Create a Virtual Drum Track
- Select a Drummer Style
- Edit Session Player Regions
- Arrange the Drum Track
- Key Commands
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
In most popular modern-music genres, drums form the backbone of the instrumentation. They provide the foundation for the tempo and groove of the piece, and they are often recorded or programmed first so they can provide a rhythmic reference for the other musicians to listen to when they record their instrument.
In Logic Pro, you can leverage the virtual Session Players to quickly lay out a drum track. You can choose which kit pieces the Drummer plays, how busy or how hard to play, how many fills to add, and so on. It’s almost like communicating with a real drummer to detail the style of playing you need for your song.
In this lesson, you’ll edit and arrange Session Player regions that contain a variety of drum performances to lay the foundations for a new song that you will continue to build in the following lessons.
Select a Drummer Style
To get started, you’ll create a Session Player track, which is a software instrument track where you arrange Session Player regions. You’ll then select a style for the performances contained in these regions in the Session Player Editor pane at the bottom of the main window.
Create a Session Player Track with a Drummer Region
Let’s open a new project, add a Drummer track, and examine the display of the drum performance in the Drummer region.
Choose File > New (or press Command-Shift-N).
In the Create New Track dialog, click the Session Player button and make sure Drummer is selected.
In the Drummer Style pop-up menu, keep Pop Rock selected. You’ll change the style later.
Click Create (or press Return).
A software instrument track (SoCal) is created along with an 8-bar Session Player region (Drummer - Pop Rock). In the inspector, the SoCal patch (a drum kit patch that uses the Drum Kit Designer software instrument) is loaded on the SoCal channel strip.
At the bottom of the main window, the Session Player Editor opens, allowing you to edit the performance contained in the selected Session Player region.
At the top of the main window in the LCD display, the project tempo is set to 110 bpm, which suits the pop rock music genre.
Press the Space bar to listen to the Session Player region.
The Drummer plays a straightforward rock pattern—a simple drum fill in the middle of the region (before bar 4) and a second, more complex fill at the end.
Let’s take a closer look at the Session Player region.
In the workspace, Control-Option-drag around the first bar of the Session Player region.
The Drummer region displays drum hits as triangles on lanes, roughly emulating the look of drum hits on an audio waveform. Kicks are shown on the bottom lane, snares are shown on the middle lane, and cymbals are shown on the top lane. When toms or hand percussions are used, they’re on the top lane along with the cymbals.
To create a cycle range of the desired length, you can drag the ruler horizontally.
In the upper-half of the ruler, drag from bar 1 to bar 2.
A cycle range is created for the section you drag, and Cycle mode is turned on.
Listen to the first bar a few times while looking at the drum hits in the Session Player region.
Although you cannot edit individual drum hits in the Session Player region, the region display gives you a quick glance at the Drummer’s performance.
Click the cycle area to turn off Cycle mode.
Press Z to zoom out so that you can see the entire Session Player region.
Choose File > Save (or press Command-S) to save your song with a name and in a location of your choice.
Remember to save your work at regular intervals throughout this lesson. You’ll continue working on this file in the next lessons.
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Now, you can read the Drummer region. In the next exercise, you’ll listen to presets in different styles. Later, you’ll watch the pattern update in the Drummer region as you adjust its settings in the Drummer Editor.
Choose Styles and Presets
When you select a style in the Session Player Editor, Logic Pro loads the software instrument patch that is best suited for that genre. Let’s preview a few styles and presets and select one that works for your song.
In the Session Player Editor, click the little Play button at the upper left of the Drummer - Pop Rock region.
The region starts playing in Solo and Cycle modes.
Throughout this lesson, continue to stop and start playback as needed to hear the results of your adjustments. Now that the Session Player has key focus, you can press Option-Space bar to toggle this Play button.
In the Session Player Editor menu bar, click the Preset pop-up menu and choose Mixtape.
In the Session Player Editor, the knobs and sliders adjust to reflect the values of the preset, and in the Session Player region, the performance updates.
The Drummer plays a busier groove with a ride cymbal, more kicks, and more ghost notes on the snare (ghost notes are lower volume syncopated notes that add a subtle rhythmic feel around the stronger notes).
In the Session Player Editor, click the Session Player button.
The Session Player dialog opens. You can change the type of Session Player and select a style. The styles displayed depend on the type of player selected. For the Acoustic Drummer type, you can select styles from four main categories: Rock, Songwriter, Alternative, and R&B.
In the Session Player dialog, click the Type pop-up menu and choose Electronic Drummer.
In the Session Player dialog, the style categories update to Electronic, Hip Hop, and Alternative.
In the Hip-hop category, select Modern Hip Hop.
In the inspector, the patch associated with that style (Platinum Cuts) is loaded to the track’s channel strip. That patch uses DMD (Drum Machine Designer), and the Drummer plays a swung, half-time hip hop groove played on a drum machine. In the Session Player Editor, the controls update to display electronic drum parameters.
The project tempo is set to 95 bpm.
Feel free to explore more Session Player types, styles, and presets before moving on.
Select the Acoustic Drummer type and the Funk Rock style.
The Smash patch is loaded on the track. The Drummer plays an energetic funky groove on a powerful drum kit. In the LCD display, the tempo is set to 95 bpm.
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You have found a Drummer that plays the funky groove you want for this project on a punchy-sounding drum kit and set a tempo that works well for the genre. You’re now ready to customize the performance.
