[Getting Started]
Drum Track
Adding your First Drum Track
1. Connecting to Track 1
Add Prism to a MIDI track.
Add your favorite drum AU to an audio track in your preferred host: We're using "London" from Gadget.
Connect Prism to the audio track and filter the MIDI input input to channel 1 as we’ll use track 1 in Prism for our drums.
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2. Opening A Drum Track In Prism
'New Song' -> Drum Track -> [Drum Profile Setup]
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3. Drum Profile Setup
Use the drum profile setup menu to load, edit, and create Prism drum profiles. What's a drum profile you ask? It's your way of telling Prism what MIDI note to send out for each of the 16 drum pads, as well as their labels. Use the provided parameters and the drum keypad to adjust the settings as needed. When you’ve confirmed the correct playback save the profile for easy access next time.
*Some profiles have already been mapped and come standard with Prism. Simply select and play. If you would like more added please email me.
In this example we'll be using the London profile that comes with Prism. Feel free to use your own drum instrument, just make sure to follow the above steps to ensure the MIDI is mapped correctly.
Once you're ready to move on press the SEQ button on the left.
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4. Adding Trigs to the Sequence
First we'll add a kick drum on every quarter note
Next we'll select a new drum pad to edit
I'm switching to pad 4, which is mapped to the snare drum.
Let's reduce our trig input velocity before we added any notes to the sequence.
Now we'll add a snare hit on the 2nd and 4th beats
Then some hi hats on on the off beats
Now you can hit play and relish in your creative genius - "Hello, World!"
Note: The host needs to be playing for Prism to play. That's how Prism derives its clock information. This means you also change the BPM of Prism by changing the host's BPM.
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5. Setting the Sequence Length
Sequences always start with a standard 1 bar setup and a 1/16 beat resolution. Both can be changed independently though. Setting the length, or the number of bars, changes the amount of time it takes to complete the pattern. Changing the beat resolution won't change the timing, it only changes how the pattern is represented on the sequence. If notes are added or recorded at a finer resolution than what is currently set with the beat resolution they may not appear on the sequence steps, but they will playback normally. Simply set a fine enough resolution for the hidden steps to reappear.
Press the middle of the 'sequence page graphic' to enter [SEQ] setup.
Let's change our drum sequence to two bars
By pressing the [4x4] keypad matrix, which has reconfigured itself to provide useful controls for setting up our sequence, we can quickly set the number of bars
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6. Adding Trigs to the Second Bar / Navigating Sequence Pages
Press the page graphic or 'SEQ' to go back to the main sequence page.
Select the drum pad you want to edit.
Use the right edge of the page graphic to navigate to the second page of sequence steps. It'll be empty as this covers the new bar we just added.
You can also use the big red circles in the GUI screen to select a page.
Add some trigs to your liking. Rinse and repeat for the other drums we've added thus far.
