E-Mu Drumulator, Owner'S Manual

Page 1: ...DRUMULATOR OWNERS MANUAL ...

Page 2: ...ons and controls as you go along Section 4 describes the cassette interface while Section 5 describes the various control jacks on the back Section 6 deals with how to best use the Drumulator in studio environments Section 7 is a short form summary of all the various functions presented in the first 6 sections Once you become familiar with the Drumulator this may be the only section which you will...

Page 3: ...to Correct 2E Setting Auto Correct 2F Recording a Segment 2G Erasing a Specific Drum Sound 2H Erasing a Specific Note of a Drum Track 2I Copying Segments 2J Appending a Segment 2K Adding Swing 2L Checking Memory Space 2M Clearing All Data SECTION3 CREATING A SONG 3A Creating a Song Overview 3B Song Write Protection Selecting a Song 3C Chaining Segments Together 3D Ending a Song 3E Editing Songs st...

Page 4: ...c Track on Tape 5F Recovering the Drumulator s Sync Track from Tape 5G Using the Drumulator with 24 Pulses Per Quarter Note Clocks 5H Using the Drumulator with 48 or 96 Pulses Per Quarter Note Clocks and Audio Rate Clocks 5I Synchronizing Applications 5J External Computer Interface SECTION 6 MIXING AND PROCESSING THE DRUMULATOR 6A Mixing and Processing Overview 6B Separating the Drumulator Drum Ou...

Page 5: ...drum parts You can edit the part as you go along erase some sounds add others erase only certain beats of certain sounds and so on alter the dynamics of each drum and vary the overall mix of the drums You may play segments individually or combine them into songs To create a song you tell the machine which segments you want to use the order you want them in and any repeats which might occur in the ...

Page 6: ...hive Page 5 of 27 SECTION 1 GETTING READY 1A Hooking up the Drumulator 1B Instant Gratification 1C Assigning Drum Sounds to Play Buttons 1D Setting Drum Percussion Levels 1E Setting Drum Percussion Accents 1F Playing Back Segments 1G Setting Tempo 1H Programming the Metronome ...

Page 7: ...p briefly to show they re working properly Second there will be a memory integrity test If there is any problem bad back up battery parts failure or whatever the display will read bAd Should the display read bAd turn off the Drumulator wait 10 seconds and then turn it back on again If the display continues to read bAd clear the memory as described in Section 2M If the bAd indication persists conta...

Page 8: ...N STOP light glows and you should hear the metro nome if not check the METRONOME VOLUME control 5 Press the A button to play the bass drum After two measures whatever you played will be repeated Continue adding bass drum parts if desired 6 Press the B button to play the snare drum After two measures whatever you played will be repeated Continue adding snare drum parts if desired 7 Press the C butt...

Page 9: ...and tap ACCENT While continuing to hold down the Drum Play button press the Drum Select button corresponding to the drum percussion sound you want accented Try assigning the non accented and accented versions of a drum sound to adjacent buttons and play both in order to hear the difference between the two sounds 6 You may also assign an accented louder version of any drum sound to any Drum Play bu...

Page 10: ...essing and holding Drum Play button A and tapping the SNARE Sound Select button 2 Press LEVEL The left hand display shows LE 3 Press the SNARE Sound Select button Remember the DRUMS light must he lit because if the PERC light is lit you will be altering the COWBELL level instead of the SNARE The display shows LE and a number between 0 and 15 which is the existing snare drum volume level 4 The slid...

Page 11: ... and start a song mix from scratch by initially setting all levels to 0 If you set your song mix and then change over to segment mode any instrument which you didn t bring up from the initial 0 level say because you didn t use that particular sound in a song will remain at 0 Thus if you try to use that sound in the segment it will appear that the sound isn t working You don t have to be too concer...

Page 12: ...der providing that the sum of the level and accent values does not exceed 15 5 After selecting the desired accent press ENTER Notes If you press the ACCENT button and a Drum Sound Select button and the readout shows an accent setting that is already correct either press ENTER or press the next Sound Select button whose accent you want to vary The accent floats with any level changes For example if...

Page 13: ...rammed for a high volume level adding accent may not make a very dramatic difference 1F Playing Back Segments You can record and play back 36 rhythm patterns called segments These are organized as 6 banks of 6 segments Several segments were loaded into the Drumulator at the factory here is how to play them 1 Press the SONG SEGMENT button a few times The SEGMENT light shows you are in segment mode ...

Page 14: ... varied from 40 to 240 Beats Per Minute As with mix information tempo settings are remembered by the Drumulator only while you are in segment mode If you switch over to song mode as described in Section 3 the Drumulator acquires the tempo of the selected song If you then switch back to segment mode the Drumulator will retain the song tempo 1 To change tempo the Drumulator may be stopped or running...

Page 15: ... RUN STOP light blinks off at the beginning of each segment The higher metronome speeds are very useful if you want to record a fast complex drum part You may slow the tempo way down yet still have clicks occurring regularly enough so that you know where you are in the segment If the tempo is very slow and you select quarter note clicks the clicks occur too far apart to be helpful Help If you pres...

Page 16: ...ing a Segment Setting the time signature and or measure length 2D Understanding Auto Correct 2E Setting Auto Correct 2F Recording a Segment 2G Erasing A Specific Drum Sound 2H Erasing a Specific Note of a Drum Track 2I Copying Segments 2J Appending a Segment 2K Adding Swing 2L Checking Memory Space 2M Clearing All Data ...

Page 17: ...m sounds to the Drum Play buttons go hack into record mode change the Auto Correct resolution or re program the metronome if necessary and record more drums Or simply play back the segment and groove to the sounds you ve just created 2B Erasing a Segment Erasing a segment clears out all existing drum sounds and automatically redimensions the segment to two measures of 4 4 Before erasing a segment ...

Page 18: ...per segment up to 99 If desired each segment may be dimensioned differently If you are not familiar with time signature notation see Appendix B After you erase a segment it assumes two measures per segment and a 4 4 time signature If this dimensioning suits your musical needs skip ahead to Section 2D Otherwise make sure you are in segment mode then proceed with the following steps to re dimension ...

Page 19: ...of measures in a segment up to 99 press SEG LENGTH You may repeatedly tap this button to go forward digit at a time or hold it down for a fast forward effect To decrease the number of measures in a segment down to 1 tap or hold MEAS LENGTH 9 When the display shows the desired segment length press ENTER The readout returns to segment number you are dimensioning Help If you hear a long beep when you...

Page 20: ...e segment hit ENTER while still in that mode and you can immediately try again to set the segment length It might seem musically strange to specify triplets for the denominator of the time signature However if you specify quarter notes for the denominator of one segment and quarter note triplets for another chaining them together in a song will result in the quarter note triplet based segment runn...

Page 21: ...e off of recording long drum parts use low resolution to record most of a part and then switch over to finer resolution to record more complex rhythms Note that recording triplets is easy since there are three triplet Auto Correct options and that alternating between triplet and non triplet Auto Correct modes lets you record complex polyrhythms Another option is high resolution mode where the Drum...

Page 22: ...he drum levels Section 1 3 If necessary program the metronome Section 1 and set the Auto Correct resolution Sections 2D and 2E 4 While holding down RECORD push RUN STOP so that the RUN STOP light glows The left hand display shows rc and the metronome will start The RUN STOP LED will blink off at the beginning of each segment and there will also be an accented metronome beat at the beginning of eac...

Page 23: ...or the end of the segment to come around before hitting STOP Or the new notes will not be stored 2G Erasing A Specific Drum Sound When you are in segment mode and editing a segment you may erase a drum or percussion sound wherever it appears in the segment 1 To erase a particular drum sound wherever it appears in the segment first assign the drum sound to be erased to a Drum Play button unless it ...

Page 24: ...ouble is trying to erase an accented sound without assigning an accented sound to a drum play button Another problem occurs if you try to erase a non accented drum sound with a Drum Play button which triggers the accented version of that sound You may use Auto Correct settings other than high resolution for special effects For example suppose you recorded a series of four sixteenth note snare drum...

Page 25: ...want to keep a segment but also create a longer appended version first copy the segment von want to append to another segment Next append this second segment The second segment will contain the appended version of the original segment yet the original segment still exists in its unaltered form You may re append an already appended segment For example if you ve appended a segment twice at and later...

Page 26: ...Drumulator Owners Manual Button Number Swing Factor 1 50 2 54 3 58 4 63 5 67 6 71 ...

Page 27: ...ing MEM The left hand display shows MM the right hand display shows the remaining amount of memory expressed as a percentage See Section 30 for information on efficient use of memory If you re recording segments and the display shows FULL you ve used up all the available memory space The Drumulator will stop and whatever you tried to record on the last cycle of the segment will not be put into mem...