Optimising workflow is a common concern in today’s world and one of the motivating factors behind a number of user interface shortcuts built right into DrumSpillage.

Copy and Paste Pad Operations

Swapping pads in the user interface is as simple as dragging pad A over to pad B and releasing the mouse. The two pads will now swap positions. As you drag a pad a ghost image of the pad will appear labelled ‘move’.

Duplicating pads is just as simple but requires you to hold down the Alt(⌥) key whilst dragging pads around the interface.

With the copy shortcut you can easily duplicate pads within the DrumSpillage interface which is very useful when you want to create a group of related pads with slightly different characteristics, for example, toms or hi-hats. This feature can also be used to backup a pad before experimenting with the original.

Solo and Mute Switches

Two more modifier key shortcuts are also available for each pad trigger. To mute the pad without having to hit the power on/off button simply hold down the Shift(⇧) key and click the pad’s trigger button. The pad will be powered on/off depending on its current state. Likewise, to quickly toggle the solo button hold down the Command(⌘) key whilst clicking a pad’s trigger button. These two short cuts are excellent for live use and also fully supported by host automation systems.

Solo And Mute Groups

When several pads are muted (power off) holding down Alt(⌥) and clicking on any one of the muted pad’s power buttons will bring all pads back online. The pad trigger shortcut works here too; simply hold down Shift(⇧)+Alt(⌥) whilst clicking on one of the muted pad’s trigger buttons.

Solo groups work in a similar fashion. When multiple pads are solo’d holding down Alt(⌥) whilst clicking one of the solo buttons resets all currently solo’d pads. Again, the pad trigger shortcut works here too; hold down Command(⌘)+Alt(⌥) whilst clicking on one of the solo’d pad’s trigger buttons to reset the entire kit.

It is also possible to switch from a group of solo’d pads to a single solo’d pad. For example, if the top row of pads are all solo’d you can reset the entire kit whilst selecting a new pad to solo by clicking on the new pad’s solo button whilst holding down the Alt(⌥) key.

Pad Editor Views

Each pad has 4 available view modes. There may be times when you would like to switch all 16 pads into the same view mode. To achieve this use the Command(⌘) key whilst selecting a new view mode for any of the 16 pads.

Fine Grained Control

Not strictly a shortcut but the Command(⌘) key can be used to make fine grained adjustments to most interface controls (prior to version 1.4 this function was assigned to the Shift(⇧) key). Sliders, number boxes, graphic editors (e.g. filters and envelopes) all support this modifier key.

MIDI Key Zones

DrumSpillage features a fully configurable MIDI key zone for each pad defined by a low, root and high MIDI key group. During typical usage all three values will be assigned to the same key. To easily transpose the entire MIDI zone hold down the Command(⌘) key whilst dragging one of the key values up or down.