What Type of Input is Best for Making Beats, Keyboard or Drum Pads?

With the proliferation of so many amazing technologies with which to create drum samples, the aspiring and sometimes even the professional musician may be at a loss to decide which is the best method for their music to use. If, like many musicians you are operating on a tight budget and already happen to own a keyboard, then the question of spending more for new gear may be prohibitive. While there are exciting new less expensive models of devices that create awesome drum samples, if your existing keyboard already does the job and you are happy enough for now with its results, then perhaps you can hold off for a while and be able to eat instead.

A lot may also depend of the type of musician that you are. Someone who is a total keyboard player with a limited background in percussion may be more comfortable with the familiar feel of the keys. A musician that may be more percussively oriented, like a person that started out playing the drums and has moved on to playing keyboards, might therefore be more at home creating their drum samples using real drum sticks and pads that deliver a nice feeling of impact with at least some modest rebounding capability.

It may be hard to duplicate the primal feel of pounding on a surface with a stick as opposed to pressing on plastic with your fingers. Though if you are more of a keyboard oriented musician then that still may be best for your strengths. A well financed musician can avoid this quandary by investing in both a keyboard that will perform the task as well as the drum pad sequencers.

Why not have dueling devices and let them play off of each other? Try several takes on your drum track using each method and then compare or even combine the results. Splice and dice with a few measures dedicated to each device. Most of all, remember to be creative. Don't procure all this great new technology and play the same tired old riffs. Resolve to move out of the humdrum and into the world of the elite beat makers. Find your groove by tapping your inner creativity, not retreading others' work. Of course, retreading, or interpreting someone's music is a creative act in itself. The Beatles jammed on a Buddy Holly tune for hours and wound up with 'Love Me Do'. Going beyond this mixed message to quote that ultimate of writers Erich Von Daniken, from his book 'Proof', 'Duo quum idem faciunt non est idem-when two people do the same thing, it is not the same.'

For more information on the topics mentioned in the article such as using drum samples, please visit Dance Midi Samples where they have tutorials.