Using Hydrogen (V: Putting Together the Song)

Hydrogen (Part V: Putting together the Song)
Now that we have the basic pattern and a fill, we can put these together in order as a song. Once again the basic drum structure in a song is:

Bar – Bar – Bar – Fill

• Look at the Song Editor. Notice that there is a blue block in the row marked “Pattern 1”. This indicates that the song is to play 1 instance of “Pattern 1”.



• Click on the next two blocks next to it and then on the 4th block for “Pattern 2” as shown:



• On the Transport Controls, click on the “Mode” button to change playback from “Pattern” to “Song” (See this post if you don’t know where it is)


• Replicate the same 4 bars 7 more times so it looks like this:



• Congratulations! We’re done with the drum section of our song, now let’s save our work and export it.


• Click on “Project” on the top toolbar.


• Click on “Save As”.


• Find a folder on your harddrive to save your work as. You will need to create a folder outside of the program, otherwise, just save it on C: D: etc. for now.


• For filename, call it 8bars.h2song

Now that your work is saved, you can always load it up later and modify the beat all you want. Continuing on to make our short blues song, however, let’s export the file to a WAV so we can continue working on it in Audacity (a sound editing program, see first posts and next lesson).

• Click on “Project”


• Click on “Export song”


• Click on “Browse” and find a folder you would like to work in, or just use C: for the time being.


• Under “File Name:” type “8bars.wav”


• Click on “Save”


• Click on “Export” then once it is done, click on “Close”

Congratulations! You’ve completed the drum part of the song. Next, we’ll go onto recording the guitar and bass bits in Audacity.