Rhythm Groups and Part Mute setup strategy

One of the 307's basic features is its ability to bring percussion parts in and out using the Rhythm Mute function. It's great for adding drama to a track, but there's a limitation that is useful to know about before you begin any serious percussion programming, especially if you work with User Rhythm Sets (which I recommend).

For background, see Manual page 159, first column, where it reads "Rhythm Group". This lists each key's drum tone assignment (B1 - D7) and tells you that if you want to silence any and all tones in its Group, hit the corresponding Mute button. Those keys with, say, hihats in one Preset Kit (F#2, G#2, etc.) also have hihats in all the others, making life easy...if you limit yourself to the Presets.

But what the manual doesn't tell you is this:

It is not the sounds themselves that are covered by that particular Mute button, but the KEYS the Mute button is assigned to.

In other words, the BD Mute button only covers these six keys -- B1, C2, B2, C3, B6 and C7, as the Rhythm Group column indicates. And the CLP button covers three, TOM/PERC covers 25, etc.

Why is this important?

Because if you create a User Rhythm Set and assign, say, a kick drum tone to key F#2, you will not be able to mute that kick with the BD Part Mute button, because it's the HH button that covers F#2.

Now you can certainly mute that kick just by hitting the HH button instead. But...what if you've got hihats playing too, and you don't want to mute both them and that kick drum simultaneously? Sorry, you're out of luck.

If you don't work with User Rhythm Sets, this is less important to remember, since (as I say above) all the Preset Kits have the same basic layout. But you will probably decide eventually that you'd like to get more creative with percussion, and this will become an issue.

Since Roland does not allow us to change the way the keys and Part Mute buttons interact, it makes sense either 1) to assign your drum tones according to the same layout the Preset Kits have, or 2) to create your own system that somehow takes this layout into account.

...Why consider this? Because I've learned from embarrassing gig mistakes that the less I have to think onstage, the smoother a performance goes. If I know I can always mute my hihats with the HH key, I can concentrate on the music, not f@[king logistics.

Percussion tuning, toning and timing

Had a good beatmaking session last night. Really good. A couple of hours after I started, I had a polished eight-bar loop that had my head bobbing and my hands drumming like a sixth-grader's on my knees, my thighs, my tabletop, finally getting me off the couch, bopping around in my underwear as far from my 307 as my headphone cable would let me go. Still sounded great this morning; listening to it again (and again) made me late for work, but it was totally worth it. ...Yeah.

Thinking about it en route to the dayjob, I realized that what allowed me to get to this point was what I'd been doing the previous few nights: Accumulating a good set of percussion tones in a User Rhythm Set, and then tweaking each one so that they all go together -- i.e., when played as a group they sound like music, not just a bunch of individually awesome yet poorly matched noises.

Now this task took a lot of time and patience, and doing it was not fun in and of itself. But it was absolutely critical to making me enjoy what I heard both while composing and afterward. And that has to happen if an audience is ever going to enjoy it.

So for those of you who have been making EM for years, this may be old hat, but it's worth repeating something I learned years ago:

A good drum part is a complete composition in itself. It has more than just good rhythm -- it has good melody and harmony too.

Listen to any great techno composer, someone who can combine just four or five drum tones and still somehow make you enjoy listening to them loop for minutes on end. Some of the reasons this magic happens? Each drum hit 1) has a pitch that harmonizes with the others, 2) has a tone and volume that make it heard clearly but in balance with the others (i.e. it doesn't overpower), and 3) takes up just the right amount of time and space...it fills up some air but lets the rest of the pattern breathe.

Much of achieving this balance is an art that can't be quantified. But one key to controlling your art is by tweaking each and every tone you use, which on the 307 means creating and fine-tuning a User Rhythm Set. Once you've gathered your drum tones, the number of parameters available for fine-tuning them (pp. 105-112 in the manual) is a bit overwhelming, but you can do a lot with these four:

-Coarse tune: Each +/-1 you change it adjusts the pitch by a semitone, or the difference between two adjacent keys on the piano. If you know even a little about harmony, you can tune your percussion hits so they don't clash with one another or the synths. (Only mess with Fine tune if you get close but can't quite tune a drum hit perfectly.)
-Filter type and cutoff: Allows you to adjust how bright a drum tone is. Using an LPF with a cutoff of 80 or higher will usually give you a darker sound, for example. Filters can help to minimize those frequencies/overtones that can annoy the ears over time.
-Amp envelope time: Gives you control over how long a drum tone lasts. Cranking these down appropriately can turn a cymbal crash into, say, a short click.
-Amp tone level: Gives you far greater control over the tone's volume than you get through the Wave/Key: Gain parameter alone, which only gives you four choices (-6, 0, +6, +12 dB). Experiment with adjusting both parameters for a better mix/balance.

If these ideas seem relatively new to you, first get comfortable with what these parameters do, then try this experiment:

Take a cool but simple two- to four-bar percussion loop -- one that uses only 4-5 drum tones and preferably no distracting synths -- from a track you like. Copy it into your sampler/looper (if you have one) or keep your player's rewind button handy so you can listen to it and your 307 simultaneously. Now: How would you go about reproducing this loop on your 307? What drum tones would you bring into a User Kit in order to remake it? If the drum tones aren't quite the same as the loop's, how would you adjust them?

...I find that not only is it great practice and ear training to see how close I can get, but the beauty of it is that I rarely remake that loop exactly. I learn a lot, and I also end up with a loop and balanced set of percussion tones I can recast as I like for use in my own tracks.

Online 307 Music, #2

Here are a few tracks I've found that were made solely or primarily with the 307. The first two producers are 307 Beats readers.

As I've mentioned, I'll primarily post tracks that are made with the 307 alone, so that users can hear what can be done with it. But a few extra sounds are OK as long as we know what's what. Enjoy!

Gastón
...who says: "Two ideas made with the 307 only."
www.beatncore.com/mp3/exp/307jam.mp3
www.beatncore.com/mp3/exp/307jam2.mp3

Ytrium
...who says: "This industrial hardtek track entitled '29,4 km' was partly done on the 307 (the sound at the beginning, the beepy loop starting around 01:50, the pad in the middle part, another beepy sound starting at 04:18 and some drums -- the complete R part can be heard at the very end)."
rapidshare.com/files/307066372/2007_12_29_4_km.mp3.htm

Tek&Mat
A French producer who describes himself as a beginner. His MySpace tracks are all made with the 307 except for a few vocal samples.
www.myspace.com/tekemat

Checking your Operating System version

The manual does not indicate how to check which OS version your 307 uses, but it's easy to do:

With your 307 turned off, simultaneously hold the [SONG] + [SYSTEM] + [BPM] buttons. Then power up while holding them, and in a few moments the screen will reveal your OS version.

To the best of my knowledge, the latest version is OS 1.03.

NOTE: I recently discovered that my 307 runs OS 1.02. I bought my 307 used, and so far I have not found 1.03 online...Roland probably does not provide it anymore. Consequently, readers of this blog should be aware of two things:

1. Comments I post will reflect my experiences with OS 1.02. If you run version 1.03, there will probably be occasional differences.

2. If anyone knows where to find OS 1.03 online, please contact me and I will post on the topic, along with download instructions.

UPDATE: To find OS 1.03 online, see my post here. (As of April 2010 I have not updated my OS yet however.)

Using effects on individual drums

Here are a few thoughts on applying the effects (reverb, delay, & M-FX) to individual drum tones:

In general, effects apply equally to every tone on the Rhythm part; each tone's effects are not individually adjustable from the SETUP menu. However, I've found two ways to get around this.

The first way is to create your own User rhythm set (see manual pp. 105 - 113) and then choose how its individual drum tones receive each effect (page 112). This isn't too hard if you're only planning to adjust the effects on one or two tones -- say, your snare and kick drum. It's a bigger pain to do this for a large number of drum tones, but it can be done, and I suspect the extra effort could inject a lot of personality into a track. But if you do it, keep in mind that your new rhythm set's drum tones will now possess these same effects settings in every other pattern you create with it -- so plan ahead.

The second way is to dedicate one of the other parts (1-7) to the percussion sound you want, and then adjust the part's effects from the SETUP menu. This way is unquestionably easier and won't affect how the rhythm set sounds in other patterns. It also allows you to adjust the tone's volume, pan, etc. more directly. But in doing this you sacrifice a part, so be sure you can live with fewer synth voices.

...Thanks to reader Drewzle for his question about this.