Introduction - Lesson 1 - Lesson 2 - Lesson 3 - Lesson 4 - Lesson 5 - Credits
sYnCHAoZ' Skale Tracker Drumming Tutorial
Lesson 2 - Basic instrument management

Now that we know how to load and organize our instruments it is time to learn how to customize and manage them.

Skale Tracker has a built in wave editor and an advanced instrument editor with which you can shape and mold your instruments and even add some basic effects.
Typically drums don't need much editing from within Skale Tracker. There are however a few basic mastering tips and tricks for crash cymbals and the likes that we will apply to make our drumtrack sound more convincing. The most basic trick here is to place certain elements within the drumset in different sound channels. The kickdrum and snaredrum should always be in center channel, with equal volume in the Left and Right channel. The Hihat should be slightly more powerful in either the left or right channel, and the Ride Cymbal likewise, but opposite of the Hihat.

Example:

As you can see, the Kickdrum and Snaredrum is in dead center of the stereo mix, while the Hihat is slightly more in the Left channel, and the Ride Cymbal is slightly more in the Right channel. The Crash Cymbals are almost in the outmost Left and Right channels. Tomdrums usually span from the Left channel, to center to Right channel, giving them a stereo-pan effect when played in succession. Splash cymbals can be placed variously, depending on how many you wish to use.
We will now edit some of the instruments to fit the stereo mix better, as per displayed above. Follow these steps closely.
1. Select the "Tut Crash Cymbal L" in the instrument bank 03 by highlighting it.
2. In the General Options click the button "Instr. Edit" and a new window appears in the bottom half of the interface.
This is the instrument edit section where you can edit your instruments and apply various cool stuff. We will not cover this section in this tutorial, since it is a bit advanced and would require an entire chapter of its own.
3. On the top right side of the instrument editor you will see some sliders that can be moved around. We will only be modifying the "Panning" value which is defaulted to 80, which equals Center (50% left channel, 50% right channel). Since we don't want our Crash Cymbal to be in the center of our stereo mix, we are going to slide the ruler to the left side, untill it reaches the value of 40, placing the Crash Cymbal in the mid-left channel (75% left channel, 25% right channel).
NOTE: Advanced users can define these values in the effects string of the track itself, enabling you to pan the instrument in a full stereo mix spectrum from channel to channel instantly without editing the instrument file itself, giving you 100% control of the placement and panning of the sound. This will not be covered in this tutorial.
4. Now that we have edited our first Crash Cymbal to be in the mid-left channel (with the hex value 40), we will do the same with the "Tut Crash Cymbal R" only opposite of the first, meaning that you should highlight the instrument bank 05 containing the afore mentioned instrument, go to the "Instr. Edit" section, and set the "Panning" value to D0, which equals to the mid-right channel (25% left channel, 75% right channel).
5. Now highlight your Open Hihat instrument "Tut Hihat Open", again go to the instrument editor, and set the Panning value to 60, which equals half-mid-left channel (60% left channel, 40% right channel). Do the same with the "Tut Ride Cymbal" only opposite, setting its panning value to B0 (40% left channel, 60% right channel). We will not modify the Splash cymbal, thus leaving it in the center channel (50/50) like the Kickdrum, Snaredrum and Closed Hihat.
You now know the basic setup of the key elements within a drum mix, and you even know how to pan them into the right settings using the instrument editor section. Time to move on to Lesson 3.
Onwards to Lesson 3
Introduction - Lesson 1 - Lesson 2 - Lesson 3 - Lesson 4 - Lesson 5 - Credits