Drawing in or Tapping out Drum Samples? 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. Visit http://beatfuse.com if you want to know how to make your own beats. 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. Tapping out drum samples requires some MIDI hardware and a good sense of rhythm in most cases. These days, many programs actually supporting mapping the keys of a regular computer keyboard to musical notes in your sequencer program, establishing, for instance, the letter B on the keyboard to the note D3 in the piano roll, which could be assigned to a snare sample. One of the advantages here is that you don’t need to constantly look at the screen to see where drums go – you can hear it all. In fact, if you’re using a pad controller, most of them now have start/stop/pause message buttons on the actual device, and even undo buttons, so you can take a break from the screen for the entire duration of a drum samples loop recording. Each has their disadvantages as well, though. If you’re drawing or clicking in the drum samples, you need to be aware of the velocity, otherwise your drums will become stale and lifeless. Also, using the appropriate swing is important, as clicking them in by default will trigger ‘snapping’ to pre-determined grids. If you’re playing on pads, then you won’t be able to compose very intricate patterns unless you’re lightning fast with your fingers, even if you’re only recording one part at a time. This is a minor drawback, however, as most people realize that the fine-tuning can be performed on the screen later. To many people, using a physical input is great for setting the structure of the drum loop. Building on it using the editor is one way to apply the right rhythm and then assign a universal rhythm setting, or ‘swing.’ Doing so will ensure that there is a constant binding factor in the mix, and this is very important if you’re going to mix electronic drum samples with live, recorded drum samples and need everything to sound and feel coherent. For more great information on drum samples, visit: http://www.mydrumsamples.com/ and also http://www.mydrumsamples.com/hip-hop-samples/ for the hottest hip hop samples available.