MIDI, drum machines,001

[music_connoisseur]

Hello,

I am a musician who is new to midi and digital recording in general. I just bought the 001 and am trying to get my alesis sr-16 drum machine to work with it.

When I set up a midi track to my drum machine I get signal but no sound in my headphones. If I set it up as an audio track I get sound. Is this because midi is not audio? If so how do I get it to work for me?

Like I said I'm new to this so here's a list of stupid questions...

I'm pretty sure I have the midi settings on my drum machine wrong.

Do I want OMNI or individual channals?

Drum in off, on v1 or v2?

Drum out off or on?

I think I want to use the 001 as a sequencer (something else I have no experience with) so I want the clock in off right?

Clock out off or on?

Midi thru? Program change? Note map?

Also, is there a way that I can have my drum machine send each individual drum sound to a different track?

Any help will be greatly appreciated

[Psycopupil]

I'm also a Midi novice, but I got past a similar situation (the no sound thing).

What worked for me is as follows...

On my Boss DR5 drum machine I have 4 tracks -(1 track is drums, 1 track is bass, 1 track is keyboards and I forget what the other is). Anyway, each DR5 track corresponds to a Midi channel (the drums are on Ch. 10 and I get the impression that's a default for drums). You should set the Alesis drums to CH. 10, or whatever so long as it's the same on both the Alesis and the Midi track.
So in my Midi track I select Digi001 and either Ch. 1,2,3, or 10 depending on what samples I want to hear.

As far as Midi set-up: I set my Sync to internal. You don't need to have "Thru" on unless you have more than one Midi device in a chain. "Prog" is set to off (in my case).

The next step is the key:
Set up a second track as an "Aux Track".

Hears the wiring and track settings:

(The overall goal is to have the Midi track trigger a channel in your drum machine. Have the drum machine output routed to the Aux Track in PTLE and have that track output routed to your speakers.)

1. "Midi Out" of Digi 001 to "Midi IN" of drum machine. And visa-versa.
2. Drum machine out to Mackie mixer (in my case).
3. Mackie out to Analog 3 & 4 inputs on Digi 001. The point is that you need to input the output of the drum machine into the Digi 001 somehow.
4. On the Aux track select your drum machine inputs (whatever input channels you chose).

I use Analog 1 & 2 outputs to my monitors, so on the Aux Channel outputs I select outputs as Analog 1 & 2.

Voila! I got sound. I hope you can to. As far as Midi knowledge I'm an empty tank so that's all for me.

Remember I'm just trying to get sounds - as you want to do more advanced stuff you'll need to do some reading for sure.

I think your Alesis manual will explain everything (if you don't have one that could be a problem).

I think the PTLE manual might explain some Midi stuff - where ever I read it it made sense.

ps


[This message has been edited by Psycopupil (edited February 10, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Psycopupil (edited February 10, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Psycopupil (edited February 10, 2001).]

[music_connoisseur]

I really appreciate the help. However it's the MIDI part that I can't figure out.

I can get an audio signal that I can hear through the 001 if I set it up as a audio channel but that's not really my question.

My question is how do I translate the MIDI signal that I can visually see going into the 001 into sound? Does it have to go back into the drum machine to trigger the the sounds on it?

Thanks

I have my manuals, I am reading them and I'm sure the answers are there it just takes awhile for all this to sink in.

[This message has been edited by music_connoisseur (edited February 10, 2001).]

[Psycopupil]

Oh.
Yea. What you see on your Midi track are instructions. You definately need to send that to a device containing the sounds you want to hear. The Digi does not contain a synth that I know of. Your drum machine will generate the actual sound and send it to it's outputs.

Is that what you mean?

[music_connoisseur]

I think so. The way I understand it that the drum machine is my synth, it contains the drums sounds I want. How do I get access to those sounds through the the midi signal?

What I really want ot be able to do it look at my drum patterns visually so that I can easily rearrage them without having to go through the drum machines tedious interface.

Again thanks for trying to help.

[This message has been edited by music_connoisseur (edited February 10, 2001).]

[music_connoisseur]

Everything you just told me is very helpful but I'm still clueless about MIDI. I don't get any wavforms on the MIDI track. i don't know what I'm supposed to do with it.

[henha]

Hello..

You are not supposed to get waveforms on your miditrack. your miditrack will only show and send midievents to your drummachine which will send the audio to the audiochannel that you have connected it to. I have a Kurzweil k2000 connected to midi i/o and the audio out from the synth is connected to inputs 7-8 on the digi001. First I´ll set up a midichannel eg. 10 for drumsounds in pro tools. then I´ll set up 2 audiotracks; 7-8 to hear the sound when recenabled(or an aux). the waveforms will only show up on the audiochannels, not on the miditrack because midi will only show notes and audio will only show audio.

I hope that this will help you.

Henrik Hansson

[henha]

Hello..

You are not supposed to get waveforms on your miditrack. your miditrack will only show and send midievents to your drummachine which will send the audio to the audiochannel that you have connected it to. I have a Kurzweil k2000 connected to midi i/o and the audio out from the synth is connected to inputs 7-8 on the digi001. First I´ll set up a midichannel eg. 10 for drumsounds in pro tools. then I´ll set up 2 audiotracks; 7-8 to hear the sound when recenabled(or an aux). the waveforms will only show up on the audiochannels, not on the miditrack because midi will only show notes and audio will only show audio.

I hope that this will help you.

Henrik Hansson

[music_connoisseur]

So let me see if I've got this right. If I set up a midi track and an audio track side by side and then I send the midi signal to the midi track the midi signal then goes trough that track and back into my drum machine which is then triggered to send audio to the audio track? How do I see somekind of evidence that the midi information is stored on the midi track? I just assumed that the audio information that was going into the audio track had nothing to do with the midi track.

[This message has been edited by music_connoisseur (edited February 10, 2001).]

[Psycopupil]

ELO again.

All you're going to see on the midi track is notes.

You can send notes to the drum machine or
you can record them from the drum machine.

In either case you'll see notes in the Midi track (events - as opposed to a wav signature you'd see in a regular audio file).

In either case you'll have captured no audio.

If you want to use the Midi track to record audio?? then you need to set up your audio track to record the sound coming from your drum machine (the sounds that were triggerd from the Midi track).

If this don't do it I promise I'll drop off the topic and leave you to someone more helpful.

ps

[music_connoisseur]

I might be on to something now. I found the MIDI notes way at the bottom of the MIDI track in edit mode. Now I can't figure out how to manipulate them.

[Psycopupil]

Oh, again I say Oh.

First make sure your Midi track is set to "notes" as opossed to "block", "regions", etc.

Then you can zoom with the magnifying glass and the little midi zoom button (top left next to the wav zoom and the Slip, Shuffle, etc., buttons) - in any case, zoom in pretty close. Then I set the track size to Jumbo. This will get each note to look like a big blue button. At that point you can use the little hand tool to push on the note and generate a sound. You can also move the note around on the little piano keyboard (displayed to the left side of the track) and get all sorts of sounds flying out of the drum machine.

You can use the pencil tool to draw in notes where ever you want.

At this point you should be able to use standard editing techniques (region select, etc.) to move groups of notes around and even change the notes parameters (with respect to volume, pitch, etc).

Also you probably want to diplay the Markers/Beats line across the top (selectable from the Display pull down).

ps

One other thing (you may already know)... You can set the Midi track to record (as usual) and start your drum machine to lay down a track of Midi notes.




[This message has been edited by Psycopupil (edited February 10, 2001).]

[flymax]

It's all in the Pro Tool Manual in the section about editing MIDI notes

http://www.petebeat.com

[PeeTee]

Yeah...RTFM, man! hehe

[music_connoisseur]

I am RTFM. I'm just new to MIDI. I didn't realize that I had to set up both a MIDI track and an audio track to monitor the sequence running through my drum machine. Smartass.

[flymax]

Don't worry. It took me a few days of pulling my hair out to get used to it. Once you get it though, it make creating drum tracks a whole lot easier!

[tvband]

don't feel bad, i'm a midi novice aswell and i'm trying to suss out how to connect my new emu esi2000 sampler into my setup and i'm struggling. ***k knows how i'm gonna cope when i get my g4/001 delivered next week.
i'm making elimentary mistakes setting up but if you've never been told/explained the basics then it kinda stops you getting a grip of the more complex procedures.
the questions you're asking are no different to the ones i need answers to, keep asking.
richard.

[xraydady36]

Hello~ I am new to this midi thing also but, here is another one for you. I have a DR550 and I figured out how to record and monitor. The only problem is I can not get any visual representation of notes. That is no notes or bars in the edit window? Additionally, I can not scrub or edit Midi notes? Audio works fine (i.e. waveform in edit menu). Can you all help? Greatly appriciated - James