Drum Samples with Redrum | Lifestyle

by JohnGellei

Propellerheads have had their flagship drum samples manipulator, Redrum, included in the last few versions of Reason, and it's been a hit in the music production universe. Anybody using Reason will attest to this.

Redrum includes ten strips to allow the user to modify parameters like Pan across ten different drum samples. Each instance of Redrum has these ten strips and controls, and you can actually load up multiple instances in a snap. Along with panning, there are rotary knobs for volume and also velocity controls, helping you to really sculpt the drums any way you want. To the left of the main window, there is a volume control that lowers or increases the volume of that instrument instance as whole as it pertains to the global project. This is macro leveling.

One of the more useful controls in each of the channel strips is the length control. What does the length control do for drum samples, then, you ask? It modified the tail or end of the sample and adjusts its length from the end. You can easily adjust any sample's length from this one dial, so it's easy to cut down drums that don't get to the point as quickly as you might like or expect. It's very easy to use!

Going a bit further in our analysis, we're presented with the Pan control. This really speaks for itself; it pans the drum samples! In an early mixing stage, you can organize your drums as they pertain to panning - and quite easily so. Another great feature of Redrum is that everything is on the same screen. Have you ever gotten frustrated going through twenty different menus looking for something? Not with Redrum - it's all on the same page. While it can be confusing to some people that have not used it extensively, it quickly becomes a necessity - something you won't be able to forget when trying different programs out in the future.

You might think that picking out ten different drum samples by yourself every time will be a tiresome task, you could be right. It all really depends on the person and how much patience you have at that point in time. But relax! There is something that will help you. Redrum comes with many pre-selected and pre-matched samples ready for your picking, and they are included in the factory Refills that are included with the sound libraries that comes with Reason. These samples have all been selected because they complement each other, so it's unlikely that you'll have to go looking much further.

The last major thing about the Redrum interface is the step sequencer that sits at the bottom of the device in every single view. This is where you can click in drum samples if you're not recording input with MIDI hardware at this point. While you cannot ever see all patterns at once, it's not a bad thing. It's actually good because you're training your ear to keep an eye out, to see where new drum samples could be injected and so on. In fact, it works so much like real hardware that aspiring audio engineers would do well to look at Reason and Redrum as their learning platform.

DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice.

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