Using Dimensions Samples in Velocity

Although Velocity comes already packed chock full of great drum kits right out of the box, the addition of the Dimension synth and its 3GB of content gives our P5 drum synth a new breath of life!

Dimension contains many drum grooves and kits of its own ranging from resonant kicks to stereo cymbals...and these are made up using .wav files which are just waiting to be re-opened in Velocity's individual cells.

In the Velocity drum synth, simply open any existing drum bank (I recommend the "REAL" or "TRANCE" preset because they make use of EVERY cell). The reason I suggest starting with an existing drum bank is so that you can use it as a template of sorts. Notice each bank puts the bass drum in the first (and second) cells while the last three are usually reserved for toms. This is the way P5 maps its drum cells so that drum patterns and midi files can be auditioned and compared in much the same way using the different banks interchangeably. If you preview any rhythmic drum midi loop in EDITOR you'll see that despite the bank you've got loaded in Velocity the kick will still sound in the right spot as will the snare and the hihats, etc. That's handy! ;-) (Just ensure that when you load a bank that you return the knobs and settings to the default position for cells that have adjusted any parameters like pitch and gain or panning and choke groups,etc. Otherwise, it may not sound right when you replace the samples in these cells.

Now that you have a drum bank loaded up, and using this existing bank as a "template" you can click the first cell which will be a KICK sample and then click the REPLACE button in the SAMPLE LAYERS menu above. Then direct the browser to your DIMENSION folder, which by default is in the Cakewalk/Shared DXi's folder. Then Choose the "MULTISAMPLES" folder and you'll see a whole array of folders which each contain the .wav goodies that Dimension uses to drive each Element.

For purposes of expanding the Velocity kits we're interested in the 02-Drums folder. We need to replace the current bass drum/kick with one in the KICKS folder. Take your time and audition each sample and continue replacing each cell with an appropriate and relative sample in the Dimension folders.

Don't forget that you have the option of "stacking" various samples by clicking the ADD button rather than the REPLACE button...you can layer some really nice kicks and unique sounding snares, etc. using this procedure.

Finally, once you have all the cells populated with your new kits don't forget to SAVE your new kit (which adds it as a drum bank to the Velocity folder) so that you can recall it for use in future projects!

Velocity is a great way to trigger any .wav file, so don't limit yourself to the 02-Drums folder! Try all the other folders...there are many more percussive and FX type samples to be explored this way!

HAVE FUN!