User manual

If there is no sound, check if you didn't load a percussion rhythm with normal drumset for example. Simply put, the drumset defines sound, rhythm
defines what to play. But if the rhythm is designed for say bonga and there are no bonga in the drumset, then the output will be silent. You may say
the drumset is the drummer and the rhythm is a conductor. If he tries to conduct a drummer, which is not there, well, nothing will happen.
Now try something a little bit more practical:
First disable the playback using the play button again.
Click the Intro button or the Beat button to make MDrummer play.
Let MDrummer play for a while to hear what happens. Then if you want MDrummer to insert a break (fill), click the Break button or L Break
button (long break). Note that such fill may appear after a few seconds, because breaks often do not start at the first bar quarter. This is how
the real drummers play and MDrummer mimics that.
You can change Level at any time. Higher level usually means higher complexity and loudness. The change is accomplished on next button
click (intro, beat, break, l break or outro). Why? That is because immediate changes typically sound quite weird. Real drummers change level
typically at the end of the bar, often accented by a break. And so does MDrummer.
When you get tired, press the Outro button button. An outro is similar to a break, but it stops the playback afterwards.
Finally you might be interested in additional rhythm playback settings:
Step 4: Creating a drum track
Here comes the magic. Remember those cheap keyboards, which can play rhythmic support? When you press C key on the lowest octave, the
machine starts to play e.g. pop-rock beat including drums and bass from C. Then you press F key, and it starts playing it from F. This is cool only to
learn how to play keyboards, but we realized, that this approach can be very inspiring!
Each note is a command for MDrummer (and actually corresponds to a rhythm control button click). You just need to understand, what each
key means. There is no numbering standard for octaves, so let's number them from -2, which is then the lowest octave. And so it is the first octave to
control MDrummer. It is pretty simple:
Notes in octave -2 mean "Play an intro and start a beat afterwards!"
Notes in octave -1 mean "Play a beat!"
Notes in octave 0 mean "Put there a break!"
Notes in octave 1 mean "Put there a long break!"
Notes in octave 2 mean "Put there an outro and finish!"
Notes in octave 3 mean "Stop playback immediately!"
Finally there are 12 tones in each octave - higher tone means higher level. So let's take a few examples:
C-2 means "Play a very quiet intro!" , because C means very quiet, octave -2 means intro.
F#0 means "Put there a normally loud break!" , because F means kind of a normal complexity, octave 0 means break.
B2 means "Put there a very powerful outro and finish!" , because B means very high level, octave 2 means outro, w hich always stops MDrummer
afterw ards.
Drum track example
Let's make a simple drum track, so you can see it in practice. Let it be a standard pop arrange based on 8 bar long sequences such as chorus and
verse. W e will demonstrate it on Steinberg Cubase, other hosts are similar and are used in our video tutorials.
Create a MIDI track on channel 1.
Assign MDrummer as the output for it. The channel number equals to the rhythm channel. Since we will be using just rhythm 1, set the MIDI
channel to 1.