Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

Hi Guys,

I searched the V-Drum threads but cannot find an answer to this particular senario. I just purchased a set of Roland TD-8 V-Drums and been recording them in ProTools. I can record them using audio tracks and I have also been able to record midi from the drums into ProTools and play them back pulling samples in from BFD lite. After I record on a midi track, I can see that each drums is on it's on line/channel and in purple.

What I CAN'T do is separate the sounds one drum per channel using the samples from the Roland V-Drum brain. This V-Drum module only has two sets of stereo outs. Is this even possible and if so, can someone tell me how ?

Thanks !

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

no not a lot you can do in your situation. i use a td 10 brain which has all individual outputs. but i use it as a midi trigger only. then to either bfd in "ultra" so i have complete control of each instrument of the kit in pro tools or sometimes reason with the drum kits refill. and can do the same thing.

what you might be able to do with the 4 outputs of the td 8 is asign maybe the kik to 1 output snare to the other toms to 1 (automate panning for each tom), and everything else to another, not great but give you some flexibility. something like that. i know the 10 you can asign any instrument to any output....good luck

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

Thanks guitardom,

The kick, snare, toms and cymbals separated would be a great start.

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

what if you create a new midi track under your current midi track. in this new midi track, copy to it, your midi snare info from the original midi track. this new midi track will have only the snare performance. send that back to your drum brain and record snare audio back into protools

edit. sorry gtrdom i did not read your whole post. in your v brain is there an output section?

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

Here is what worked for me. With a TD8, I would record the midi while using the headphone out for monitoring. Once the song is recorded on a midi track(and edited as needed), I let the midi "play" the module and record audio tracks for all the drums in 2 passes. First pass I would assign kick to aux 1 out, snare to aux 2 out and toms to the stereo outs(turn all the cymbals and hat down). Next pass I would assign the hat to aux 1, ride to aux 2 and crashes to stereo outs(panned hard L/R) and turn the snare, kick and toms off. It takes some time but you end up with 8 audio tracks of drums which can be sweetened with plugins. The final trick was to aux send all the individual drum tracks to a stereo aux and place a room verb plugin, which would meld the whole thing into a nice package(simulating a kit played in a room). I switched to a TD10 module as the 8 outs made the whole process faster using the same basic strategy. At first I was regretting the switch as the stock TD10 did not sound as good as the TD8, but after adding the expansion card, it was a great step up. Now I have a new method that nets much better drum tracks. I play the Roland kit to an instrument track and run ezdrummer and play the samples which blow away the Roland sounds. Plus, ezdrummer allows you to setup a bunch of aux tracks and assign the sounds to seperate tracks for plugin processing without any audio tracks(remember that 32 track limit? now my drums don't eat any of it). The only thing I haven't figured out is how to choke a cymbal on ezdrummer but I can always record a Roland cymbal crash/choke and paste it wherever I need it.

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

It's been awhile since I've played with MIDI, so please forgive me if this sounds idioitic. However, isn't it possible to assign each drum to a separate track and record it as a MIDI performance, import the performance into your favorite sample based sequencer (again, via MIDI), select your favorite sound for each instrument, and then Rewire the whole shebang into Pro Tools, with audio tracks selected for each drum track?

The Kid

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

albee1952,

Thanks for the great response. It all makes sense but I have not been able to "let the midi play the module and record audio tracks". I can get V-Drum midi into ProTools, I can convert midi into audio using plug-in samples like BFD lite but don't know how to get midi recorded from the V-Drums to play back using the sounds from the TD-8 brain. Can you give me more details on how to set that up ?

Thanks !

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

I dont want to hijack anyone's thread..... but can you email me? I'd really like to discuss with you how you do this and compare to my methods. I am always having latency problems and articulation problems with using Reason and a TD-10. I'd like to talk about your experience with BFD, etc.

[email protected]

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

About the only detail I forgot is, make sure the MIDI Thru is checked and I used to disconnect the cable from the 002 midi out to the TD10 midi in to avoid the double trigger while recording. Since going with ezdrummer, that problem seems to have fixed itself. Always work at the lowest buffer possible to avoid latency issues. Early on, I would actually slide the final midi track early by 1600 samples but later projects seemed to not need it. I am at a loss to explain that. When I recorded the midi from the Roland, the midi track input was set to all. To let the midi track play the Roland, I would set the midi track input to NONE and set the output to midi channel 10(almost all drum/percussion modules are set to midi channel 10 by default). Hope that helps. I am on the road for a few more weeks so I am not at my setup to check any other settings. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Re: Roland V-Drums & ProTools
 

You are pretty much out of luck with that moduel. You need the TW-20, you will be able to send an output of each drum and cymble. I do it and it is awsome.

Bad1drums