Playing a SMF with Strike

[DonaldM]

I'm working on a project where I'm trying to play a drum kit in Standard MIDI file with Strike, but keep running into problems that make no sense. The song has several MIDI tracks for various instruments, the drum track being one of them. The notes on the drum MIDI track are done so that when assigned to play a drum kit on any MIDI machine, the individual drum sounds assigned to the notes will be fairly standard...at least that how it supposed to work. So, I set up an instrument track in PT and instantiated Strike and simply copied the MIDI track data to that. I assigned the output of the instrument track to play Ch-2 on Strike, because that is what will allow SMF's (or other external MIDI triggering devices) to play individual drum hits across the keyboard. So far so good. The problem is that the sounds assigned within Strike to some of the MIDI notes do NOT correspond to what the part is supposed to be playing. For example A#3 is supposed to be a shaker sound, but no matter what kit I bring up in strike, it is some version of Open Hi Hat bell.

If I use the same MIDI drum track to trigger a kit off my Yamaha Motif, no matter what kit I bring up A#3 is some kind of shaker sound, which is correct. With Strike, most of the sounds assigned to the notes triggered off the MIDI data are right...but not all of them. Now, I know I can import my own sounds into Strike on a mix track, but what I can not figure out is can I assign a sample to a specific note? the manual is no help at all...at least not that I can find in it. And I've tried to locate a "how to" video, but nothing seems to cover this.

So, is there a way I can take either a sample directly from Strike's kit menus OR one of my own samples and assign it to a specific note within Strike? In this case, I have my own shaker sample I want to use, and I want to assign it to A#3, but can't seem to see how that can be done.

Secondly, assuming I can do that, I'd like to then assign the specific instruments that are actually being played by the MIDI data to specific channels in the Strike mixer so that I can then export the audio to individual audio tracks for mix down. (I know I can process and mix in Strike, but I prefer to treat it more like live drums, so want to convert to audio). But I can't see how I tell Strike that the Kick on C1 goes to mix ch 1, and the snare on E1 goes to mix ch 2 and so on for all the parts. Maybe want I want to do can't be done in Strike. but thought I'd ask!

Thanks to anyone who can help or point me in the right direction. I hope its clear what I'm trying to do.

[filosofem]

Use the blue assignable keys in Kit mode.

[DonaldM]

Aaron, that doesn't help me because I can't assign the sound I want. The list that comes up when you right click on those keys are, apparently, pre-set. If there is a way to edit the list of options, or bring in your own sample to put there, it isn't obvious and it isn't mentioned in the manual either...at least I can't find it anywhere.

[PatriotsBiker]

Strike: The one VI I love to hate and hate that I love it.

The blue keys to the right are the assignable ones, as was mentioned. If your kit does not have the specific instrument in it, you have to add it. The way I figured out how to do it was to have the kit window open and scroll to the channel where you want to place the instrument. (the 1 thru 12 spaces on the right hand side.)

Next, go into the kits on the left hand side menu list. It's like one or two options down from presets. You'll have to go through the kits and expand them to show the instruments. I think you can audition the instrument somwhow, but I don't remember 100% for sure.

Once you've found the instrument - in your case the shaker(?) you mentioned - you simply drag it over to the channel (1 thru 12 on right side). The instrument will be ready for you. Now is when you do the right-click on the blue key that you wish to trigger the hit. A huge right-click menu will appear full of all of the instruments in your kit and their varieties of possible hit types. Select the one you want.

From there, you're back in familiar MIDI land. If you're not on the blue keys range, you'll simply have to transpose or drag the note(s) down to the blue range. In the future, I'm going to load all the hits I want to use down to that blue key range so that I don't have to keep scrolling up and down in the MIDI edit window. But, that's an aside and shows you how slow some things hit me.

I hope this helped.

[DonaldM]

Yup, that does help! Thanks much! Would be nice if this was explained better in the "manual" that came with Strike. Don't know about you, but the manual was fairly useless! I mean, most of what's in there you can figure out just be looking at Strike and playing with it. Its the deeper not so obvious stuff that requires some step-by-step!

I kinda reached the same conclusions about the assignable blue keys and SMF's. If you look at any SMF list of drum sound assignments to keys, you'll see that Strike doesn't really have a SMF implementation. With ANY other drum module with GM features, all you have to do is play the SMF and the right drums play. With Strike, you gotta move MIDI notes around as you said in order to do that. Not cool! Seems like there could be a simple GM click on option that makes the entire keyboard range one big GM drum file and then assign whatever specific drums you want to each key. Every other drum module I know of with full MIDI implementation does that.

Like you, I love Strike too because of how realistic I can get it to sound, and do so fairly easily and quickly! But it needs a bit of work on the MIDI implementation side! Oh, and a better manual!

[PatriotsBiker]

Cool! Glad it helped. The manual could use a lot more how-to type things, that's for sure.

The worst was connecting my Axiom 49 keyboard up and wanting it to drive Strike. It's something I've never actually done in recordings yet, but wanted to make sure it all worked when I got it. The instructions jumped back and forth from:
1: PT Reference Guide PDF
2: The Axiom User Guide PDF
3: Axiom Quick Set-Up PDF
4: Direct Link for Pro Tools PDF
5: A.I.R. Virtual Instruments PDF
6: Axiom Instrument Map for Pro Tools PDF
7: Audio Plug-ins Guide PDF.

Throw in the Axiom read-me type of doc for good measure. I swear, everytime I got on a roll, I ran across these fun words. "For more information on ....... consult the XXX User's Guide".

I don't know what came from where, but I think I still had three of them open at the end when I got it working.

[DonaldM]

I hear ya!!! Most manuals are NOT written well...too much from point of view of the programmers and techies and NOT the users. The best manuals are those written from the Users point of view. My Yamaha Motif XS8 manual was like that. Very useful and helpful. But the PT manual, hard to use, hard to search, too, if you don't have the exact terms.

But that's no criticism of the products! PT is awesome. And like you, I love Strike and the entire PTIEP! Transfuser is a blast!