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8.3 SOUND STACKING™
8.3A Basics
Sound Stacking™ was introduced by Alesis on its two earlier drum machines, the HR-16 and
HR-16:B. It is a quick and efficient way of layering drum sounds to create thicker drum textures
and gives the user wide capabilities for experimenting with new, personalized drum sounds.
Through some intelligent software manipulation, a drum sound's rhythm pattern can be copied
to any other drum pad thereby simultaneously triggering the drum sounds assigned to both
pads. You can stack as many sounds as there are drum pads, but you'll most often need to
have enough drum groups to create a drum set. Typically, the snare would be stacked with
one or two other sounds and the kick might be stacked with one other sound. Of course, the
actual use is totally up to you, but the possibilities are endless.
The operation is a simple copy function performed when the IDM01 is in stop mode and can be
done at any time: while developing a rhythm pattern, during mixdown, if you're driving the
IDM01 live through MIDI, or stack sounds on the IDM01's preset rhythm patterns. In
conjunction with the IDM01's mix, pan, and tune functions, you can customize the drum sound
to the specific needs of the song you are working on. This kind of flexibility makes the IDM01 a
powerful production tool in the critical decision making process that gives personality to
recorded music.
8.3B Sound Stacking when Using the IDM01 as a Drum Machine
When used as a drum machine, one pad's rhythm can be copied to another pad so that as the
Pattern plays, both pads double a part (use the directions in section 3.3B to perform Sound
Stacking). You can also copy the rhythm to additional pads if desired.
8.3C Editing Stacked Combinations
Remember that the stacked sounds can be further modified with the Drum Set parameters.
Example: Timbale could be stacked with a snare, but mixed a bit lower than the snare to give
the snare sound a "ring" without overpowering it.
Tuning changes can also be very effective. Example: Slightly detune two identical drums to
create a thicker sound.
8.3D Sound Stacking via MIDI
When using the IDM01 as an expander module, each pad responds to a particular MIDI note
number. Assigning two pads to the same note number (section 6.4) stacks those two pads into
one combined sound (as triggered by the assigned MIDI note number). You are not limited to
assigning two pads to the same note number—trigger all the pads from one MIDI note if you
dare.
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