This post explains how to create a Hydrogen drumkit without editing any code i.e. a point-and-click method. This may sound complicated but it is actually really easy. So when you decide to do this, simply refer back to this post and follow the steps. Here we go:

  1. Open Hydrogen (No-brainer), and make sure the Instrument Editor window is open.
  2. Go to View and select Show Drumkit Manager. Select any drumkit and click Load Drumkit. This will be used as a base for your new kit.
  3. I will assume that you already have the relevant sound files, you want to create the kit with, saved into a file (.wav, .flac, .au or .aiff formats).
  4. Select the relevant instrument you want to edit, i.e. Snare, and view it in the Layers tab of the Instrument Editor window. You should see something similar to the below figure:
  5. Select the blue horizontal block and click on the Delete Layer button.
  6. Now you want to add your own sound, so click on the Load Layer button. This opens a file browser which allows you to choose your sound.
  7. Select your sound and click Open. Your sound is now loaded as an instrument.
  8. If you want to use multiple layers for each instrument, i.e. soft and loud snare hits, you must load another layer. This is done by repeating step 6.
  9. With multiple layers you need to edit the volume at which each layer is activated. This is done by shrinking the blue horizontal bars in the Instrument Editor. As seen in the below figure, the two layers look like steps. This means that at high volumes the 1st layer will be used and at low volumes the 2nd layer is used (i.e. left is quiet and right is loud).
  10. You can rename your instrument by clicking on its name in the Instrument tab of the Instrument Editor.
  11. The Instrument tab also has some cool knobs which can be used to edit your instrument’s sound. The most important of these is the instrument gain which allows you to raise or lower your instrument’s volume to match the other parts of the kit.
  12. The Layers tab also has cool knobs. The gain knob edits the selected layer’s gain and the pitch knob makes the selected layer sound either higher or lower.
  13. To add more instruments, simply select another instrument and repeat steps 6 to 12.
  14. Once you are happy with your kit, you have to SAVE it. This is done by visiting the Drumkit Manager mentioned in step 2. Select the Save tab and replace all the details with your own. Make it official by clicking on the Save button. You have now made your own drumkit. I recommend that you save periodically whilst making your kit – you don’t want to lose all your work.
  15. Once you feel your kit is complete and you haven’t done anything illegal like stealing proprietary sounds. Export it by using the Export tab in the Drumkit Manager and then post a link to it both as a comment to this post and on the Hydrogen Forum. Check out 4shared.com for free file hosting/sharing.

Let me know if this information was useful by rating this post.

Other posts you might find interesting:
Making a Roll Sound Realistic
Pimp my Beats
Multiple Outputs for Hydrogen
My Attempt at a Hydrogen Drumkit
Hydrogen Drumkits