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I've been doing some research within this site and what appears to be a continuing compatibility problem on getting a drum vst plugin, such as Jamstix, EZDrummer, etc., to work with RB. I was wondering if there's any particular drum vst that anyone has found that will work. The consensus seems to be that you have to do your work in another DAW and then load the saved midi file into RB. Is this still the case? I just bought an Akai MPD18 controller pad and have been dinking around with tapping in some drums into RB. Some sounds I'm getting, using SD2 drums are pretty weird. I was thinking (a very dangerous thing) that maybe if I got something a little more specialized for drums that I might do better. Thanks for any suggestions/ideas.
Stan
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It's not possible to synchronize a VSTi clock with the RB clock, if that's what you mean. It's one of the things which keeps appearing on the wish lists, but it's not yet been implemented.
You should, though, be able to play the sounds from most VSTi using the Akai pad, provided that you get your note numbers matching.
ROG.
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Thanks. I have not used any VSTi for drums yet. Since I don't see any in the soft synths that I have. I see there are some drun kits in my SD2 patches, but some work and some don't. For example the congas sound like a bari sax via the akai pad anyway. I was thinking that maybe I might find a dedicate pgm for just midi drums. Most seem to be .wav file samples.
Stan
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Stan, You can actually just use a sampler or the sfz soundfont player to do it the way that you want to - with a dedicated controller. There are some quite decent drum sound fonts that you can load into the free sfz player (it's on the Cakewalk site) that you can tap in to your heart's delight. I use Jamstix but not with PG products. It's a fine drum sample player but that's not it's strength - which is jamming along with either a midi feed or audio feed - but as pointed out by ROG, that feature is yet to be available in PG products. I also use a freebie version of BFD, which is another potential choice for you. You should be able to map your SD2 to the pads on your controller. You might have to use an intermediate 'router' plugin that remaps midi notes but these are available for free. When I have some time to look through my collection, I'll post what one I have used in the past. Here's one I recall from way back http://www.dehaupt.com/SynthEdit/DH_MIDIMunger.htm
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Quote:
I see there are some drun kits in my SD2 patches, but some work and some don't. For example the congas sound like a bari sax via the akai pad anyway.
Stan
Stan, I just replied to you about Jamstix in the other thread in the Biab forum.
You're missing some midi basics here. A controller is just that a controller. It controls whatever you hook it up to but how does it do it? It must be mapped to your synth. A synth is a synth be it for drums or kazoo or piano or like you mentioned bari sax. Most new controllers already have software that maps it to all the big name synths, there's probably one for the SD2. Also, that controller must have the ability to set the pads to general midi or GM. The SD2 has at least some GM drum kits. Just match those up and you're good to go. To be very basic in case you don't know, mapping means you "map" one pad to one part of the kit like the hi hat is mapped to the third pad from the left on the top row or whatever.
Why could there be two maps, one for GM and one specific to a particular synth? Because some people don't like the placement of the pads in relation to individual drum sounds as a GM map so different companies will come up with their own drum mapping and say it's more intuitive for a player to use. That may or may not be true but if the SD2 has some dedicated drum kits that are not mapped to the GM standard they could be right, they may actually be easier for you to play on the controller once you set the controller to the SD2 mapping. You can also forget both methods and map the pads to any drum sound you want and create your own method. This kind of flexibility is great but to someone who doesn't understand midi it can be very confusing. Mac has said it many times and I agree with him all this stuff must be treated like it's an actual instrument that must be studied and learned just like your primary "real" instrument.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Thanks for those tips. I did watch a video demo done by this German guy using the akai mpd18. He was using some drum kit for some software that ends in ..."08". I did use a standard kit. I didn't "map" any pads. I just tapped each one to hear what might be on it. Like 1=kick, 3=snare, etc.. I think there were enough drums in that kit to do what I want. I certainly am no drummer though. That's all the guy from Frankfurt was doing--just tapping different rhythms on the various pads. I'll play around with it some and see what the soft synths sound like also. I'm in no big rush since my wife broke her finger, we can play gigs anyway. Looks like a new thing to learn that I had not even heard of before--an intermediate router. Many ways of doing things, too.
Stan
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I got OK'd from the company to do this - http://audiomastering-online.com/stuff/DR005.zipDR005 drum sample player VSTi Authorization code should be included. Mixer channel for each drum sample. Load any wave you want in any channel and assign it to a MIDI note to trigger. Played well with PGProducts last time I tried it. Double unzip required if I recall correctly. Once for the code and once for program in next folder down. Or if ya trust jford more, hit his server instead. http://www.jefmusic.net/Transfer/DR-005%20w-License%20Code.zip
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Stan,
SD2 has a number of Drum Kits which are accessed via Channel 10 and using the below listed Patch Numbers from my SD2 Patches.ini file.
[SD2 Drums]
1=Standard2
9=Folk
10=Acoustic
11=Jazz Dry
12=Vintage
17=Rock
25=House
26=Techno
28=Progressive
29=Rave
30=Hip Hop
33=Fusion
41=Brush
49=Orchestra
57=Studio
58=Light Pop
59=Rap
65=Custom
67=Latin
73=Pop Jazz
97=Street
98=Analog
99=City Pop
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Thanks, Gents. I'll check those out.
Stan
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Quote:
Thanks, Gents. I'll check those out.
Stan
When I click on the sd2 drums, I get the same list. However, when I hit the pads, some of the time there is no change in the sound. As Pat said this probably has to do with mapping. I did try the download of SFPZ and got it installed into RB. It was more difficult to get the sf2 files unzipped to use with it. Thankfully, Mario told me about a special pgm that must be used and it's a free download from Melodyne. There's lots of free stuff available if you can figure out how to use it. Sure makes me have more appreciation for drummers and also the drum tracks in BIAB styles. This will take some learnin' time for me.
Stan
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I had an Akai MPD24 that had some built-in presets, selectable from the unit itself. One was a GM map. Since Session Drummer 2 follows the GM layout all I did was select that map and it assigned every drum to a pad. Of course I had to then re-arrange them into a grid that made sense to me, but that is a different story. Also, for those that use Session Drummer 2 I have created some kits for it out of free samples found around the net. Instructions & info is available in the included PDF. Are these as good as Addictive Drummer - EZ Drummer-etc? No, but they ARE usable & give you more choices for sounds. You can grab the SD2 Kits from HEREYou can grab the SFZ Versions of the same kit's from HEREAround 150mb each.
i5 3.20GHz, 32gb RAM, 1tb SSD OS, 12tb HDD, 4gb gForce vid card, 32" monitor, Audient id44, Win10 x64, BiaB/RB 2023, Reaper 6,IK Multimedia Total Studio 3.5 MAX, Waves 10
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Quote:
Quote:
Thanks, Gents. I'll check those out.
Stan
When I click on the sd2 drums, I get the same list. However, when I hit the pads, some of the time there is no change in the sound. As Pat said this probably has to do with mapping. I did try the download of SFPZ and got it installed into RB. It was more difficult to get the sf2 files unzipped to use with it. Thankfully, Mario told me about a special pgm that must be used and it's a free download from Melodyne. There's lots of free stuff available if you can figure out how to use it. Sure makes me have more appreciation for drummers and also the drum tracks in BIAB styles. This will take some learnin' time for me.
Stan
Thanks again for your help, everyone! Mario got me squared away with SFZ and I think I now have a few kits that will meet my needs. The main problem was me thinking that I had to use channel 10 for any and all drum tracks. I have to say that I really like the rc.audioDXi plugin and being able to make my own drum track. To me this is pretty cool. All the credit has to go to Mario and his patience for helping me. THANKS MARIO!!!
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Stan, no problem my friend!
Forbidden fruit causes many jams!
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Stan, glad sfz worked out for you. When I suggested it back on page 1, I wasn't certain that you would sort out how it would work with your controller. It looks like Mario stepped in and filled in the blanks.
I don't use soundfonts too much any longer for drums, but there are a couple of gems for soundfonts. I'll see if I can look through my big-ol-soundfont-archive for them.
-Scott
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OK, I found the name of my favorite drum soundfont in my soundfont archive: NS Kit - I have several flavors of this one. The person who developed this soundfont sold the rights to it and now it is available for: $129!, when it used to be free, or at least a version of it was free. No free version any longer. You would be better off buying Jamstix and just using the samples inside of it while feeding it midi from your controller.
I also used a TamaRockSTAR.sf2 and a Yamaha Drums2.sf2 back in the day.
I'm not sure that this helps much to be honest, but I promised to look up the soundfonts I used to use regularly and as soon as I saw the names in my folder I recognized which were nice to use.
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Thanks for checking. I don't seem to be able to get them all to work. I downloaded a kit called "Vintage Drums" and cannot get it to work with the mpd18 although "Ultimate Drums" works fine. Both of these kits are free. Again, Mario had to find a decompressor pgm so that I could use the file. I didn't even know that you need a specialized unzip pgm for it. As Jazzmammal says, paraphrasing, I'm out of my league on this stuff.
I'm discovering that it's not so easy to get stuff played in to line up either.
Stan
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Quote:
I'm discovering that it's not so easy to get stuff played in to line up either.
Stan
Yep, you have to be enough of a player to have good timekeeping ability. There's help for that though, it's called quantizing. What that does is move your recorded note to the nearest beat or sub beat that you set ahead of time. Example if you set the quantize rate to a quarter note then no matter what you played in a given bar, everything gets moved to the nearest quarter. Not good at all. Typically, you might set it for an eight note or even sixteenth. Then there's room for a little slop and that makes it sound more human. One trick I used to do is record the kick drum by itself and depending on the beat quantize it to the quarter note and that gives you a foundation to play with for the rest of the kit. I'm sure whatever program you use lets you quantize one part at a time. Still, if you're not experienced at this trying to create your own drum parts from scratch is not easy. This is why a lot of us wind up using prerecorded midi drum parts or modified Biab drum parts. They've available all over the place including a lot of free downloads. Downloaded midi files that you can find all over the web are good for that too. Many times you may find a midi file where the instrument parts sound terrible, like they were done by a 5 year old, but the drum part is good. All you do then is copy a few bars of the drum part to a new project and do your own instrument parts. That's what's cool about midi. As long as that part was recorded to the tempo set in the original file then when you copy it to a new project it will change to whatever tempo you have set.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Thanks Bob. Your insight is really good to know. Mario had told me about quantize, but you went into a little more detail and I appreciate it.
I'm using marching drums as segues in a current partriotic medley project. I couldn't find the sound that I wanted to I decided to try and do my own. A few years ago, I found a great midi song, Armed Forces Salute. I really like the arrangement, but I had to do some tweaking to get it to work for us. There are lots of ways to get things done---if you know what you're doing. Alas, I've got quite a ways to go. It's pretty neat to get help for all the nice folks on these forums!
Stan
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I just occured to me the person you should be talking to is John Conley. He's one of the long time members here, he posts is different threads all the time and he's played horn in marching bands his whole life. If anybody knows about marching band drumming it's him and he's very good with midi and these programs. If he doesn't see this thread and answer you right here just look him up in the user list and PM him.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Thanks. I have spent a ton of time trying to get stuff going, but it's the equipment issues that really have had me tearing my hair out. RB doesn't like my hardware setup. I had not been inputting with external midi devices so I've been getting by for years using MME with no problemo. Now that I have ext midi devices in use, I have to hear myself during input so I had to add ASIO4All. I think that using it with the UA-4fx is what's causing me the problems. It seems that every time I power up or reload RB, I have to reset the Audio. Sometimes I get violation error messages and RB crashes. Maybe the issue is different vstis for my Akai devices. No problem with my little keyboard since it's via the SD2. I may have to change the setup if I keep using the input devices.
As to marching band rhythms, I can handle those. Thank God for Quantize!
Stan
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