This topic may be further afield than most church drummers worry about, but I've been trying to figure out how to record my drum patterns without setting up a complete recording studio on my bedroom.
I was once asked to phone a drummer, and leave a recording of myself playing the pattern on her answering machine, so she could relisten to it whenever she was unsure of her pattern. That was a really clever way of getting a practice pattern.
Sometimes I don't have the right drums in the right place, so I tried using my 'Finale' program to both write out and play the patterns. This simply didn't work, because the single line staff doesn't have enough room for all of those midi sounds. Then I decided to try to get the sounds I wanted out of my GarageBand program. This was more successful, but I found that it didn't work to simply save my Finale file as a midi file. Instead, I print out the music, then use this formula for creating the sounds I want:
Cowbell - Rock Kit, Choose from G#2(low), G#3(mid) and G3(high). Use only one of them, to simulate the single tone of a cowbell.
Gankogui - African Kit. I write it out in Major 7ths to avoid too much of a tonal sound
Low bell: A2 & G#3 High bell: G#2 & G3
Axatse - African Kit. lap hit = A3, hand hit = F#2
high djembe - African kit. E1 is a nice strong tone or slap, F1 is a lower, more bass tone.
Mid djembe - African Kit. C#1 is a tone, D1 is a bass. Not much differentiation between the bass and tone, but it works as a secondary drum part.
Kpanlogo or bougerebu - African Kit. Nice low frequencies, I think these are actually African conga sounds, but they have a nice punch. Bass is A0, Tone or slap is A# 0.
For more contrast C1 for tone, A#0is slap, and G0 is bass.
Talking drum - African Kit. Actually a log drum sound, I think, but it gives a nice tonal sound that's distinctly higher than the djembes. Played from A5 to B6.
I write the pattern out using the bars in GarageBand. It's easy to move the bars and adjust their length. I also make sure that the beginning of measures, and other accent points are given a little more velocity, so that accents feel like they're falling in the right places. Then, once I have a complete pattern, I move the cursor to top right end corner of the green ribbon, and (when it turns to a circular line with an arrow) I pull to the right. The pattern repeats until the point where you stop pulling.
I suspect there's an easier way to do this, but this works for me with programs I already own and use. I've used drum programs that work well, but don't have the variety of sounds I want. The African Kit is from the 'World Music' expansion pack for GarageBand, and GarageBand is part of the iLife software that comes free with a Mac, or can be purchased for the OSX operating system. It doesn't work with Windows, and although I know there are decent programs out there for that system, I don't know what they are, or what they cost.
After I return from my vacation, I will add some more sound samples to this post so everyone can hear what the instrument sounds are really like. My previous post has the 'Hallelujah in 3' pattern near the end of the post, and the audio recording was done using this method.
Please leave feedback if you are reading this. I'd love a 'shout-out' from some of the synod school folks!
