# Do i need a keyboard to make my own beats on dfh?



## darrendiestoday (Dec 15, 2009)

I just bought this a couple weeks ago and i love it. But i cant figure out how to make my own beats without a keyboard or if its even possible. If anybody can help me that would be awesome!!!


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## Winspear (Dec 15, 2009)

Yep you can!
Thing to remember is all these Virtual Instruments respond to MIDI - they do not care where the MIDI comes from. It can be downloaded, written in guitar pro and exported, played on a keyboard, clicked with a mouse etc.

What were you using with your keyboard? 
I use the program Sonar (similar to Cubase, Logic etc) and write my drum beats by clicking the mouse in the piano roll to enter MIDI.


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## splinter8451 (Dec 15, 2009)

Yes you can.

You can either program beats in the drum editor of whatever recording program you are using. I use Cubase. 

OR you can make the drum parts in Guitar Pro and export the midi file then import the midi file to your recording program and process it through DFH. This is what I used to do when I used Sony Acid cause I could never find a drum mapper thing in Acid. 

Hope that helps somewhat.

EDIT: I was ninja'd


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## darrendiestoday (Dec 15, 2009)

splinter8451 said:


> Yes you can.
> 
> You can either program beats in the drum editor of whatever recording program you are using. I use Cubase.
> 
> ...


 
HOw do i get the drum map in cubase cause thats what i have!


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## splinter8451 (Dec 16, 2009)

Okay I am assuming you know how to pull up DFH in Cubase?

So create your midi area by dragging the little triangle thing at the top of the recording area to however long you need it. Then double click in the recording space of the DFH midi track and a midi space should show up.

Should look like this more or less:







Then just go to the MIDI drop down menu and select Open Drum Editor (should be third one down) and it will look like this after you enter in some beats: 






I hope that helps you out dude. Sorry if it is not really clear  I am not very knowledgeable about Cubase I just know enough to get by.


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## Shooter (Dec 16, 2009)

splinter8451 said:


> Yes you can.
> 
> You can either program beats in the drum editor of whatever recording program you are using. I use Cubase.
> 
> ...



Hey, I'm running Acid 6 and I've been planning on getting something like DFH and some kind of Orchestral Virtual Instrument. How'd you get everything to work in Acid?


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## splinter8451 (Dec 16, 2009)

Shooter said:


> Hey, I'm running Acid 6 and I've been planning on getting something like DFH and some kind of Orchestral Virtual Instrument. How'd you get everything to work in Acid?



Uhhh.... It has been awhile since I did anything with Acid but maybe I can somewhat help. 

You can open DFH in Acid but I do not think there is a drum editor thing built in so I had to write all my drum parts in GP first then export the midi file.

Then I put the midi into the My Midi folder in DFH's program folder and then just opened it from DFH and put it into my Acid track just as if it was one of DFH's built in grooves. 

Does that help? It is a lot more work then just programming drums to your track in something like Cubase. Maybe you should look into acquiring Cubase


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## Variant (Dec 16, 2009)

I've got Cubase 5 and I'm liking it so far... but yikes, that MIDI map hurts to look at!  FL Studio's is much more pleasant than that. One thing I'd recommend to supplement/alternate with the oft tedious nature of programming drums is one of these cheep lil' babies: 






If you're a clumsy oaf with the keyboard (like me) the big pads help, and the variables on the X/Y pad make for making cool blasts/fills just by holding pads down and moving around. Personally, I can make some great stuff just tapping it out, and great stuff just clicking on the piano roll, but each approach yields different things.


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## guitarplayerone (Dec 17, 2009)

what everyone said.

also the new superior 2 has native support for guitar hero and rock band controllers.

i actually tried this, i don't remember if i was able to get the latency 100% perfect.

i'll try again during the break


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## splinter8451 (Dec 17, 2009)

Variant said:


> I've got Cubase 5 and I'm liking it so far... but yikes, that MIDI map hurts to look at!  FL Studio's is much more pleasant than that. One thing I'd recommend to supplement/alternate with the oft tedious nature of playing drums is one of these cheep lil' babies:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I have been thinkin about picking up a NanoPad for making drum beats. I figure I can program bass hits to odd guitar patterns easier by hitting the keys myself rather then trying to make them right in the drum editor


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## Shooter (Dec 18, 2009)

splinter8451 said:


> Uhhh.... It has been awhile since I did anything with Acid but maybe I can somewhat help.
> 
> You can open DFH in Acid but I do not think there is a drum editor thing built in so I had to write all my drum parts in GP first then export the midi file.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the help man... I was kind of looking for whether or not I could open a virtual instrument in ACID since I want to get some orchestral software too, so it helps a lot to know I could at least do that. I don't know exactly what you mean by "drum editor thing", but in my version of ACID, I've been programming drums using the ACID sounds for a long time, the piano roll editor just changes to a little thingy with the names of the drums- snare, bass, etc., when I change the MIDI type from anything like, say, piano to the drum sounds. Thanks again!


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## splinter8451 (Dec 18, 2009)

I have never even been able to find a piano roll in Acid  maybe I had a lite version or something haha.


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## guitarplayerone (Dec 18, 2009)

btw guys just had awesome results just using my M audio keystation (midi keyboard controller) and then some midi effects ie fixed length, fixed velocity and over quantizing in cubase after finding what came close to where the notes were (dotted 32ths i think, i was programming a polyrythm)


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## Shooter (Dec 18, 2009)

splinter8451 said:


> I have never even been able to find a piano roll in Acid  maybe I had a lite version or something haha.



Which version were you using? I'm using Acid Pro 6. The whole thing looks like this: 






You can see the piano roll there in the middle, it has "in-line" editing so you can write/edit midi tracks in the middle of all the other tracks. 

Thanks again for the help though man. I've been stressing for like a month cuz I suck with computers and I had no idea if programs/plug-ins like that would work with what I have set-up, haha.


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