The drum kit editor provides an interface for completely customizing a drum kit and its included instruments, from sounds to names and visual organization. This section describes most of the operations and tools available in the drum kit document window.
To open an existing drum kit file, choose Open... from the File menu, or drag the document's icon to the Doggiebox application icon in either the Finder or the dock. Doggiebox drum kits typically end with the ".dbkit" file name extension.
As an exercise, open the "Ben's drums.dbkit" file, provided in the Examples folder. After a few moments a document window should appear.
This section discusses the layout and functioning of the drum kit document window.
The drum kit document window
The drum kit document window is broken into two principal sections: the overview, which specifies general information about the kit and lists all of its contained instruments; and the instrument detail section, which controls the specific attributes unique to each instrument.
The Drum kit name and description fields provide space for you to enter an identifying title or remarks about the drum kit. They are shown in the song editor, and helpful in cataloguing drum kit files.
To add or remove instruments in the drum kit, click the Add new drum or Remove drum button respectively. The instrument list can be sorted either by grid position, or alphabetically, using the radio buttons on the right. All drums and their variants are represented individually in the list.
Click an instrument in the drum kit list to edit its details. The controls in the half of the window will update to show the characteristics of the instrument you have selected.
The Drum type field identifies the family name of the instrument (e.g., snare, kick, crash 1). The Variant name field identifies the variant specific to the drum type. When a drum kit is loaded in the song editor, drums which share the same type name will be automatically grouped together and a sub-menu of variants will be provided (see the song document'sdrum kit list). Drums which have a unique type name will be presented by themselves.
If the Default variant for this drum type checkbox is selected and there is more than one drum of its type, then the selected drum will be presented as the default choice in the variants sub-menu. It does not make sense to select this checkbox for more than one variant of a given type; if you do, the behaviour is undefined.
The keyboard shortcut is intended for rapid instrument selection when editing a song. This feature is not yet implemented and the shortcut key is currently ignored.
You may load a sound file for the current instrument by clicking the Choose... button, and selecting a valid audio file. Many file formats are supported; see the exporting audio section for a list.
Note that currently, only sounds of 44.1 kHz (mono or stereo) are supported. If you are unable to import a sound file, check that it conforms to these paramaters and that its filename has the correct extension.
The sound's left/right panning may be adjusted using the slider; click the speaker-icon to audition it. Once a sound has been imported, it will be saved within the drum kit file -- the original source audio file does not need to be retained.
The drum icon is the image used to represent the instrument in the song's pattern editor. To provide a custom icon for the current drum, click the Choose... button and locate a suitable image file. You may also drag an image from the Finder onto the icon's image well. Valid file formats include those which are recognized by the Finder and the system, including TIFF, PICT, GIF, and PDF.
The image will be automatically scaled down as required by Doggiebox. Once an image has been imported, it will be saved within the drum kit file -- the original does not need to be retained.
In order to specify which grid position the drum will appear in, choose an appropriate radio button next to the image well. (For a discussion of grid position, see the pattern editor documentation.)