Help! How to use electronic drums to trigger instrument libraries.

[Apeirian]

Hello,

I've scoured the web and have not been able to find an answer to something that seems like a lot of people would want to know.

Goal: Use an electronic drum kit to trigger sounds in virtual instrument libraries, specifically Omnisphere, and Kontakt 5 libraries.

The drum kit has a MIDI OUT. I connected to the MIDI IN on my Native Instruments Audio 6 interface. In Pro Tools, I selected MIDI Studio Setup, and created a new instrument. I went into MIDI beat clock, and made sure my interface was checked.

Now, when I open up a virtual instrument, say Kontakt 5 Drum Lab, I'm not getting any signal when I hit the drum pad. I'm not sure what else to try. What it gets me thinking is that, the virtual instruments are set for specific keys on a say, a keyboard. So, what "keys" would be triggered by the electronic drum kit?

I appreciate any help!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Apeirian

Hello,

I've scoured the web and have not been able to find an answer to something that seems like a lot of people would want to know.

Goal: Use an electronic drum kit to trigger sounds in virtual instrument libraries, specifically Omnisphere, and Kontakt 5 libraries.

The drum kit has a MIDI OUT. I connected to the MIDI IN on my Native Instruments Audio 6 interface. In Pro Tools, I selected MIDI Studio Setup, and created a new instrument. I went into MIDI beat clock, and made sure my interface was checked.

Now, when I open up a virtual instrument, say Kontakt 5 Drum Lab, I'm not getting any signal when I hit the drum pad. I'm not sure what else to try. What it gets me thinking is that, the virtual instruments are set for specific keys on a say, a keyboard. So, what "keys" would be triggered by the electronic drum kit?

I appreciate any help!

You need to look at the documentation for your e-kit and see what mapping it's sending out the MIDI port. You may be able to change it to something your s/w drum library supports - most support the General MIDI (GM) mapping protocol. Your e-kit might also have a specific mapping for whatever s/w you're using on the computer.

[Dillon Ribeiro]

Hi

I have a Roland td-3 drum kit and module. I have seen and heard that it is possible to connect these pd-8 pads through software on my PC to trigger samples and external sounds.

I want to know how to do this since it will allow for much broader sounds and increased efficiency and ease in set-up and switching between samples while on stage. It would be better to have this than to purchase an Alesis Sample pad pro

Advice and requirements on how to set it up or which software to purchase on my PC for the module to run through will be much appreciated!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Dillon Ribeiro

Hi

I have a Roland td-3 drum kit and module. I have seen and heard that it is possible to connect these pd-8 pads through software on my PC to trigger samples and external sounds.

I want to know how to do this since it will allow for much broader sounds and increased efficiency and ease in set-up and switching between samples while on stage. It would be better to have this than to purchase an Alesis Sample pad pro

Advice and requirements on how to set it up or which software to purchase on my PC for the module to run through will be much appreciated!

For starters I suggest reading the owner's manual for the drum module and pads. Then read up on MIDI - Google is your friend here.

You're going to need a MIDI interface for your computer that has the traditional round 5 pin interconnections; your audio interface may already have that. Per the manual connect the TD3 to the computer.

You'll need some sort of drum vi on your computer. There are many out there and a lot depends on your budget, what exact operating system you have, etc. I'm assuming that since you posted in a PT10 forum you have some revision of that. You'll need a vi that supports RTAS or aax32 plugin format. Then you'll need to set up the plugin so that it works with the MIDI coming from the Roland. Some drum programs have mappings that may work without modification with your hardware.

Most important: You have 4 posts on essentially the same issue (2 in the PT10 forum, one in the Virtual Instruments forum and another in the Getting Started forum. Not necessary and against the TOS. Maybe a moderator can merge the posts together in one thread.

[albee1952]

Indeed, using an electronic kit works great with plugins designed for it(Addictive Drums, EZdrummer and Superior Drummer all work very well). Using other VI's like OMNISHPERE and Kontact would likely require a lot of editing to the e-kit settings for note value and midi channel(by default, drum modules use midi channel 10, and note values could be anything). Example: when I used a TD-10 kit with EZdrummer, it took me trying several dozen midi note settings to get 1 pad to fire a cowbell sound. The rest of the kit played correct, right out of the gate

Don't forget that any/all external midi devices need to be configured in Pro Tools>Setup>Mid>Mid Studio(this is where you tell PT where to "look for" incoming midi information) Youtube has videos showing how to do this(and it may be a bit different between Mac and PC)

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Indeed, using an electronic kit works great with plugins designed for it(Addictive Drums, EZdrummer and Superior Drummer all work very well). Using other VI's like OMNISHPERE and Kontact would likely require a lot of editing to the e-kit settings for note value and midi channel(by default, drum modules use midi channel 10, and note values could be anything). Example: when I used a TD-10 kit with EZdrummer, it took me trying several dozen midi note settings to get 1 pad to fire a cowbell sound. The rest of the kit played correct, right out of the gate

Don't forget that any/all external midi devices need to be configured in Pro Tools>Setup>Mid>Mid Studio(this is where you tell PT where to "look for" incoming midi information) Youtube has videos showing how to do this(and it may be a bit different between Mac and PC)

And not every developer's GM mapping is correct. Unless they corrected it fxpansion's BFD3's GM mapping has a bunch of errors. So one may have to reprogram things in whatever vi is being used.