Part 2 of my series of short "How to" videos on programming the Alesis SR18 drum machine, rather than just using the presets. This video covers how to write your own bass line and also customise your bass sound. / patrick.eightiesman
One very useful feature that was not discussed... You can shift the pads so that more notes in different octaves are available. To shift just press and hold BASS and then press either the INC (up) or DEC (down) keys. This helps a lot when you are trying to record a bass line and the note you are trying to add is in a different octave. Great Video! Thank you for sharing and contributiing!!
All hail 80s Man!! Thank you sooooo much for your videos. I bought my SR18 years ago and never used it until I found your videos. Thank you again for your time and effort!!
Great and thank you!! Ihave had an SR-18 for several years and had no idea it could do this! I should have read the manual but this has been very helpful!
Great little series. Thank you for the effort. I was on the fence as to buying one, but having seen these programming videos, I can see how I would use it. Please consider me another "person that you've helped".
Great tutorial, efficient information and easy approach to each step toward completing a pattern/song , thanks, Mr. 80'sMan, Positive Vibe Curse on your band.
Awesome and thank you for putting this out there.. Just getting started with this machine, but the sounds are very good and it is pretty easy to work with for a novice to get going…
you should be more than happy as you have helped so many more than one or two .....your tutorials are great and a reason I went and gone one.....thank you so much it was very kind of you to do this
Thank you so much, your comments are greatly appreciated. I plan to do indepth videos on it, when I eventually get into my new studio, maybe early summer.
@@80sman80 tha nose again and I will be one of the first to watch. I know you don't use the midi function but it would great to understand or demo whether you can use software to configure patches, songs and kits. Anyway thanks again.
Thank you for this. Bought this device for cheap years ago but couldn’t figure it out. Manuals just don’t work for some brains! Simplicity in explanation here is key.
Thanks for the videos. Just want to share a tip: You can play the bass with a midi keyboard if you don't like playing bass on the pads. This gives you access to more than one octave, and you can use chords, doublestops.
Could you please give more details about recording the bass pattern from a midi keyboard? What midi channel is correct (I believe midi channel 10 is default)?
@@skramlounge All I did was plug a midi cable midi out from my keyboard to midi in, in the SR-18. From there you push the Bass button on the left, then Drum kit. Use the large dial to select what bass preset you want. Page up& down to increase volume and tweak things. Hit your keys and you're playing bass on the SR-18.
@@skramlounge Regretfully I'm unable to check that out for you right now, as my studio has been taken down and gear boxed up in storage, due to building a new house and have sold our old house. So it will be many months before I have a new studio built and my gear all back up & running again. I only ever recorded the bass using the pads.
@@skramlounge probably really late for this but generally no, in *most* midi situations you traditionally have drums on channel 10 and piano on channel 1. Pretty much everything else varies from user to user.
Good stuff 80`s Man.....I can see its such a unit, once you can get your head around it, a`lot of possibilities there. Another good thing l noticed about it is ...It doesn't have an attitude...LOL
I do intend to do another video on the SR18, but unfortunately I don't know when, as we're moving house soon and all my gear is being boxed up and put into storage while we rent, until we find a new house.
thanks for the part on bass program...I'll be watching it repeatedly to get it all. I can do the first part as far as getting it to the right key, not sure yet how to save it so If I'm in live performance and want to use that pattern, I can call it up.
You can save by pressing Rec/enter and Save/copy together. You can call up your Songs or Patterns at any stage especially if you save them in the order you're playing them live.
Hello again thanks for your like .. I am watching this part 2 while awaiting Delivery .. & I am not blowing smoke at your Nether regions but as someone who is also interested in Photography etc & production of Audio / Visual .. I give you top marks in " Not being annoying " lol .. I wonder if you have done any teaching in your time ? as it is quite a skill to get through even a short presentation ( with notes maybe ? ) unscripted & in a calm manner . My Favourite site for guitar lessons is " Shut up & Play " the man is brilliant & it's like in the old days b4 Chef's became celebrities .. They used to just show the Hands & the ingredient's in the pan etc. Some people have a nice easy manner & some people have begun to think of themselves in the 3rd person .. Lol As to Audio / Visual My top marks go to Joss Stones Team who are making the Round the World tour Videos with her .. I do not know what gear they have but if you watch a few .. Recently they were in a Thunderstorm & had to stop but still managed to get something plus some B roll .. & on another shoot they flew in to land on a sail plane just off shore .. My wife say's I only like her because she is so Pretty But I also admire her choices in her career & she has a Gr8 voice. It doesn't hurt that she is not hard to look at but I am 65 .. Born in the 50's so lets be serious . Although I know a Muso guy who had been to her Mum's ( Joss' Mum 's) Cafe place & he said the mum was still Hot too . Genetics.. & bing bong Alexa has just notified me .. So cheers . & on to Part 3 . Stay safe .
Great. Learned a few more tips. Keep up the good work. What I would like to learn next if possible is to take my patterns and string them together to make an entire song that I can save to the alesis sr18 and then use it to jam along to the song from start to finish in a live environment. Please and Thankyou
Hi Tom, I'm delighted you found it useful. In my 3rd video, I plan to cover exactly that....how to piece together your patterns and make up whole songs. Thats exactly why I use this machine, as its designed to do this very well. You can have up to 99 songs.
Hi Bro, thanks so much for the video. I have a doubt: Is it possible to control the SR18's bass via MIDI via a keyboard, so it works as an auto accompaniment?
Great tutorial. Cheers. However can you only add bass by creating a pattern. Therefore could need 5 or 6 patterns to then go on and create a Song? Is there a limit to no of patterns it stores? Id likely use the preset drums but would want to create own bass lines.
Each pattern has 2 parts A & B plus 2 fills which gives you a total of 4 sub patterns per numbered pattern, so one would really only use between 1 to 3 numbered patterns which would easily cover most songs. You can have a maximum of 99 patterns. But thats 396 sub patterns.
Thanks for seeing this video, I am now totally convinced not to buy this device after seeing how long it takes to record a simple bass groove a couple of bars long.
Watch my video on using Song Mode and that should explain. Basically you just groups of patterns together as your drum track to your song and to whatever length you want
can you go back and modify the bass line afterwards? more specifically can I modify the bass lines from existing pre sets? there are a lot of drum pattern that I really like but the bass does not fit with my songs. Thank you for the videos!
Yes you can go back at any stage and edit drum or bass user patterns. As far as I remember, you can take the presets and edit them in User mode and alter the bass if you like. It's been nearly 2 years since I rewrote all the patterns for our band's playlist but I'm sure I used a couple of preset drum patterns and customised them with my own bass lines.
I have not been able to figure out how to save the volume of my baselines though. Have you ever figured this out? I can save the baseline itself but it always resets to the default volume ...
I couldn't find any information anywhere on how to erase a bass part - i.e. if you made a mistake and you want to do it again without layering the new part on top of the mistake. If you try and search youtube, you'll only get results on how to "mute" the bass part, which is not the same thing. I haven't found a way to erase the whole bass part at once, the two ways I can think of are: 1: ( in recording mode) hold down "erase" while playing exactly the same part again on the pads - usually not possible for me, if I was good enough to deliberately duplicate a mistake exactly, I probably wouldn't be making mistakes in the first place. 2) ( in recording mode) hold down erase and hold down each pad that I used in the mistake bass part as the pattern plays through until all the notes are gone. A bit slow, but you can hold down multiple pads at a time, so you can cluster-erase as many notes as you can reach on each pass. *EDIT* I just found out how to do it! You have to go out of recording mode, then press "erase" and "bass" together, and then press "REC" while still holding down the other two.
@@80sman80 I just found out how to do it! You have to go out of recording mode, then press "erase" and "bass" together, and then press "REC" while still holding down the other two.
Hi, yes that's fine. However I've just finished building my new studio after 18 month layoff due to selling our house, renting then moving to new house. All my gear was in storage for that time. I've only just reassembled it but need time to familiarise myself again with most of it as it's been so long since I've used it all and that includes my SR18. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time at present due to my job, to do much music work in my studio, but when I do I will be getting back into using and making more videos on the sr18. So if you don't mind waiting for a while until I'm back working in my studio and have time to reconnect with my sr18, it will be much more beneficial to you and I'll be in a better position to answer your queries. However feel free to post any questions or email me 80smandx7@gmail.com
Are bass parts tied to the song or are they locked into the pattern? Would i have to make another pattern if I wanted the same drums but different bass for 2 different songs? If that's the case, then using the bass will eat up a lot of storage
@@joditolomieri4302 I've customised around 90 user patterns and have around 37 full songs written. Don't forget you have an A & B pattern and each has drum fills
Hi. Can you explain how to set up a song with the bass mirroring the various chord changes ? For example, if you have pattern 1 of 2 bars in E, and then you want to use the same pattern but with the bass line transposed up a fifth for bars 3 & 4, do you have to duplicate the first pattern and transpose the bass up, save it as a second pattern, and then use both of those patterns in your song ? Or can you transpose the bass in bars in the song ?
I've actually not recorded a 2 octave bass pattern on 1 drum pattern before. However I just tried it there now and it does indeed record the bass in 2 transposed octaves. Just be careful how complex you make your patterns as the SR18 does have a limit on fast it can process data and if stretched too much with a complex drum and bass pattern on A & B + 2 fills, it can omit or add an odd bum bass note.
@@80sman80 Sorry for being dumb -do you mean that you can change the bass transposition in the song record mode? So a single pattern can be used to create a single and have different bass notes in each bar/bars? Pete
@@petephillips107 Hi Pete, your certainly not dumb, only way to find stuff out is to ask... I did it in User pattern mode. You won't be able to do that kind of pattern editing in Song Mode. Adding bass notes must be done in user pattern mode and saved. And yes, you can write a bass track transposing notes 2 octaves within a pattern
@@80sman80 ah, ok. Thanks. So if I want 2 bars in the key of E followed by 2 bars in the key of B, I would have to record the same pattern but with new bass notes?
@@petephillips107 yes. Some of my songs have up to 4 different patterns A & B + 2 fills each pattern because of having to write different bass tracks to complete 1 song
Just got one of these and feel like I'm missing something obvious. It seems to me that to construct a simple song with one preset pattern but three chord changes (like a basic 12 bar blues), I have to copy the pattern and transpose it to three of the user memories and then construct a song from those. Is that it - I can't simply hit the "A#" key and play the bass-line in the key I want? And if I have to use a dozen or more of those user slots to accomodate changes in key AND in patterns for anything approaching a usable song, will writing over the user slots then destroy the saved song? I really don't "get" this machine - there's absolutely no mention of key signatures or key changes in the manual - just whole-instrument transposition. I've scoured the www and it seems that no-one can answer cos every time anyone asks this question, all they get is either "The bass is crap so I don't use it" or else the subject gets changes completely. I just want to be able to play along in the key of (say) E for two bars and then in A for two bars etc - is that not actually possible?
Hi, yes it's possible and there's a few ways to achieve this. 1. Lengthen the bar to enable you to put in a longer bass line. 2. If your bass is complex and it's for a long verse for example, you can write 2 or 3 user patterns, then piece them together to make your song. Then just use same combination for each verse. I use the bass + drums in all our songs. We have nearly 40 songs on playlist and I still haven't used all the user memory yet.
@@80sman80 - thank you my friend. Its a clunky method and I'd assumed it would just change key with a single touch - just picking a key using the pads is so obvious, I can't believe it doesn't do that - so I could play a song in rather than going in and out of menus for each and every chord change. (I'm not looking to write my own patterns here - just making use of the onboard bass patterns). Mind you, I notice that some patterns have have a complete structure with those chord changes actually built-in. Overall, love the sounds and will write my own patterns and songs later - but it's far from user-friendly and maddeningly non-intuitive. I'll go through your vids - I'm sure I'll soon pick it all up. Thanks again.
You have to memorize all the buttons. Holy f. You really have to take a college course, to learn how to use this thing. I mean there is just so much to it. Someone needs to stop with the fluff talk and really get straight down to the nitty gritty. It's all Chinese to me.
