Beatsmithing: MIDI-Tap or Mouse-Klick?

[three]

This is an easy question. I'm just curious how many of you write/draw your beats on the grid with a mouse, and how many of you tap/play/input them with some kind of instrument, keyboard, mouth harmonia, controller or whatever.

I'll go first: though I have a drum pad available that i could tap on, it's only there because it's attached to the rest of my MIDI controller. Never even tried the pads to see if they work.

[kaffein]

I have a padKontrol but I still mouse in my beats.

[ohmpow]

midi and pad kontrol here...
occasionally i like to just close my eyes and pound away...sorry too much information

philthy
ohmpow

[Dan Dare]

Midi Input.

[Tone Deft]

both.

[selthym]

With a mouse,

I have a padKontrol but my fingers don't move quick enough to tap out beats at 135 - 170bpm.

I can create a 4 bar loop with the mouse quicker than recording the Kick, the recording the snare, then the hats etc.

I occasionally play in my hats though.

I just wish there was a simple way I could use my padKontrol pads to write my loops step sequencer style and then record these in. The hacks so far (including my own) have some limitations, normally only allowing 1 bar at aa time.

[three]

he hacks so far (including my own) have some limitations, normally only allowing 1 bar at aa time.

Do you mean synth/bass loops? I've been trying to avoid that as well, i wrote a long lead line that ended up way too jazzy over the weekend but mostly i've been making massive patches that generate at least a bar of music per note for the lead, and cutting back on notes in the bass try to make each one count. Save on MIDI notes that way ;p

Cheers,

Chris

[Machinate]

2, 3 and 4, although we all know loops are sampled, not bought.

[Khazul]

Use an MPC then record into live as midi.

[three]

2, 3 and 4, although we all know loops are sampled, not bought.

That's a good point, we think we control the beats, but they're let loose in a room full of party people, they take power!

[contakt321]

I do a combination of drawing them in and playing them on pads.

I typically draw in the kick on the 1 of each bar and then the snares on the 2's and 4's and then I play everything else.

When I play the other kicks and percussion I usually don't quantize so I go back w/ the mouse and clean things up and slide things around.

It's how I worked on the MPC2000 as well except no mouse, I would scroll through in step mode.

[selthym]

he hacks so far (including my own) have some limitations, normally only allowing 1 bar at aa time.

Do you mean synth/bass loops? I've been trying to avoid that as well, i wrote a long lead line that ended up way too jazzy over the weekend but mostly i've been making massive patches that generate at least a bar of music per note for the lead, and cutting back on notes in the bass try to make each one count. Save on MIDI notes that way ;p

Cheers,

Chris

I was referring to the drums. 1 midi channel triggering the Kick, another snare, another hat etc.

I play my bass/leads in with the padKontrol hooked up to some chord and scale presets made by a guy called stray (google - beatwise network)

[djgroovy]

1, 2, 3 & i'm learning 4 (Max demo).

It's all good.

[andydes]

Mousey click click, for me. Almost all the time. Have tried tapping in parts and quantising, but always end up editing so much anyway after the fact, it just seems pointless. However, I like the sound of this method:

I typically draw in the kick on the 1 of each bar and then the snares on the 2's and 4's and then I play everything else.

[hangar17]

mousey