I've tried all the obvious ways according to the preferences and it will always play the side sticks. Any help would be appreciated.

You can set it to Hi-Hat but that only works with midi drums enabled.
I copied the midi drums to the Melody track and used F5 to mute @ Bar 1 but that mutes the Hi-Hat count-in bars -1 to 0.

Couldn't find any piano roll to create a midi Hi-Hat count-in.

Couldn't add it in the notation, only did bar 0 no -1 could not find where to change the channel to 10.

Maybe there is a simple solution that I too have missed ??

Will try again later, got to go now.

what an excellent question

i have also tried this and that with no luck and only a great deal of frustration

perhaps the good folks from PG can give us the help we need

The only way I have found is:

In Prefs set to Hi Hat

In RealDrums Prefs disable RealDrums

Turn Midi Drums up

Record Audio > Start of Song

Now you will have a Hi-Hat count-in on the audio track

Audio Edit to cut out anything on bar 1+

RealDrums Prefs enable RealDrums


You can also drag export a midi drum track

File > Import Soloist from MIDI file

Select the exported drum track

Choose ch 10 and import 2 bars

Midi Button > Midi Channels set Soloist to 10

how you change the patch to drums you can work out.

Pipeline,

Thanks, especially for providing the details and screen shots.

Wow, that's a lot of work.

PG music tech/Mr Peter Gannon should really take a look at this and give us something easier to apply a count in using Hi Hats or better still a ready made Hi Hats template.

Meanwhile, this will be a weekend ( if not longer ) project.

You should be able to use sforzando drums in the midi track with the count-in or any other free drum vst/au.
I will try it later.