Strike! I'm going crazy!

[iplaygitar]

Hello everyone. I'm wondering if anyone is having success with Strike? I just want to know if it's simply a complicated program- or if mine is installed wrong, or what!!? I have spent hour after hour trying to find a logical approach ( and even illogical ones ) on how to make this program useful. I installed the update- which didn't seem to help. I've read the manual over and over and watched that video on the website. I have used Protools successfully for years- but this is driving me insane! I'm even considering buying a drumkit to be done wasting so much time.
The drums sound great, it "plays" great from my midi keyboard, etc.

Would someone please tell me which approach is working the best for you?

1. Dragging and dropping section by section (intro, verse, chorus, etc.)
If the next section gets off time, can you nudge it?
2. "performing" to a click track from a midi device
3. "performing" to a click one "drum" at a time on an instrument track (hihat, then kick,then snare)
4. Playing the entire drum performance in Strike before dragging it to the edit window
5. ??????
6. Can you record straight to a track somehow?
7. Is there a Workspace that I don't know about where you would build your entire drum performance before the drag and drop to the timeline?

I must be missing the big picture here....
It seems that whichever approach I take, somehow the timing of the parts get off in the edit window. Frustrating, to say the least.
Also, is it possible to trigger Strike from actual drum pads? Do you need a trigger to midi note interface to do that? If so, is anyone having success with that? I think that would be much cooler than trying to groove on a drum performance by poking at a keyboard. That dude in the Strike video was playing real drums- i wonder if that was just smoke for the video or if that was what he was doing? I'd trigger some practice pads, if so. At least I could utilize the good drum sounds in realtime.

man, I know that's a lot- but if anyone can answer even one of the questions I would appreciate it.

matt (i'm using Le 7.3)
p.s. i tried everything again before I posted this to try to save my pride--- nothing works. I give up!

[simdoc1]

I'm a beginner myself so I can only tell you what I've learned. So far, I have either:

(1) Gone through an entire performance (or a chorus or verse) and then dragged the export midi button to the open gray area in Pro Tools. This results in 3-6 midi tracks which can then be manipulated after each one of them has been assigned to a numerical Strike output that matches the number in the track name.

(2) Instantiate Strike on an Instrument track and bus it to an audio track which you can then record as a full performace or as sections.

I haven't used it to perform with a click track although it certainly looks as though you could do it. I've been quite happy that it matches itself to the tempo set in Pro Tools.

Hope this helps a little....

[harryk]

iplaygitar, strike has a lot options...and therefore it appears complex... i would just say it's a learning curve issue.

i've been working with strike as follows:

I instantiate strike on an stereo instrument track. i'm usually just working on a song structure at this point, so i'm not worried about multiple outs or recording to a stereo audio track. i pick the preset i like, it loads, i turn off latch mode and then draw into my instrument track the midi notes that correspond to what will play back strike. for example, let's say i'm using the live pop setting, i draw in 7 bars of D1 (verse), then in bar 8 I draw in F#2(fill)... I control-d this out another 8 bars and then select C3 for another 7 bars and then draw in G#2 for another bar. At this point I have 24 bars which I then loop and work on a bass part.

If I like what's going on I might go into the mixer part of strike and change some of the settings for each instrument, basically using strike to mix the drums...

This is my way of working with strike in composing mode... working on a final mix for the drums is not even something i'm going to worry about until i'm done with the song. At that point you can output the individual instruments to separate tracks and mix them from within PT...

Strike will follow tempo and meter changes without a problem... although odd meters like 7/4, 5/4 etc sound weird in that forcing a 4/4 meter to 7/4 just forces strike to add an extra kick or snare... it's not that intelligent, yet... or maybe i'm missing something... I just write my own midi parts at this point.


hopefully this help simiplify things...

cheers, harryk

[iplaygitar]

Thanks for the help. I can drag and drop as you've described in 1. The problem I have is when I drag the next part to the timeline behind the first part. It will either be something other than what I've just performed, or the timing will be off, or the timing of the performance will be completely different than the first one.
One thing I haven't tried is dragging the next part before I've assigned the first dragged parts to their respective outputs, but I don't think that should make a difference.

If you bus to an instrument track as you've described in 2 you lose the benefit of tweaking your drum sound with Strike in post mix, right? I'll give that a try though.

Again, thanks for the help.

matt

[iplaygitar]

Thanks! I'll try that right now...

matt

[iplaygitar]

Hey Harry-- that approach does seem much more logical than what I was trying. Penciling the parts in is much easier than draging and dropping. This also seems to resolve the timing issues. I am so used to dragging and dropping drum loops that I overlooked the obvious. (as usual)

Thank you!!!

Matt

p.s. SimDoc1- thank you also. You may want to try this as well. After trying this approach, I think the multiple track drag and drop seems unneccessarily complicated.

[Wolfram K]

Hi everybody,

yes, the Export-MIDI function is not the optimal/or intended workflow when arranging Strike in your PT-session. The intended (most comfortable) way is to draw in Trigger notes on the Instrument track where Strike is inserted.

The Export-MIDI function is mainly a (quite complex) add-on feature for:

- "tweak-heads" who really want to get deep into issues like odd meters by editing the whole song's drums on a extra MIDI track.

- People who want to use the playing information of a Setting or Style in another host or triggering another instrument (for example a soft sampler which has loaded a preferred drum kit).

Thanks for everybody's help pointing this out!

Best regards and have fun using Strike!

Wolfram K

[simdoc1]

harryk:

Thanks for the tip about drawing in the trigger midi notes!! Not only is it trivially simple to make a core drum track, you can then "play" it while you vary the intensity and complexity in real time with the mouse or midi keyboard. It doesn't seem as though it could be much simpler.....

But I have one more question: Is it possible to draw in or automate the complexity or intensity parameters in the same way that you are drawing in the trigger notes????

[KimSira]

Hi Wolfram
Would it be possible in a future update to be able to select a groove from the trigger keys and drag that one bar groove onto ONE midi track?
I like to tweak the fills and stuff as well but the multiple midi tracks and the length the notes export to is a little cluttered.

Cheers
Kim

[Wolfram K]

simdoc1,

yes, you can automate any reasonable parameter in AIR plug-ins.
On more information on how to automate RTAS plug-ins, please refer to the DigiRack plug-ins guide, find it here:

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...0&itemid=22979

Especially the chapter "Automating Plug-ins" is worth looking at.

Regards,

Wolfram K