v drums with eleven rack

[apartmentstudios]

Trying to determine the best way to sound my new Roland td11 kit without having to open pro tools. What do you guys find works best? I am also using M-Audio BX5 monitors. Thanks

[nst7]

If the Eleven Rack is your only interface, that's going to be difficult, because you would be using the Eleven Rack in standalone mode, and in that mode you can only use the single guitar input. You would probably need a small mixer going directly to your monitors, or another audio interface that allows a standalone mode of some kind (many do not).

[albee1952]

This may be worth a try. If the Roland brain has a headphone out with a volume knob, get a cable that is TRS on one end, and splits out to a pair of TS plugs. Assuming the Eleven rack feeds the speakers via XLR cables, plugin the drum headphone out to the quarter inch inputs(I do this with my Motif es8, feeding BX-5's). Turn up the headphone out on the Roland to hear it straight thru the speakers. Turn the headphone knob off when you work thru Pro Tools.
Another option is a monitor/source selector like Mackie Big Knob or Presonus Central Station(what I use in my setup) as that will allow you to select what source feeds the speakers.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by albee1952

This may be worth a try. If the Roland brain has a headphone out with a volume knob, get a cable that is TRS on one end, and splits out to a pair of TS plugs. Assuming the Eleven rack feeds the speakers via XLR cables, plugin the drum headphone out to the quarter inch inputs(I do this with my Motif es8, feeding BX-5's). Turn up the headphone out on the Roland to hear it straight thru the speakers. Turn the headphone knob off when you work thru Pro Tools.

You're doing this with an 11R in standalone mode? You're connecting your Motif to the 1/4 inch line inputs on the back? You'd have to set the rig input to the line l+r inputs but then wouldn't you only get what is essentially a mono out even though you're feeding a stereo signal from the Motif to the 11R and listening through a pair of speakers.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by musicman691

You're doing this with an 11R in standalone mode? You're connecting your Motif to the 1/4 inch line inputs on the back? You'd have to set the rig input to the line l+r inputs but then wouldn't you only get what is essentially a mono out even though you're feeding a stereo signal from the Motif to the 11R and listening through a pair of speakers.

Its stereo at the Motif outputs, feeding 2 inputs of the interface(I don't use an ElevenR here, but it should not matter what interface is used) and the stereo headphone output of the Motif feeds directly to the speakers, so its stereo in both cases. I simply unplug the TRS plug from the Motif headphone jack when I need to ONLY hear the keyboard thru Pro Tools.(leave the TS plugs in the speakers as I use the XLR inputs to send Pro Tools audio to them). Making sense?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Its stereo at the Motif outputs, feeding 2 inputs of the interface(I don't use an ElevenR here, but it should not matter what interface is used) and the stereo headphone output of the Motif feeds directly to the speakers, so its stereo in both cases. I simply unplug the TRS plug from the Motif headphone jack when I need to ONLY hear the keyboard thru Pro Tools.(leave the TS plugs in the speakers as I use the XLR inputs to send Pro Tools audio to them). Making sense?

Makes sense now but not knowing the exact input circuitry of the BX5's you could run into a problem because essentially you are feeding two outputs (PT and your keyboard) at the same time into one input (the speakers) unless when you are playing the keyboard you unplug the connector coming from PT to the speakers.

I think this is not what the op wanted to do because NST7 and I are assuming the op has the v-drums connected to the line ins on the 11R.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Makes sense now but not knowing the exact input circuitry of the BX5's you could run into a problem because essentially you are feeding two outputs (PT and your keyboard) at the same time into one input (the speakers) unless when you are playing the keyboard you unplug the connector coming from PT to the speakers.

I think this is not what the op wanted to do because NST7 and I are assuming the op has the v-drums connected to the line ins on the 11R.

I assume the same but it actually seems to work just fine(although it likely is making the incoming signal to the speakers UNbalanced). I have had no problems running this way here. In any case, Pro Tools sessions playback thru the speakers without issue, and without a noticeable change whether the Motif headphone hookup is in place or not.

Come to think of it, I used to do this with KRK Rokit 5's and the headphone out of my Roland TD-10 kit. I had the speakers mounted on the rack and could listen to the Roland kit without Pro Tools, or turn the headphone volume off and listen to Pro Tools audio(including the drums from the session). Maybe not the ideal setup, but it worked and sounded great, and never caused a problem over the 3 years I had it setup that way(no longer using the Roland kit). In my current setup, I have BX5's setup over the Motif, Event ASP8's at my workstation and I can switch PT to play thru either set of speakers, with or without a sub(but the Motif direct connection bypasses the sub). monitor/source selector makes things even slicker(Presonus Central Station in my setup) but I am bypassing that for my particular setup due to ground loop issues.