USING PADS Part 1
Hearing and listening not the same thing. I love to analyze, my keyboard my car and my wife. Oh, leave that last part out it gets me into trouble.
Listen to your favorite recording/style. Pay attention to the Bass and drums. Fill ins and lead lines are not important at this point. What happens when the mood of the song starts to change? What did the drum do and what did the bass do? If the bass and drums make no change all the other instruments in the band can vari but with little effect.
Big Band Ballad
1-The beginning bass line is light on 1 and 3.
2-The variation comes and the bass is played on 1,2,3 and 4th beats, more drive. The feeling is added excitement climbing to another level. This is very evident in Big Band but even more so with contemporary music At times the bass seems to be taken over the band. Many contemporary songs are built around a special bass line.
3-The drummers also make their changes to match the mood by accents and additional sounds.
Creating pads: Create all six pads from below.
Pad 1- Bass drum on 1 and two Snare drum on 3 and 4.
Pad 2- A ride cymbal on all four beats.
Pad 3- A bass drum on all four beats.
Pad 4- C Major chord (C-E-G) on all four beats
Pad 5- A 12 Bar blues pattern, no melody, just the 12 bars. Repeat.
Pad 6- Possibly a pattern like
I - C Major VI A Minor IV F major V7 G 7th Repeat.
For now lets look at Pad 5 12 Bar blues. You can select any pattern/style that you like, Big Band, Rock, Blues After you hold the first chord press start and then press Pad 5 -- now both your hands are free to add whatever while the 12 bar blues progression repeats over and over. I know you can do this with a sequence but doing it this way gives on-the-fly ability any style.
Part II coming later.
I hope this opens doors, John C.