ncgs part1 making a drum pattern

part1-ncgs-drums.rb

##| part1-ncgs-drums.rb
##| Let's set the energy of the tune by designing a drum pattern

##| choose a tempo for your song
##| the default tempo is 60 beats per minute
use_bpm 60


##| 1) Kick
##| Choose a sound for your kick drum
##| Use the 'sample command' and explore
##| the samples that you could use for
##| the kick sound.
##| For this sound choose your lowest sound
##| -----------------------------------------

##| Uncomment the line below
comment do
  sample
end



##| 2) Back beat
##| Choose a sound for your back beat
##| Use the 'sample command' and explore
##| the samples that you could use for
##| the Snare.
##| For this sound try to choose something punchy and
##| a little brighter than the kick
##| -----------------------------------------

##| Uncomment the line below
comment do
  sample
end


##| 3) Hi-hats
##| Let's inject some energy into the whole drum line
##| with hi-hats. Same thing here, choose a sound for the
##| hi-hats. You want something bright and crisp
##| -----------------------------------------

##| Uncomment the line below
comment do
  sample
end


##| 4) Building a Drum Pattern
##| Now we are going to put the sounds together to create a drum pattern
##| Below are some sample patters that we will discuss in the workshop
##| -----------------------------------------

##| in this pattern each number represents a beat
##| For this song we will say that 4 beats is a bar and that each beat is a quarter note.

##| As an example, in the following list of numbers each number represents 1 beat.
##| Playing this pattern would represent playing one bar of music.
pattern1 = 1,0,1,0

##| here is a long way to play this pattern. We will do it the long way to understand
##| the shortcut that we will use to do it the "real" way.

comment do
  # beat1 = 1 so play the sample
  sample :bass_hit_c
  sleep 1
  
  #beat2 = 0 so do not play anything
  sleep 1
  
  #beat3 = 1 so play the sample
  sample :bass_hit_c
  sleep 1
  
  #beat4 = 0 so do not play anything
  sleep 1
end

##| If you run that then you will have played 1 bar of the pattern.
##| Now patterns repeat, right? Let's repeat this pattern 4 times so that
##| we are symmetrical (a 1/4 note = 1 beat; there are 4 beats in 1 bar; and now we have
##| 4 bars as another unit of organization)

comment do
  use_bpm 120
  4.times do  # can you figure out what this means?
    # beat1 = 1 so play the sample
    sample :bass_hit_c
    sleep 1
    
    #beat2 = 0 so do not play anything
    sleep 1
    
    #beat3 = 1 so play the sample
    sample :bass_hit_c
    sleep 1
    
    #beat4 = 0 so do not play anything
    sleep 1
  end
end


##| Congratulations! You have your first rhythm pattern!

##| OK. Now. A couple more basic concepts before we get to
##| kickin' it.  I am going to introduce a couple of language
##| concepts that will make it easier to jam.

##| Instead of 1's and 0's lets make 1's = true and 0's = false
##| whenever the computer reads 'true' it will do an action for us
##| (play the sample) and when it reads false it won't

##| If you run the following code you will see that pattern1 prints out:
##| (ring true, false, true, false) - ignore the ring part. But now you see that our
##| pattern has been converted into what are called boolean values
comment do
  pattern1 = bools 1,0,1,0
  print 'your pattern is: '
  print pattern1
end


##| Alright how does this make our life easier?
##| Uncomment the following code and have a play
##| with changing the 1's and 0's in the pattern.
##| If you want to hear the change you have to press 'run'

comment do
  use_bpm 120
  pattern = bools 1,0,0,1
  
  live_loop :test_pattern do
    x = tick  # make our metronome tick and make x equal to it
    
    on pattern[ x ] do    # see if the value for this metronome tick is true or false
      sample :bass_hit_c  # if it is true then we will play the sample otherwise not
    end
    
    sleep 1               # Always sleep for some time; here we are sleeping 1 beat
  end
  
end