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2. Velocity-mixed snare rolls in Grooove CM

1 Ah, the good ol’ rising snare drum roll – a reliable workhorse of the dance music producer. Simply ramp up the velocity from start to finish, perhaps use it to open a filter as the roll builds, and Bob’s your DJ. Great, but hardly adventurous. Fortunately for you, dear reader, our very own Grooove CM plugin is here to help. Load it up in your DAW – we’re using Ableton Live. 4 The Min setting represents minimum velocity (ie, 1), while Max represents maximum velocity (ie, 127), so with our settings, velocity 1 triggers sample 1 alone, velocity 127 triggers only sample 2, velocity 64 triggers a 50/50 mix – all other velocities trigger a variable blend of the two. Now our snare roll morphs from one snare to the other as the velocity increases – much better! 2 First, we start with a single kick, snare and hi-hat sound loaded into each of Grooove CM’s sample slots on three channels. We then program a basic groove ending on a simple 16th-note snare roll. Drawing in a velocity ramp rising from the start of the roll to the end gives us the expected volume rise as the roll progresses. Yawnsville. 5 You’ll no doubt have clocked the numerous other control sections in the Sound Engine, each one enabling you to define Min and Max velocity settings for effortless modulation. Setting the Pan Min knob fully clockwise, for example, causes our roll to start panned left and move into the centre as it progresses. Note that we can’t set Max fully right, or the full-velocity backbeat snare would be hard-panned too. 3 One of Grooove CM’s most clever tricks is the ability to simultaneously play back two samples per MIDI note, with the mix between them determined by note velocity. Load another snare sample into the second slot on the snare channel, then head into the Sound Engine page and set the Min and Max Mix knobs fully anticlockwise and clockwise respectively. 6 All of these other Min/Max controls are well worth experimenting with, but of particular relevance to snare rolls are the filter Cutoff, Resonance and Pitch settings. Just remember that changes to the Max setting with this kind of setup will usually affect the backbeat snare in the groove as well as the roll; get around this problem by loading up a separate sampler instance for your snare roll.