1. virtual drums
   these are virtual drums that are generated by the internal DrumStation synthesizer. they are always available.
2. drumkits
   drumkits contain drum samples in an organized form. each sample is assigned a category: bass, low-tom, snare, hihat open, hihat closed, cymbal, claps, percussion, fills or fx. a variety of drumkits is available on the drumstation homepage under www.d-lusion.com/products/drumstation/. you can also create your own drumkits.
   while using drums from Drumkits in your productions, these will not be saved in the file itself to preserve memory. this is also another nice feature: you can load another drumkit in your groove and check out how your fancy 909 groove bumps on a CZ. cool, eh ?
3. drums/loops in sequence
   if you add own loops and drums, which are specific for this beat, you can save them in the .DT file too. this is done by adding the drums/loops in the sequence. another feature is that you can distribute your grooves to people who don't own the specific drumkits. Just insert all the drums you used in the sequence....

if you select drum select in the context menu, or by clicking on the drum name in the channel panel, you will reach the drumkit dialog where you have the following functions available for drumkit management:

drumselect window
this window shows all drums and loops that drumstation has in its internal memory at this point. double click on a category to expand it and select the single drums. if you double-click on a drum it is selected for the current channel.

load drumkit
loads a new drumkit in the drumkit categories.

add drumkit
this function adds an exisiting drumkit to the current.

save drumkit
saves the current drumkit as .dkt file on disk. makes a perfect gift for friends and relatives.

add drum
first select the proper category, then use this button to add .wav files as drums.

add loop
adds a .wav file as loop into a sequence.

delete drum
deletes the selected drum/loop from memory.

drums to sequence
inserts all drums used in your patterns into the sequence in order to save them in a .dt file.

note: by clicking on a drum sample in the drumkit window or pressing space you can preview the sample.

file

reset machine (Ctrl-N)
resets all controls and clears all banks and patterns.

load machine state (Ctrl-O)
load a .DT file into the drum machine.

save machine state (Ctrl-S)
save a .DT file. this contains knobs and slider values, sequencer and drums.

save machine state as
save a .DT file under a different filename.

load drumkit (Ctrl-D)
loads a new drumkit (.dkt) from disk.

save drumkit
save the current drumkit to file.

quit
quits DrumStation.

edit

pattern clear (Ctrl-X)
clears the current pattern on all channels.

pattern copy (Ctrl-C)
copies the current pattern into the clipboard.

pattern insert (Ctrl-V)
inserts the clipboard into the current pattern.

bank copy (Alt-C)
copies the bank into the clipboard.

bank insert (Alt-V)
insert the bank from clipboard.

view

switch channels
selects whether the channels zoom while switching only or if every channel is shown zoomed.

Follow sequencer position
selects whether the display follows the sequencer position while playing.

channel 1-8 (Alt 1-8)
zooms the respective channel.
statusbar
turns the statusbar on/off.

output

start sequencer (return)
starts/stops the sequencer. if you can't hear any music, your either a cool minimalist, or your soundcard is not working properly.

record (F9)
records the output into the internal buffer. selecting this function again stops recording and prompts for saving.

save pattern (Ctrl-F9)
saves the last played pattern to .wav

pattern break (Space)
breaks the currently played pattern and jumps directly to the beginning of the next. you know...

mute
DrumStation allocates the whole audio output for itself. if you want to take a little break, in order to play with a sample editor for example, just press mute and DrumStation will free the sound output for use with other products. before you can use DrumStation again, you will have to click on the button.

setup

soundcard setup
Specifies your setup (see setup).

help

you probably guessed it all ready...

live-act controls

club tests have shown that ladies really dig a good live-act. don't worry, this is no problem for you, because DrumStation has a variety of cool live act features to adjust your sound to the club crowd !!

Y, X, C, V, B, N, M, etc.
plays the drum on the specific channel (1-8). a nice feature for live drumming...

return
starts/stops the sequencer

1-8 (channel keys)
mutes the specific channel.

shift 1-8
switches the specific channel to solo mode. all other channels will be muted.

shift-a
turns all channels on.

ctrl-a
turns all channels off.

ctrl-1-8
jumps to pattern 1-8 at the current position.

ctrl-shift-1-8
jumps to the selected pattern after finished playing the current.

Space
stops playing the current pattern and continues with the next one.

if you have got a powerful machine available:
it is possible to run many d-lusion software simultaneously in order to build your own sound software setup.

all you need is DAS, which stands for d-lusion Digital Audio Server. the latest version of the program is available at http://www.d-lusion.com/products/das/.
DAS implements soundcard sharing, features a very stable synchronisation of the so called DAS machines and offers possibilities to sync to midi. with DAS you are able to load DrumStation twice or even more often and use it along with other DAS aware software sound machines (like RubberDuck).

how to use two DrumStations simultaneously

first you have to start the DAS application (DAS icon in the program-Folder). then configure DAS with you soundcard settings. now start DrumStation; DAS should still be running in the background. DrumStation will report that it has found the Digital Audio Server and will ask you if it should connect. press Yes and DrumStation will start up. load you favourite beat. press play. DrumStation is now ready to go but does not run, that is ok. start up a second DrumStation let it again connect to DAS, also load a beat into it and press play again. now press the play button (RUN) in DAS, the two DrumStation then start playing together. you can change the tempo in DAS and both DrumStations will react with the same tempo change.
please note that using many DAS sound machines parallel needs a huge amount of processor time. If the sound starts to crackle and stutters your CPU power is possibly exhausted.

question: i hear annoying crackling and popping noises when playing a second song. what´s going on ?
answer: your machine seems to be a little too slow to run this kind of highly sophisticated software or the soundcard drivers you are using have been coded in bangalore. but you can try to correct this by increasing the buffersize in the soundcard setup.
anyway, we would suggest to use directx sound drivers since the latency is far better. you have to install directx on your system first though.

question: my soundcard works perfectly with other programs, but when i start i get the error "can not open output device". what am i doing wrong ?
answer: we tried to test the application on a great variety of soundcards and driver. but some old or very exotic soundcard drivers will just not work correctly with the program. in this case please get the newest driver version from your vendor or try to install directx.