Which Drum Hits to Which Pads?

[yo-yo crunch]

just wondering how people are assigning hits to pads...
used to have kits arranged horizontally (pad 1=kick, pad 2= snare, pad 3= hat). but after seeing that jeremy ellis video, he said they found it more ergonomic for finger drumming to arrange the hits vertically (pad 9=kick, pad 5= snare, pad 1=hat).
so i did that for my 3-hit kits, but left some 4-hit kits (extra crash, cymbal, clap, etc.) arranged horizontally.
i had banks C, D, E & F loaded with complete kits, then banks G, H, I & F were random 1-shots from different records (bank G=kicks, bank H snares, etc.)
E & F were mostly kick-snare combos that didn't have a hat.

didn't like having all those uniform random banks cause you can't play it live w/ just all kicks on a bank. so i started mixing the random hits to make kits, trying to get hits that sounded ok together. then took the kits that were only kick-snare, and added a hat to them by hi-passing the snare.

now all banks are pretty much uniform (vertically arranged) so its a little easier to know where hits are and go through kits and play ish live.
just left bank J with drum loops that haven't been chopped yet.

so...not really messing with backups at all...

feel slightly more organized now, but still thinking of going back to the horizontal steez. dunno... how do ya'll do it?

[tape smoke]

closed hat pad 4, open hat pad 8, snare pad one, snare pad 5 , kicks 2 and 6, usually and then erything else where ever, i like reversing things to use the other side of my brain sometimes though

[cantfind]

I never really gave it much thought till now but I always place my snares on the left side of the pads and the kicks on the right side. I guess the reason is when I find myself drumming on tables with my hands I always have my left hand play as a snare and my right hand as a kick.

[yo-yo crunch]

interesting--you guys both put your snares on the left side... thanks for the replies.

cappy- do you ever create open hats from closed ones with reverb (or other fx), or just find real ones?
seems like they're not always that common...or maybe i'm not paying attention

[bigfake]

5 - kick
6 - closed hi hat
7 - snare

That's because I play using one hand (left). My right hand is for kaoss pads.

[a.D.]

Are we talking for strictly live performance here? 'Cause w/out velocity sensitive pads , for me it's neccessary to have multiple pads w the same drum hits on them with different volumes and/or pitches. I usually have 4-5 pads w kicks,3-4 for snares,and 6-7 for hats. Obviously doing it this way it would be impossible to play my drum patterns in one take-so,it doesn't really matter how I place them. But I do line up all the kicks & snares next to each other horrizontally in order of where they come in the sequence, the same for my hats in the next bank over,and I program all of them in 3 sepperate takes(for a simple skeleton before I lay my sample chops).If I were doing shit live, I would have to think horrizontally would be the best way to go-and being right handed,I'd wanna place the kicks so I could play them with my left hand, snares and hats w/the right.Seems like having shit lined up vertically would maybe be a little physically awkword?

[tape smoke]

i dont usually make open hats from closed ones but i will try, i usually make a shaker out of a snare and then put it on loop and adjust the start or end untill it shuffles with the beat, or else i take a break with lots of hats, and then time strech it to my deisired tempo then resample it lofi with isolator highs only it makes a real nice high hat sizzle loop

[yo-yo crunch]

nice cap- gonna have to try that lofi iso resample trick. actually i think i've done it before, but not with the lofi...

a.d- yeah i was thinking more for live playing, so you can do the kick, snare and hat all together. seems like practicing this way makes you a better player than just recording each hit in separate passes. i still do both though...

it makes sense though that you guys are putting kicks and snares far left and right. i noticed when i'm drumming with two hands i'll do the kick with my left hand and snare with the right (or kick & snare left hand, hat right).

the vertical layout is more for drumming with one hand only and it seems to be very ergonomic and comfortable over a period of time. thumb on kick (pad 9), index finger on snare (pad 5), middle finger on hat (pad 1)

[lodger]

here's mine. I leave the blank free for resampling phrases.

I also always save kits to 1a and then backup. This way you can get the most out of the work you've already done on your drums by reusing and recycling.

[cartesia]

I don't have a set structure but I tend to put the kick and snare on opposite sides of the pads, or at least have some space between them..

then the hihats/cymbals usually end up on top and things like bongos/toms will go in the gaps wherever they may be...

I find having non-sequential layouts helps to come up with non-standard combinations/rhythms

[yo-yo crunch]

lodger- do you mean you resample kits you've constructed to one pad or just keep the original break from the record on the pad?

cartesia- i know what you mean about keeping it fresh. that's why i don't really like to organize my records, so its more random

[fauna]

for me: main drums are ALWAYS the first things i put on a new card, always on bank J. my set up is in vertical rows, left to right:

kick
kick
kick
snare
snare
snare
hat closed
hat closed
hat open
shaker
ride
tambourine

that way, whichever card i load in has the drums in roughly the same set up (at least for the big three of kix, snares & hats). i will also process drums w/ fx and add them in the same set up to bank F, so i can just quickly switch between F / J.

[lodger]

lodger- do you mean you resample kits you've constructed to one pad or just keep the original break from the record on the pad?

i use the blank for holding the loop I'm chopping. after i'm done with a sample, i clear that off and sample another loop to it and continue with that process. I also use that blank for resampling once the full kit is together.

usually i'll save kits by backing A up and loading the samples and novel stuff to B. I have one cf card for hits, one for saved projects.

[jbl]

lodger, nice graphic. and fauna, i to do something similar. this is interesting how this thread made me realize how to sort of multisample.
#og alert#
so check this; record a pattern on C1 using A and B banks. now you can load up to 12 presets with load function. true there will be a pause but if you're rocking two then live it would work.

[a.D.]

Really wish I could be as organized as yall,lol-I just got random shit all over my 404 at all times for the most part....I've never really used the memory cards to their full potential as far as having particular cards for particular things...I have 5 1 gig cards-always have planned on putting just mad drums on one of them,but that would require having completely empty pad space and that has yet to happen in the last 3 years,lol. Wish you could still go to wallgreens or some shit and cop a new card. I need to stop being lazy though and get one off ebay.