Ujam’s Beatmaker plugins are a great way to get started making beats offering as they do a variety of genre specific, ready to go drum kits, styles and mixing presets. If you want to take your beats to the next level however you’ll no doubt be wanting to tweak and customize the included presets to add your own spin on things.
One of the best ways to take the stock Beatmaker sounds into new directions is via individual processing of each drum part (or ‘instrument’). Yes each Beatmaker plugin does offer a few master effects, which are perfectly adequate, but you can push your beats a lot further by routing each drum part into its own mixer track and spicing up the sound with your DAW’s stock plugins or third party plugins.
In the steps below I walk you through bypassing Beatmaker’s default Master output to send drum parts to their own track. I am using FL Studio but the principle is similar for other DAWs. This is a very easy and quick process that only takes a few seconds to learn but it can be a mystery for people who are new to FL Studio and are not familiar with some of the ‘hidden’ features of the FL Studio interface. Let’s get started…
Step1: Load up your Ujam Beatmaker Plugin
I am using Beatmaker Hype in this example but the process is the same for all Beatmakers.
Step 2: Access the VST wrapper settings
You need to access the “hidden” output mappings in the VST wrapper settings. First just click the gear icon at the top left of Beatmaker plugin window. Three new icons will appear and you need to click the middle gear icon (VST Wrapper settings). A new window will open up and you need to click on the middle ‘Processing ‘ tab.
Step 3: Map Beatmaker plugin’s individual outs
On the processing tab you should see an output mapping section. All you need to do here is decide which mixer track you want to send Beatmaker’s master output to. By default your Beatmaker plugin sends its output to your DAW’s main stereo out track so you need to set it something else. In the top box (Main out L/ Main out R) just enter a new mixer track number of your choice. I have chosen track 8 but you can use any track.
With the master output now routed to track 8 you just need to click the Auto Map outputs button and FL Studio will ‘talk’ to Beatmaker and automatically route the plugins individual drum parts to their own tracks starting one along from the master track. So if you set the master output to track 8, BD 1 will be routed to track9, BD 2 will be routed to track 10 etc.
Step 4: Adjust your Beatmaker settings
With your drum parts mapped it’s time to close the VST wrapper setting and return to the plugin. In your Beatmaker plugin select a drum part (such as BD 1) and ensure its output is switched from ‘Master’ to ‘Individual’. To check everything is working just click on the BD 1 key and you should hear the bass drum sound and see mixer track 9 meter respond.
Note that you must set each drum part’s output to ‘Individual’. Every drum part left on ‘Master’ output will be routed to the track 8 (or whichever track you decided to send the master output to in step 3.
When you have your drum part(s) routed to their own track you can get stuck in further processing and tweaking your Beatmaker’s sounds with your favorite distortion, reverbs, EQ etc.