Redrum: Making Your Own Drum Kit

 

Today we are going to continue learning how to use the Redrum Drum Machine.  On Tuesday you made your first drum beats by using pre-made drum kits in the Redrum Drum Kits folder.  Today we are going to learn how to select your own drum sounds to make your own custom made drum kit.

Lets review the steps that come before creating your own drum kit.  First, create a new Reason document.  Then, you must always start by creating the Mixer 14:2.  Once you have done this you can create your instruments.  

Now you can go to the create menu and create a Redrum Drum Machine.  On the Redrum, you can load up to 10 different drum sounds.  Notice the 10 numbered tracks that look like the image to the right->.  On each track you should find a Folder icon.  If you click on the folder icon a window will pop up, just like when we loaded a full drum kit.  To find single drum sound select Reason Factory Sound Bank, then look for the Redrum Drum Kits folder.  Inside this folder you will find Xclusive Drums-Sorted at the very bottom of the list.  This folder contains several categories of drum sounds.  

Assignment

For today's assignment we will create our own drum kits and use the individual sounds that we picked to create a pattern. We will then save our created drum kits as well as our beats. Here are the steps to follow.

1. Open Reason.

2. Create a Mixer 14:2.

3. Set your tempo anywhere between 80-100bpm.

4. Create a Redrum Drum Computer.

5. Click the folder on Sound 1. Go to Reason Factory Sound Bank: Redrum Drum Kits. You should see the Xclusive drums folder. Click it and drag it in the same menu that you see the Reason Factory Sound Bank.

This will make it easier to locate this folder from now on. Now, click on either the folder 02_Snaredrums or 04_Claps. Pick a Snare or Clap of your choice and click it on boxes 5 & 13.

6. Click the folder on Sound 2. Go to Xclusive Drums: 01_Bassdrums. Pick a Bass drum of your choice. Click it on box 1 and 2-4 boxes of your choice.

7. Click the folder on Sound 3. Go to Xclusive Drums: 05_HiHats. Pick the Hi Hat of your choice and put it on any boxes that you want.

8. Click the folder on Sound 4. Go to Xclusive Drums: Choose a sound from either 07_Percussion-Hi or 08_Percussion-Other and click it on any boxes that you want.

You now have a 4 sound beginners drum kit. To save this drum kit, click on the disk icon on the bottom left of the Redrum. Save the kit in your folder as (your name) drum kit 1. Also go to File: Save As and save the Reason document in your folder. You can name it whatever you want, but do NOT leave it as "untitled" as this can become confusing later down the line.

When you are finished, start a new Reason document. Use the methods learned in this lesson & assignment to create another drum kit using at least 3 sounds.