i buy S2.0 too then?

ANy help?

Mouse and keyboard or something special?? Wat.

Load which ever midi drum program you have into reaper, make a midi track. Multichannel all drum parts for their own track i.e. kick , snare , cymbals etc..... Eq / add fx to the fx bank to your liking. Idk what " good sounding " is. Use your ears.

Something special as in midi programmer or drum pad controller etc.


How do i multichannel all the drum parts?

First things first, insert virtual instrument on new track in reaper. Do that by right clicking where you would put a new track into your reaper.

Go to the drum sampler > click open mixer or something of the sort > in the output section , the tracks should pop up and select multichannel.

In order to record the best drum tracks you not only need the most recent drum software, you also need an electronic drum kit to trigger it. It needs the nuance and realism of a human triggering the samples to sound believable. A good starter kit for this purpose is the Roland TD-20, it should have enough of the general gadgets to make things happen.

It also really helps to have a good room to trigger your drums in. Someplace with a high ceiling, at least the size of a two car garage, with lots of wood surfaces is ideal. The room sound adds so much warmth and size to the MIDI tracks.

fuck thats expensive, and i can't even play drums

Oh don't worry, those electronic drums practically play themselves. They were pretty much designed for guitarists like us to make our tracks. They're very forgiving...

good point but how am i gonna afford a 2,500 dollar set? fuck

Ya honestly youll have to buy a lot more gear to get some gnar drums........

SD2 is simple enough.

Insert Virtual Instrument on new track, SD2 will split up all of the channels and everything for you.

Create a new midi item, right click on it and hit open up the editor or something and that will bring up the piano roll. Then, use the roll to program your drums. That is the easiest way I have done it

As far as getting it to sound good, you can control all of the parameters for each drum with the SD2 software .

Well, if you want REAL, QUALITY sounding drums you're gonna have to drop some serious cash on extremely expensive software and have all analog tube outboard gear to really fully utilize it.
That neutralizes the digital, harsh high end response in the cymbal samples.
Then you send that through a boutique spring reverb to simulate a large room, OR blast it through a hi-fi amplifier in a cathedral in very, VERY specific acoustic surfaces and mic it with top of the line ribbon mics.
That's how the PROS do it atleast.

To do otherwise is futile.

I do otherwise and am quite content. However, I am not looking for a very warm analog tone in general. I quite like my digital harshness

Yes, this basically. In a pinch you can hook it up to a spring reverb... but I am definitely preferential to tracking MIDI drums in a great room.

Yeah, if you want to do it the right way.


Hipsters don't do it right.

I track drums in a turn-of-the-century bank vault. It's really how to roll. For MIDI drums, I like to blast them through a big tube pre with NOS Mullard 12AT7s to rough them up a bit. Mix-wise, through the SSL console and whatever compressor we're not using on something else- probably just an 1176 or Purple Audio MC77, maybe even the dynamics section on the board itself, and an SPL Transient Designer rack unit.

Yields results.