MIDI Playback

[adam79]

Originally Posted by musicman691

The question is why do you want to do this - separate each drum & cymbal to it's own track? I've seen several of your threads here that either don't understand exactly how things work (basic knowledge types of things) or that you want to over-complicate things.

Ha. Seems like an accurate assessment. I'm more of a musician than engineer, that's for sure. It would be great if I could afford one of those dedicated drum VI's.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by adam79

Ha. Seems like an accurate assessment. I'm more of a musician than engineer, that's for sure. It would be great if I could afford one of those dedicated drum VI's.

Okay but you still haven't answered the question as to why do you want to split out each hit to separate tracks? Splitting out each drum or cymbal audio to separate tracks on the other hand I can understand - I do that quite a bit with BFD3. EZ Drummer isn't that expensive you know.

[adam79]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Okay but you still haven't answered the question as to why do you want to split out each hit to separate tracks? Splitting out each drum or cymbal audio to separate tracks on the other hand I can understand - I do that quite a bit with BFD3. EZ Drummer isn't that expensive you know.

There must be a misunderstanding.. I want each drum sound (snare, kick, cymbals, etc) on it's own track.
I was reading another thread about being able to split a midi track by pitch to it's own track. If my understanding is correct, each drum sound in the midi track is assigned to a certain pitch, or note.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by adam79

There must be a misunderstanding.. I want each drum sound (snare, kick, cymbals, etc) on it's own track.
I was reading another thread about being able to split a midi track by pitch to it's own track. If my understanding is correct, each drum sound in the midi track is assigned to a certain pitch, or note.

The misunderstanding is all yours because you STILL don't get what MIDI is and that is that it's nothing more than digital data to tell a synth what note to play and how to play that note. Splitting the MIDI into notes on individual tracks will NOT split the audio into individual tracks. You have to tell your drum vi what audio to send where and that sometimes happens in the vi's mixer or somewhere else in it's AUDIO output stream. MIDI doesn't tell the mixer where to send sounds.

Here is a website with a list of what key plays what drum sound when using the General MIDI key map: http://computermusicresource.com/GM....on.KeyMap.html

I know there are some who will split the MIDI into separate tracks to make it easier for them to make velocity changes or other changes to say a snare drum track. But that's not something you really want to get into at your point in the game. Keep it simple.

[Darryl Ramm]

Again, go get a good drum VI like EZ Drummer and learn your way around MIDI and EZ Drummer and Pro Tools before worrying about stuff like this. And once you are familiar with that you will know enough to do any of if you still want to.


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[adam79]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Again, go get a good drum VI like EZ Drummer and learn your way around MIDI and EZ Drummer and Pro Tools before worrying about stuff like this. And once you are familiar with that you will know enough to do any of if you still want to.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well if I had a good drum VI I wouldn't have tried to do this in the first place. You definitely learn thru error, which I just have.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by adam79

Well if I had a good drum VI I wouldn't have tried to do this in the first place. You definitely learn thru error, which I just have.

If you had a basic understanding of what MIDI is and how vi's work this conversation (or at least most of it) wouldn't be dragging on like it is. Time to go back and learn the basics of this stuff. Sometimes you just have to hunker down and learn the tech stuff; just being a musician won't get you too far.

[amagras]

Originally Posted by adam79

Well if I had a good drum VI I wouldn't have tried to do this in the first place. You definitely learn thru error, which I just have.

Is there any reason you don't have a good drum VI? Last time I checked Sennheiser Drummica was free.

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by musicman691

The question is why do you want to do this - separate each drum & cymbal to it's own track? I've seen several of your threads here that either don't understand exactly how things work (basic knowledge types of things) or that you want to over-complicate things.

I'll tell you why, Jack, (as I do this myself with MIDI drum tracks)...it makes things SO much easier to keep track of. The MIDI kick is on its on track, MIDI snare....etc etc. I find it way more difficult to edit a single drum kit part when all of them are on the same MIDI track. Probably my eyes getting older! Once you've got the parts down, commit to audio and hide/make inactive all the MIDI and VI tracks. Yeah, it takes a wee bit longer, but I find it so much easier to keep track of what's what!

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by adam79

Well if I had a good drum VI I wouldn't have tried to do this in the first place. You definitely learn thru error, which I just have.

There's no one way to do what you're trying to do. Some would import the MIDI drum track, open an instrument track in PT, instantiate a drum VI (Boom, say), and then put the MIDI track on the instrument track.

I prefer to put the drum VI on an instrument track, but keep the MIDI track as a MIDI track and send its output to the drum VI track. That way, if I want to split the MIDI track so that each note (playing its associated kit part - ie kick, snare, tom, etc) is on its own MIDI Track, its much simpler to do. I've stated above why I often like to split the MIDI track for drums. I know others think it complicates things, but I find it easier to manage things this way, especially when it comes to percussion parts.

Regardless of how you prefer to do, once you have the MIDI track, AND you have a drum VI installed on an instrument track, then you should be hearing the drum parts all playing according to the MIDI file. Depending on what drum VI you're using, you might be able to then route the individual audio outputs of each drum part to its own audio track for mixing. Not all drum VI's have this option though (ie Boom doesn't have individual audio outs, and Xpand2 doesn't either.

Also, don't overlook using Structure Free. There are some drum samples included with it, but you can also import your own samples and use those to create whatever kit you want. And with it, you can route audio out to separate tracks (at least up to four modules can be installed on one instance of Structure, if I recall correctly). It might be worth boning up on Structure Free as it could be a good alternative for you.