Basic beats

> Step by step 2. Tailoring samples in Thenatan Trax CM

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Trax CM is a simple 8-part drum machine, and there are two very good reasons you may want to use it. Firstly, it has a flavour-packed sample library of sounds. Secondly, it includes a bunch of parameters to tailor those sounds. Get started by loading a stereo instance on a fresh instrument track. 2

Click on the preset name and you’ll see a list of kits taken from the full version. Alas, the kits are simply numbered, which doesn’t give you much idea of what each sounds like. Even so, the kits seem to get a bit more wacky as the kit preset numbers increase. 3

Load some kits and try them out. You’ll find each kit includes two kicks, two snares, hats, stick/clap, and two effects. Sounds are mapped from C2 to A#2, and kits are to some degree pre-balanced on the mixer with panning if appropriate.

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As mentioned, each sound gets its own fader and pan. Beyond this, the processing options are global, so if you wind up the Reverb or adjust the high/low frequency distortion it affects the whole kit. Try this with the Filter, selecting high or low-pass from the drop-down menu.

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If you’re looking to add some authentic grit, the noise layers are pretty useful. There are four very different types of sampled noise on offer, and our favourite is Layer B, which is record static. There’s an envelope incorporated into the process, so the noise plays when a beat plays and then has a gentle decay tail.

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We’ve programmed a basic beat. It’s a pretty straightforward pattern that we’ve played across eight bars and quantised. We’re all for building things up from scratch but it maybe lacks the feel of the best beats. Thankfully in the Suite you’ll find some handy beats in the DopeVST Beat Machine folder.

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The beats are standard MIDI files and you’ll find them in the Beat Machine archive alongside the installers. Copy this somewhere handy and then use your DAW’s import option to bring some into your session. The file names include tempo, but once imported you’ll see some have metadata that indicates the style too.

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Here we’ve loaded up a whole selection of the MIDI loops. To get an idea of why these loops work so well, try opening up the MIDI in the MIDI editor. Here for the loop Chilling (which is loop number 47) you can see some of the notes are not heavily quantised, and this creates a more natural feel.

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Using this loop as a starting point we can further finesse the feel. Here we’ve added an extra snare at the end of the second bar on beat 4.4.51, and we’ve also adjusted downwards alternate hi-hat velocities, which combines with the existing loose hi-hat for further feel.