MIDI from a drum module into PT to resample?

[c0yle]

I've never used MIDI at all before really, so I'm pretty clueless here. Is it possible to have a drummer play an Ekit to a DM5 module, take the MIDI out of the DM5 into seperate tracks (kick, snare, tom1, tom2, etc....) in protools, then use sound replacer or drumagog to resample each MIDI track into whichever drum sounds I choose? I have an Mbox and a Midiman USB midisport.

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by c0yle

I've never used MIDI at all before really, so I'm pretty clueless here. Is it possible to have a drummer play an Ekit to a DM5 module, take the MIDI out of the DM5 into seperate tracks (kick, snare, tom1, tom2, etc....) in protools, then use sound replacer or drumagog to resample each MIDI track into whichever drum sounds I choose? I have an Mbox and a Midiman USB midisport.

Yes. I just did this with a drummer who sent me the midi file of his drum performance off some Roland kit or other. Because you're working with MIDI files, you won't use the sound replacer or drumagog, as those work with audio files. What you will want to do is get the MIDI track of the drum performance into Pro Tools. If you've set up your MIDI connections correctly into PRo Tools with the e-kit, then all you need to do is record whatever the drummer plays onto the MIDI track. What you should end up with is a MIDI track that show each hit as a note and each drum part on its own key. So, for example, the kick might be C-2 on the note scale on the MIDI track, and the snare might be D4 or something like that. But, the important thing to see is that each part of the drum kit is represented on the MIDI track as a particular note on the scale.

Once you have the MIDI track, you can then do several things. You could, for example, create an instrument track, instantiate a virtual drum kit VI on it, copy the MIDI track data to the instrument track, and then audition various drum kits, depending on what you have in your VI arsenal.

If you want to place each drum part on its own track (ie Kick, Snare, Toms, etc), you can do that too. On the MIDI track, you can use the split midi into separate tracks function (if you don't know what this is, refer to the PT manual for more explanation). This will take each note on the MIDI track and put it on its own separate MIDI track. So, if the kick is on, say, C-2, then all the C-2's will be on one track. Label it Kick MIDI or something like that. THen you can audition Kick drums to your heart's content by routing the MIDI channel to either an external MIDI drum machine or synth with drum kits (I use my Yamaha Motif XS 8's drum kits this way). When you find what you like, you can record it as an audio file on its own track. Rinse and repeat for all the other tracks.

Doing it this way, you can sorta emulate what you'd have with live drums, mic'd with a full drum mic set-up. Gets a better mix, and allows you to tweak each drum part any way you want, just as you would if everything were recorded as audio with a real drum kit.

Hope all that makes sense.

[c0yle]

I think I get all of it. I don't have any VIs though. Just a large sample library and drumagog. From how it works though, I guessing I could have the drummer play onto a MIDI track. Split the MIDI into seperate tracks. Then route each MIDI channel back to the DM5 two at a time, then come out of the DM5 into each Mbox input. Then just drumagog the audio files of the DM5 drums into whatever I want and build my kit that way?

Thanks for the help!

[DonaldM]

Actually, you do have some VI's. If you're using PT 8, you have Boom. Also, you should have Reason Adapted somewhere with your PT disks. There's Re-Drum on there you could use to start out with.

You could also use Structure Free and download a kit or two.

At least it'd make it easier to create audio files of the drum kit, and then you can drumagog away after that.

[c0yle]

Oh awesome. Kind of only know things in PT that I regularly use, so didn't even know I had that stuff. Sounds good. Thanks again!

[DonaldM]

If you have PT 8.0 or later, you have

• Big Fish Audio 8 GB sound library
• Boom drum machine and sequencer
• DB-33 tonewheel organ emulator with rotating speaker simulation
• Mini Grand acoustic grand piano

• Structure Free sample player (based on Structure)
• Vacuum monophonic vacuum tube synthesizer
• Xpand!2 multitimbral synth and sample workstation

[albee1952]

If you have Structure Free, then you can load drum samples into that. You can even record your Drumagog samples and import those into Structure. Watch some tutorial videos on that VI as its pretty neat(AvidTV and youtube are your friend here). BTW, Ezdrummer and the EZX expansion kits are all half price at GC right now