Drum Triggers

The rise of the digital age has seen not only new sounds and genres develop in music, but new instruments too. Some instruments have gone through something similar to a face lift in design and development, which has increased the performance and range of diversity in both sounds and instruments.

Electronic drum sets are just one of these instruments. Pads, or mesh heads can be single or dual trigger. Single trigger pads, like Roland's PD-120RD Mesh V-Pad, will produce one sound per trigger. Double trigger pads, like Roland's PD-8, will produce two separate sounds, one based around the centre, the other towards the rim of the pad.

One of the ubiquitous debates raging in many music production and beat making forums these days is the preference of rhythmic drum sequencing. On one hand, people are using standard MIDI keyboards that are otherwise used for synthesizers and instruments for their drum samples, while the other option that is pushed often is getting dedicated drum hardware like an Akai MPC.

Recently, the hat has tipped in favor of the dedicated drum samples hardware route, with new, much less expensive devices becoming popular among veterans and newbie producers alike. The Akai MPD, for example, is pretty much the same as the MPC series of drum sequencers, except that it lacks any sequencing and arranging capability, leaving that processing up to the actual host (the computer audio/midi program, such as FL Studio (formerly Fruity Loops) and Cakewalk Sonar.

When it comes to sequencing and laying down drum samples, producers and beat makers have a few different options. Sampling is still quite big, with a lot of amateur and established music producers still employing pre-sampled loops and making their own to fit a beat or concept. The main two methods, however, are drawing in samples and tapping them out.

Drawing in samples using a piano roll editor or other sequencer is very easy to do and requires no MIDI input for the computer to play back exactly what you want. Another upside is the fact that no physical rhythm is needed; if you can hear it in your own head, you can sequence it and have it play within seconds.