The Reaper Thread

From what I have seen up to now, I find creating slightly more complex drum parts easier in Reaper or Ableton than in drumbit.

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You need to find ones you like and download them (or make them yourself). I had thought he mentioned that in the video but apparently he doesn’t.

There’s a bunch online if you google. Here’s some on the cockos forums:

Yeah, there’s a reason I own a MIDI drum machine. I just find them very easy to use for simple stuff. And for programming more complex rhythms (which drum machine UI’s suck at in my experience), I set up a mapping in reaper so I can control my drum machine from within Reaper via MIDI just like Kenny does in that video - instead of playing samples with Reaper’s sampler, I send the MIDI to my drum machine and it plays its sounds.

Another thing you can do is just use a drum kit VST and control it with MIDI. That way you get an actual drum machine or drum kit inside Reaper, with a nice UI, much like the drums in GarageBand or Logic. You then control it with MIDI. For example, here’s a free one I found at random that also comes with a bunch of fills and patterns.

I haven’t tried that one, just posting it as an example. Googling “best free drum VST” should turn up lots of hits - there’s a lot of these. For example I got one that one came free with Cakewalk when I installed it, but since it’s a VST, it’s available for me in Reaper too, even though I don’t use Cakewalk.

However, note that learning how to install and use virtual instruments is advanced (you need to understand how to use MIDI) and has a learning curve that it will take a while to get the hang of. But it’s also one of the reasons I bought Reaper.

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with Kernel Panic we had no drummer and we used to programm the drum lines on Reason. it’s kinda close of a hardware drum machine. but it’s not very comfortable to work in two times, having to switch from Reason to Reaper.

the (hardware) Digitech Trio I had was fun and very “immediate”, but not a studio-level drum machine. so I sold it after recording only one song with it.

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Reason looks incredible for synths but maybe not as easy to use for drums as reaper, yeah. I have a friend that really loves Reason though.

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Yes, he has a tendency to skip stuff. I spend more time figuring that out than watching his instructions.
I do seem to have a sensitivity to presentation styles (which may have helped in selecting the B2B course).
Kenny talks like a maladjusted machine. Most of his syllables are 32nd notes, and he uses a lot of quarter rests… it comes out like intermittent machine gun fire. :wink:

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It’s even worse for native speakers - I’m like, dude, do you really talk like that?

Still, he’s informative and has exhaustively tutorialled the app.

There’s lots of other tutorials out there too of course. It’s a widely used app.

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I’ve been looking at MIDI drum machines, but they seem to be a bit pricey. Which one do you have/recommend?

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I have a Zoom RT-223 from the '90s. I like it but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to others as a first drum machine.

Kind of the longtime standard drum machine that’s been made for decades is the Alesis SR-16. I think @eric.kiser has one?

Korg is making a line of inexpensive drum machines under the Volca line, but most of them are very electronic sounding. There’s one that’s a sampler that is kind of cool though.

An absolute classic would be either the Roland TR-08 or TR-09, affordable remakes of the original TR-808 and TR-909, iconic drum machines that kind of defined the sound of the '80s and '90s. But more spendy and unless it’s exactly what you want then you probably won’t want it.

Behringer has also cloned the TR-808.

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@eric.kiser do you recommend it?

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Also, if you just want drum patterns to play to, your Zoom B1four has a nice little drum machine in it with lots of patterns. You only need something different for composing your own drum lines for songs.

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Yeah, I use that frequently. I’m wondering if there’s a way to record them onto a track in Reaper hmmmm :thinking:

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Of course there is, just like you record anything else :slight_smile:

Make a track, start recording, play the drum pattern in to it.

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@howard that’s too simple. I was expecting something more complicated :rofl: :roll_eyes:

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I got the Alesis SR-16 for my son. I haven’t had an opportunity to play with very much but what I did get to use, I thought was pretty damn cool. The drum sounds were much better than I expected.

I did a lot of research before I got it. For it’s price range, the Alesis SR-16 still makes it into top 10 lists after being released 30 years ago. If I got a drum machine for myself, it would definitely be this one.

@Lanny has the Alesis SR-18. It’s the SR-16’s bigger brother. I researched it and would still go with the SR-16. The SR-18 costs more and has more features but also adds complexity and I liked the simplicity of the SR-16.

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How do they compare to the drum sounds from the Zoom effects processor?

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I don’t have any Zoom gear. So I can’t compare. I can say, since it’s from 1990, I expected them to sound all retro electronic and I was very pleased with how real they sounded.

When we first started playing with it me and my son just looked at each other with both of us saying how surprised we were at the quality of the drum sounds.

That’s just us though. Your ears may tell you something completely different.

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Oh the SR-16 has much better drum samples than the patterns in the Zoom. Which aren’t bad at all, but this is like comparing apples and oranges. The SR-16 is a professional level drum machine that has been used on hundreds of albums. It’s one of the most popular and well used drum machines of all time - they’ve been making it since 1990.

Pumpkins used it in this song, for example:

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That video gave me GAS. I just ordered the SR-16

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Ha!

Well you are getting something that I wanted bad back in 1990, so congrats :slight_smile:

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That is so cool! I had no idea the drums in that song are from the SR-16.

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