Very new to DAWs, would like to play with a drum machine.

December 15, 2018 2:49 PM

I own an x-touch mini and i know that the buttons can sense acceleration. I would like to learn how to turn it into a drum machine with Reaver or another freeware DAW.

Garage band doesn't seem to have a clear cut way to do it. In Reaver you can setup your midi commands to control the DAW, which I'm not interested, but I want to use the controller like an instrument.

I'd initially bought it for a different purpose but now i'm trying to put it to good use.

Thanks!

posted by tedious to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Response by poster: I meant to add that, I understand that part of the role of a drum machine is to set specific samples up to play when you press a button, but how are you supposed to do that when you don't have a sequencer setup?
posted by tedious at 3:09 PM on December 15, 2018

Best answer: Trade it for a decent USB midi keyboard with pads, or like one of the AKAI drum pad units?

I'm positive what you ask is possible but you'd have an easier time using your normal computer keyboard as a drum machine or just laying out sequences "in the box" with the mouse.

Many mainstream keyboards will just be plug and play with Garageband - the X-touch is meant to act like a Mackie HUI, and making it something else is likely to be an exercise in UX tweaking and unreliability when you're just trying to lay down some beats.

Hydrogen is probably my favorite stand alone drum machine, and was available in most linux repos last I checked. But I'd strongly advise you to just trade in the X-touch if you aren't going to use it for what it's designed for.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:10 PM on December 15, 2018

Best answer: It would help if you specified what you've tried so far and what you've gotten hung up on. At a high level, to use any MIDI controller in Reaper with a software instrument, you'd need to:

* Open up the Reaper preferences and make sure the MIDI device is recognized and enabled
* Create a track and assign the MIDI device as the track input
* Set the track's MIDI channel to the same one your device is outputting on
* Add a VST instrument to the track's effect slot. In this case you'd want a sampler/drum machine VST. Reaper comes with ReaSamplomatic5000, and TX16WX is also free.
* Set up the samples you want to use
* Record MIDI

how are you supposed to do that when you don't have a sequencer setup?

The DAW acts as the sequencer here. You record MIDI notes to a track in the DAW, and when you press play those MIDI are fed to a software sampler where they trigger samples.

One additional caveat -- as you mentioned, the X-Touch Mini appears to have been designed specifically to trigger the DAW's transport controls (play, stop, record, etc). Those functions are controlled by a different type of MIDI message than standard notes. So in order to use it like a drum machine, you'd have to map it so the buttons are outputting MIDI note messages instead. The Behringer web page makes it sound like that's possible with their software utility, but that's an added hoop to jump through.

Also MIDI monitor is a helpful utility -- it will show you what messages/channels your connected MIDI device is outputting in real time.

Also sorry to be pedantic but Reaper isn't actually freeware -- IMO the $60 non-commercial license is very worthwhile!
posted by ludwig_van at 5:40 PM on December 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: The X-touch mini working as a note output device by default. To make it a MC HUI you have to turn it on in the behringer utility (on windows), and then plug it back into mac (which i've done).

aspersioncast: thanks for introducing me to Hydrogen. It's great fun even with a keyboard with not a lot of effort.
b1tr0t: do you have a keys/pads sub $100 rec? I'm tempted to just get a korg nanokey for the price alone.
ludwig_van: I've been running MIDI monitor in the background to confirm that the notes that I program in the Behringer Util are actually what i get out. Is there a specific octave range that makes it more useful for most DAWs? like C0 instead C1 or C-1?

For whatever reason, Hydrogen is not picking up my notes when I'm recording a command, even though it shows up in monitor.
posted by tedious at 7:17 AM on December 16, 2018

Is there a specific octave range that makes it more useful for most DAWs? like C0 instead C1 or C-1?

Any MIDI note range will work, but there is an old standard for drum mapping that comes from general MIDI -- check out this article for some context.
posted by ludwig_van at 5:47 PM on December 16, 2018