Creating your own drum tracks even if you can’t play drums
Do you want to create your own drum tracks, but you can’t actually play drums? If you are in this situation you’re in the right place here. I will help you to set up your own drum tracks with the program TuxGuitar. You can also use Guitar Pro which has similar functions, but for right now I’m going to stick with TuxGuitar, because you can use it for free.
Once you have downloaded and installed this program please open it and you will see on the bottom of the page the name of the track and the instrument:
The default instrument is a Steel String Guitar. Since we want to program a drum track, you double click on the ‘Steel String Guitar’ and Select the instrument ‘DrumKit’ in the window that will pop up.
Thinking like a drummer
When a drummer is playing a beat, usually he is using cymbals (like the Hi-Hat) to play a steady stream of eight or quarter notes. On beats 2 and 4 (in a 4/4 measure) he will most likely hit his snare drum, at least that’s the way that you hear drummers play in most of the songs you hear on radio and on most rock tunes.
The third instrument he is always using when playing beats, is the bass drum. This is the tom that is standing on the floor right in front of him, which he his hitting with a foot pedal. Other than the snare drum, the bass drum is used more freely, but usually you hit it on beat 1 and somewhere in between beats 2 and 4, for most songs.
Composing your drum track
Considering the advice above, you would start to type in the steady Hi-Hat in eight or quarter notes. For this example I am using eighth notes. To write down eighth notes in TuxGuitar, you click on the eighth note symbol on your dashboard on the left:
The tablature will be filled out with eighth note rests now. To fill the measure up with Hi-Hat beats, you simply choose any line you wish in the tablature and press the numbers ’42’ (code for Hi-Hat) on every beat, until every eighth note of the measure is filled up with Hi-Hat beats.
To add the snare drum on beats 2 and 4, you choose a new line in the tablature and press ’38’ on the 3rd and the 7th eighth note.
As said before, you can be more creative with the bass drum. However, I would recommend at least one bass drum ‘kick’ on beat 1. To add a bass drum ‘kick’, you press the number ’36’ on the beat where you want to put it. Below you can see some variations of the bass drum ‘kicks’, between the snare drum ‘hits’:
As you can see I have chosen different lines on the tablature for each instrument. It doesn’t matter at all which line you choose for which tom or cymbal (other than for guitar tab), the instrument is only determined by the number code I’ve shown you above.
To multiply your measures just press ‘ctrl+c’, confirm, and then press ‘ctrl+v’. You will be asked how many times you want to insert the measure, just add in the number of measures your piece should last, confirm, and your drum track is finished!
Now it’s your turn to create your own tracks!
I am Marco von Baumbach and I am the author of this article. You are welcome to visit my website about Gitarrenunterricht in Wuppertal