The six notes in question form the “lead” part which uses a slightly modified AtmoEPiano instrument from Crystal.

There’s still work to do on the arrangement, levels and particularly with EQ on some of the instruments (notably those in the lower frequency ranges).

One thing I should aim to do is drag the Roland TD7 out of the attic and start playing some of the drum parts, rather than using the grid editor in Cubase to compose my loops (I still prefer this method to using the Axiom 49 from M-Audio for drums, though I do use the midi controller for bass and lead parts).

The last couple of months have been a bit of a journey. It all started on Christmas Day. I’d spent more than enough time being sorely beaten at Wii tennis and thought I’d have a look around the iPhone App Store. BeatMaker caught my eye so I downloaded a copy and started playing around. Half an hour later, I’d put together a pattern which developed into a track called Bad Habit.

Inspired by BeatMaker’s simple interface, I began to dig into DAW software by researching product features – Reason, Ableton, Cubase. I settled on Cubase and bought myself version 4.5 (wish I’d waited a couple of weeks until 5 came out as now I’m enduring the rigmarole of Steinberg’s rather onerous upgrade path). Since then, I’ve composed a couple of pieces, using the grid editor to hand key each note on the screen – a process even more tedious than upgrading Cubase! But that’s all about to change and I’m really stoked about how the Axiom 49 will impact upon the composition to mixdown time.

Time to pull the wrapper off.

After spending way longer than expected on “Capitulation” (thanks again for all the critiques on the Steinberg forum), it’s time to dive headlong into the kind of music I really want to create. Capitulation has been an excellent way of getting to grips Cubase fundamentals and, in that context, I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. But what really excites me is the potential this product offers. There is still so much that I have absolutely no knowledge of.

For example, to date I’ve only used the VST instruments which come with Cubase. I’ve not tried to work with midi instruments and other sample files. I’ve stumbled upon a huge catalogue of drum sounds (from Access to Roland, calling at FLKits, Korg, Simmons, Rhodes and Roland en route). But at this stage, I’ve no idea how to make use of them. Will I need a separate drum sampler or can I “import” them into Cubase? Questions, questions. But the road to discovery is sure to be an interesting one.

One of the things I’d like to do (given the title of the blog) is export some of the sounds from my Roland TD7 into Cubase (particularly the 808 kit samples). Not sure quite how to do this yet, but I figure it must be possible. (Hint: if you’re reading this and can help me avoid UTFM training, that’d be great!)

Ultimately, of course, I want to be bashing out rhythms on a shiny new TD20 (left) – but I’ll need to convince the bank manager before that happens!