Playing snare with foot?

[tanuk]

Hello,

I would like to play drums only with my feet, and use hands for playing the keyboard. It seems that it's not possible to place a snare on the floor, so I would need a custom drum element for this. I know it's possible to create my own elements with my own samples, but for this I would need to find a good sample (or somehow record from Aerodrums), figure out how to use the element creation system in Aerodrums, and possibly tune the sample if it's not good on the first try.

Is there maybe a simpler way? I already have the samples I need in Aerodrums (namely "Brushes - 12in bop snare (closed)" and "Brushes - 15in crash"), they're just not in .wav format. The .ele files contain the samples and some metadata, and among the metadata I assume there's the bit that says that this element is for sticks and this element is for pedals. Can I somehow edit the sticks/pedals bit in the .ele file (using a hex editor would be an acceptable method)?

[tanuk]

Update: I decided to take the "record a sample from Aerodrums output and make a custom element out of it" route. Great success!

Still, if there's a simpler way to make a pedal element out of a stick element, maybe someone else is interested in the future, so please share your tips...

[Richard]

Since you mentioned "hex editor" here is the info you need to edit the .ele files yourself.

The first 4 bytes of the file will be "ELE0".

The next 4 bytes are an integer that stores the element type. This will be one of the following values:

0 - KICK
1 - SNARE
2 - RIMSHOT
3 - CROSS_STICK
4 - VERY_HIGH_TOM
5 - HIGH_TOM
6 - MID_TOM
7 - FLOOR_TOM
8 - FLOOR_TOM_2
9 - HIHAT
10 - HIHAT_SPLASH
11 - CRASH
12 - SPLASH
13 - RIDE
14 - RIDE_BELL
15 - CHINA
16 - COWBELL
17 - TAMBOURINE
18 - CUSTOM_HAND
19 - CUSTOM_FOOT
20 - CUSTOM_HAND_AND_FOOT

The next 4 bytes will be another integer that stores the element "category". This will be one of the following values:

0 - HAND_ELEMENT
1 - FOOT_ELEMENT
2 - HAND_AND_FOOT_ELEMENT

So, for example, if you open up "10in piccolo cross-stick.ele" in a hex editor then you should see a value of 3 (CROSS_STICK) for the type and a value of 0 (HAND_ELEMENT) for the category.

If you want to modify an existing .ele file, just change these two values in your hex editor.

For example, if you want to change a snare drum to be triggered by your foot then change the type from 1 (SNARE) to 0 (KICK), and change the category from 0 (HAND_ELEMENT) to 1 (FOOT_ELEMENT).

I haven't tested this but it should work. If you have any issues let me know.

[tanuk]

Thanks for the reply and good information! I can confirm that the instructions worked perfectly I didn't bother changing the element type, changing the category from hand to foot was enough.

[Richard]

Yes, in hindsight, changing the category should be sufficient. Good to hear it worked.