When I think of John Madden, famous American football announcer, I always imagine him telestrating and yelling “Boom!” With John Madden announcing his retirement recently, I figured it was a good time to review Boom, Digidesign’s drum machine virtual instrument. Boom is included for free with Pro Tools 8 and is definitely a cool and powerful device.
Boom is a drum-machine-style pattern sequencer. You can create your own patterns, use the innumerable preset patterns, or edit those presets… and easily trigger and switch between the patterns with the mouse or using MIDI data. Boom has 10 drum kits, including Urban 1 & 2, Dance 1 & 2, Electro, Retro, Eight-O, Nine-O, Fat-8, and Fat-9. The last four are based off of the classic 808 and 909 analog drum machines, where the Fat versions feature processed, harder-hitting versions of the Eight-O and Nine-O sounds.
The Matrix display on the upper left side of the screen gives you a visual display of what samples are sequenced to play in the pattern. Click notes in the Matrix to add or delete them. Click a note multiple times to change its velocity. (Like the Reason Redrum drum machine, there are 3 velocity levels.) Adjust the SWING, VOLUME, and DYNAMICS global controls and choose the DRUM KIT below the Matrix.
The Instrument section in the top center and left enables you to alter the panning, volume, tuning, and decay. You can also mute, solo, select the sample (for instance, you can choose a clap sound from any of the 10 preset drum kits), and use the mysterious “Adjuster” button to calibrate the sound of the instrument in “varying ways.” Click and drag the Adjuster button to change the intensity and impact of the sound.
You can change the speed of the beat from double-time (X2), regular speed (X1), or half-time (X 1/2)… try switching between these in real time… fun! Use the Triplet button to create triplet feels, which will only make use of the first 12 steps in the beat. The last four steps will be greyed-out.
The Event bar consists of the 16 Event switches, where each Event switch corresponds to a 1/16 note in a drum pattern. To add or delete notes to the drum pattern using the Event bar, just select an instrument (e.g., click on the name of the KICK track to select it), then click on an Event switch to cycle through the fours states… Note On at full velocity, Note On at medium velocity, Note On at low velocity, and Note Off. Pretty intuitive. Every note you add or delete, as well as the note velocity, is reflected in the Matrix section.
Use the Edit Mode switch to toggle between editing a pattern (Pat Edit) or switching between patterns in a current preset (Pat Sel). For instance, if you load the preset “Electrobump in trunk 103″, set the Edit Mode to Pat Sel to listen to all 16 varieties of that pattern preset. If you want to edit one of the patterns, toggle the Edit mode to Pat Edit and then edit that selected pattern. There are 128 preset patterns, with 16 variations… so that’s a total of 2048 preset beats for you to choose from and edit, if you need a place to start. You can also chain patterns together to create a song arrangement, as well as trigger patterns from a MIDI controller and build your own patterns with MIDI notes.
Here’s an MP3 that plays a few of the presets…
I like Boom. I think you will too once you get to know it. Its a pretty powerful beat creation station when you dig a little deeper beyond the presets. Check it out and have fun!
