You simply play with your mouse clicking the drum heads, or on a computer keyboard if you wish.
Bells, two dunun bass drums and djembe is brought together as an interactive instrument in this virtual ensemble. There’s a choice of different rhythms that will guide your ear and allow you to explore the individual sounds. It is an intuitive interface and you just concentrate on groove and timing without getting bogged down in complicated settings.
How to Use the Virtual Drum Kit
What does that mean? Well, the heart of this instrument are the djembe. Depending on how you strike the skin, it will produces three different voices. For the bass, you get a deep, ringing boom by clicking the centre of the head. For the tone, you aim for an open and warm note in the middle ring. For the slap, you get a sharp and crisp crack by hitting the outer rim here. These are the three sounds that make up the vocabulary of West African drumming, and on the keyboard, you play these notes using the S, T and B keys.
Surrounding the djembe are the two dunun drums that forms the low end of the sound. The drum on the left is called the sangban. Map this onto the Z key and you’ll get a fuller, deeper thud from this drum. To the right is the kenkeni. This maps to the X key and gives a tighter attack but at a slightly higher pitch. These two drums really drive the pulse of the rhythm.
Above the dunun drums sits bells. Click these or press the K key and you will hear the metallic timeline that holds the ensemble together.
The widget has pre-programmed rhythms that you don’t have to play all by yourself. Click on the Kuku rhythm button and it will begin a loop that features a steady bell pattern, grounding dunun footwork, and a conversational djembe melody. This loop is where you practice keeping time and can play along with it. Or maybe you want to emphasize the slap tones? Then you click on the Djole rhythm button and that’s what happens. The loops keeps going, but you click on the button again to shut them off.
The Echo trainer provides a simple yet effective way to practice. The trainer will light up the zones on the screen that correspond to the short djembe phrase being played. Then it waits for you to repeat it before pausing again so you can listen back to the sequence of slap, tone, and bass hits. When it’s your turn you play the same pattern back again and the trainer will cycle through other phrases. It’s a great way to learn patterns without a teacher as well as helping you develop muscle memory.
The transport bar below the stage have all of the controls. If you want to turn up the loudness, adjust with the volume slider. Keep it soft when in a shared space. To get a larger view, click on the fullscreen button. It expands the widget to take up your whole screen. That way you have more target area to click, and the visual feedback is clearer. Click again on the button, and you’re back to the normal view.
There’s a handy little how to play button that when pressed shows you the help panel where you can quickly find all your keyboard mappings and controls. If you ever forget what key goes with each drum, this is good to have up to. It also reminds you of the basic zones on the djembe head. You leave it open as you get used to the layout but once you know it, you simply close it and give yourself some more space in which to play.
The echo trainer teaches you a straightforward pattern that makes up a good practice routine. Once you feel confident, you begin the Kuku rhythm loop. Your job is to replicate the djembé part by matching your beats to the visual pulses on the screen. Pay attention to the timing between the slap and the tone and aim for your hits to align with the visual pulses. If you don’t like the rhythm you can change it. This challenges how adaptable you are. Listen out carefully and respond physically to the pulse.
It’s a virtual instrument that captures the essence of an African drum circle. You can isolate the dununs beneath, hear the attack of the slap, feel the vibration of the bass drum, and take your time to explore each voice on its own. It is a safe place to experiment with polyrhythms, where you dive in and let the rhythms lead your hands.