Working With MIDI Drums

Hello and welcome to this series of tutorials on working with MIDI drum loops! My name is Russ and I’m the founder of GrooveMonkee.com. Since 2003, I’ve personally been involved with the recording, playing, editing and programming of over 11,000 MIDI loops. Groove Monkee has provided MIDI content to Cakewalk, FXpansion, LinPlug, Music Tech magazine and Computer Music.

MIDI is a very powerful tool used by professionals around the globe. For example, Phil Collins used programmed, not live drums, on the hit song “Sussudio”! (Modern Drummer, March 1997, p. 66) You’d be surprised to know just how many professionally produced songs use MIDI drums!

If you want to learn how to use MIDI drums in your projects, I sincerely hope that you’ll find these tutorials beneficial.

1. Session Drummer 2 - Overview

In this tutorial I’m going to give you a brief overview of Session Drummer 2. I’ll cover its basic features, controls and the instrument pads. In future tutorials I plan to cover the following: basic operations, using SD2 with Groove Monkee loops, using SD2 with Groove Monkee and EZPlayer and finally, advanced operations with drum maps.

2. Session Drummer 2 - Basic Operations

This tutorial will cover the basic operations of Session Drummer 2 (Loading SD2 into Sonar, Loading Programs, Loading Kits, Loading Patterns, Drag and Drop, Groove Clip Looping).

3. Session Drummer 2 - Using EZplayer

This tutorial will show you how to use your MIDI files with SD2 and EZPlayer. EZplayer is the easiest way to quickly audition your MIDI files. We now provide almost 11,000 files so there's a need to browse through them quickly while building your tracks.

Regards,

Russ Cannizzo
Founder
Groovemonkee.com