Reaper Drum Notation

How to use Drum Notation in REAPER

There are some tricks you can use to set up drum notation in REAPER.

I will assume your input device uses General MIDI.

The basic idea is to map your input device to drum notation via a Track Input FX script, then map drum notation back to General MIDI and set your drum software to General MIDI mode.

Change the clef of your MIDI file to Percussion (right click a clef -> Default Clef -> Percussion).

In Percussion clef, all accidentals are omitted. With some planning, we can cram multiple sounds on the same line or space on the staff by changing the notated accidentals (right click note -> Accidental -> Notate as …).

Then to visually distinguish these notes, use custom note heads (right click note -> Note head -> All notes at selected pitch -> choose note head).

Don’t (always) use triangle or diamond drum modes. Note duration is important in drum notation. Get used to using the “Set note ends to start of next note (legato)” Action (I mapped it to “Shift+L”).

To fix the lengths of a set of notes, highlight them and call this action.

Make sure you label your notes in the Named Notes Mode by right-clicking them. Most notes will naturally fall close to each other using this method, but you can still Cmd+Drag the notes around in the Named Notes view without changing the Notation view. You can also use triangle/diamond note views to manipulate notes if you prefer, and use the legato action to clean up your work for notation view.

Kick

General MIDI supports two kicks on channel 35 and 36.

Drum notation usually puts these on E and F above middle C.

In REAPER, this is E4 (64) and F4 (65).

Using notated accidentals, you can make notes appear on these positions using any note from 62 (D4 notated as Ebb4) to 67 (G4 notated as F##4).

Snare

General MIDI supports Side Stick (37), Snare (38), Rimshot (40).

Drum notation puts all these on C above middle C.

In REAPER, this is C5 (72).

Using notated accidentals, you can make notes appear on these positions using any note from 70 (A#4 notated as Cbb5) to 74 (D5 notated as C##5).

For example:

  • map Side Stick (37 General MIDI) to A#4 (70) in REAPER, and notate it as Cbb5.
  • map Snare (38 General MIDI) to B4 (71) in REAPER, and notate as Cb5.
  • map Rimshot (40 General MIDI) to C5 (72) in REAPER, and notate as C♮5.

Now set custom note heads to visually distinguish these notes.

Generally side stick is an x, snare is a normal note head, and Rimshot is a hollow diamond.

Toms

Drum Notation can easily support 5 toms. Starting on G above middle C, from lowest tom to highest, you can use G, A, B, D, and E.

Pick your favorite 5 toms in General MIDI, for example (from lowest tom to highest):

  • Low Floor Tom (41)
  • High Floor Tom (43)
  • Low Tom (45)
  • Low-Mid Tom (47)
  • Hi-Mid Tom (48)

In REAPER, we want to map these to same staff positions as G4 (67), A4 (69), B4 (71), D5 (74), and E5 (76).

Some of these positions might be already used for snares or kicks. Remember, you can pick any MIDI note within +/-2 positions to position each note.

You don’t necessarily even need to map them in the same order as General MIDI. For example, you could map Low-Mid Tom to D#5 (75) and Hi-Mid Tom to Ebb5 (74).

Here’s a simple example mapping using the spare notes we’ve left in our running example:

  • Low Floor Tom (41) => Gb4 (66)
  • High Floor Tom (43) => Abb4 (67)
  • Low Tom (45) => Bbb4 (69)
  • Low-Mid Tom (47) => Db5 (73)
  • Hi-Mid Tom (48) => D♮5 (74)

Ride

General MIDI uses Ride Tip (51), Ride Bell (53), and Ride Edge (59).

These all use F at the top of the staff, which is F5 (77) in REAPER.

Since we mapped the Hi-Mid Tom to Eb5 (75), we can use Fb5 (76) to F##5 (79).

To make room for Hi-Hats, let’s put them all together:

  • Ride Tip (51) => Fbb5 (75)
  • Ride Bell (53) => Fb5 (76)
  • Ride Edge (59) => F♮5 (77)

As note heads use x for Ride Tip, diamond for Ride Bell, and a right-angled triangle for Ride Edge.

Hi-Hat Pedal

General MIDI has the Hi-Hat Pedal on note 44.

This corresponds to D above middle C in drum notation.

This is D4 (62) in REAPER, which we can just map directly.

Use x as the note head.

Cymbals

Let’s pick these symbols from General MIDI:

  • Crash Medium (49)
  • China (52)
  • Spash (55)
  • Crash High (57)

We will put these on G, A, and B above the staff.

  • Crash Medium (49) => A#5 (82)
  • China (52) => B#5 (84)
  • Spash (55) => B5 (83)
  • Crash High (57) => A5 (81)

For note heads, use x for splash, X for china, downwards-pointing triangle for Crash High, and X for Crash Low.

Hi-Hat (No-CC)

TODO

Hi-Hat (CC)

TODO