BARGAIN BEATS

Over the next 20 pages we’re going big on drum machines: programming, sounds, the best plugins and more. And for less cash too!

Drums are the backbone of all the music we make (OK, not ambient music but you get our drift). As computer musicians, the drum machine is one of our most important tools, and pretty much every DAW comes with at least one, or samplers packed with drum hits ready for beat creation.

Over the next 20 pages we’ll take you on a journey through all of your drum machine options, from how history defined what sounds we use today, the fundamentals of basic drum machine programming, through some of the best free and paid for drum machine plugins, right up to more complex programming used by some of the biggest artists of the last four decades. We’ve got mixing techniques, advice on how to create drum sounds from synths, and why your choice of sounds or drum machine emulation is so important within the genres of music you produce.

And, of course, in these challenging financial times, we’ll always have an eye on the price and make sure you can do all of the above without spending a fortune. Software always delivers much more bang for buck than hardware – we know that – but if you combine this feature with our free plugins this month (not to mention the mighty Computer Music Plugin Suite that we give away every month), and all of our new free drum samples, you can now make so many beats for so little cash!

So get your samples loaded, your plugins chosen and get ready to make some beats in whatever style you choose. As ever you can’t totally enjoy the present without understanding the past so we’ve a short history lesson first…

Beating time