One of the great things about an electric drum kit is the ability to access many sounds without having to haul around a huge collection of percussion instruments. The downside is that electronic triggers limit the playing techniques you can apply and make it difficult to recreate some of the nuances of the real instruments.

This fact became an issue for me while preparing for In The Heights. The score calls for various techniques on a Güira (a metal Guiro used in Dominican Meringue music), including the seemingly simple pattern below:

The obvious solution is to use a velocity threshold to access the two samples. However, a simple threshold can be tricky – hit slightly too hard or soft and you trigger the wrong sample, wrecking the groove. My solution was to use the new scripting feature in MainStage 3 to create an adaptive velocity threshold that floats based on my playing, helping me lock in the groove. Read on for the details…

Continue reading Fakin’ It : Güira Style →