Missing outputs options on MIDI track?

[tommytime555]

I have some electric drums (EF Note) going into an Audient iD14... I've recorded a test track and can see there's data there and the volume meter is moving but I can't hear it under the headphones, nor do I have the usual Output options (see attached). I'm only able to output BACK to the electric drums. I have no clue what to do from here. Any help appreciated.

[albee1952]

A few thoughts:
1-as the DUC tends to shrink and render screen shots very poorly, it would be better to upload the photos to some photo sharing service and link to them(I can't make out anything of value due to the fuzzy pictures).
2-shooting from the hip(since I can't see for sure what you have going); A midi track will ONLY be able to route to a midi destination(think external hardware or virtual instrument plugins)
3-Maybe if you describe exactly what you WISH to do, someone will be able to offer a good solution. Meanwhile, here is some general advice regarding midi and VI's(Virtual Instrument plugins);
4-Midi, as a signal(which will show on a midi track's meter) makes no sound. It is simply note information that you need to feed to a sound source(hardware or VI).

With Pro Tools, if you are doing "basic" midi(like drums, as opposed to orchestrating a film score with a hundred instruments), then skip using a Midi track and use a Stereo Instrument track and insert your VI plugin on that track.(you can copy/paste midi info from a Midi track onto an Instrument track). There's lots more, but start with this simple scenario and see if it gets you closer to success

[tommytime555]

That was extremely helpful, and got me a bit closer, I think.

Basically all I'm trying to do is get the sounds from my electric drums onto separate audio tracks (kick, snare, tom1, etc.), but I'm not sure how to extract audio like that from a midi track.

Does that shed a little more light?

Here is a link to all of the INPUT options I have:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/62261...o9fwyjjya&dl=0

Here is a link to my original screenshot (better resolution):
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sbvol...vnzqrj0ow&dl=0

You've been a ton of help already.. thanks so much!

T

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by tommytime555

That was extremely helpful, and got me a bit closer, I think.

Basically all I'm trying to do is get the sounds from my electric drums onto separate audio tracks (kick, snare, tom1, etc.), but I'm not sure how to extract audio like that from a midi track.

Does that shed a little more light?

Here is a link to all of the INPUT options I have:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/62261...o9fwyjjya&dl=0

Here is a link to my original screenshot (better resolution):
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sbvol...vnzqrj0ow&dl=0

You've been a ton of help already.. thanks so much!

T

The only thing I see it looks like you are trying to use the EF Note as an input on a Midi track which is getting the midi data into it but a midi track has to have an aux track it routes to with a VI on it to output the sound from.

I have never tried an outboard electronic drum kit-- ONLY VI drums so just guessing here

But sounds like you are going EF via (USB ?) to Audient then Audient to computer yes?

I would first try using an Instrument track and input the EF Notes into it and see if your getting data and getting sounds... iIf not then I only assume that the issue is the EF is coming in as an input selection,,, not an insert selection and thus there is nothing for the midi data to actually trigger

[albee1952]

Okay, I'll take a shot at this, based on my experience with w Roland E-kit. My preference would be to simply use the E-kit to trigger a drum VI plugin(like EZDrummer or Superior Drummer).

To use the sounds from your external hardware(still not sure which exact EF-Note kit you have), you send the midi info back to the drum "brain" so your midi track plays the drum sounds. Then you record those sounds onto Audio tracks in Pro Tools. Where this gets messy is when the drum brain has limited outputs. Let's say it has main out Left and Right and a stereo aux output. That means you have 4 outputs to use at any one time. To record all the drum sounds to individual Audio tracks, you will need to assign SOME sounds, record them to 4 Audio tracks. Then change the assignments to other sounds feed those 4 outputs and record those to another set of 4 Audio tracks. Now you see how this gets to be a mess.

If you use the E-kit as a trigger and insert EZDrummer(just an example) on a stereo Instrument track, you can play the kit, while hearing the EZDrummer sounds while you record your midi performance. Once that's done, you can edit the midi if you like(I need to quantize stuff because my meter isn't so good). Then you can open the mixer section of EZDrummer and assign each sound(kick, snare top, snare bottom, etc) to separate "outputs"("outputs" in qoutes as these are virtual outputs). Then you create enough Audio tracks for all your sounds, set the inputs to match the plugin "outputs", put the Audio tracks into record and run the song. This will record each drum sound to its own track. Once you finish, then you have a bunch of drums on Audio tracks that you can mix just as you would mix a multitrack recording of someone's acoustic drum kit(you can now mute the Instrument track as you don't need it, unless you decide to make a change later). Pretty much all of the available drum plugins allow this routing, it just takes some time to set it all up.

[K Roche]

Again have no clue about the EF kit or how its GUI works for routing

so I will only add a visual reference to what Albee said about setting up a multi instrument multi track VI (the only difference I am routing the Drum VI outputs to their own Aux Input tracks but the method is the same as to audio tracks

So here you see my PT drums tracks with the Slate Vi drum on a stereo instrument track as an insert (SSDSamplr5) second track from left--- then I have the outputs from the VI drum mixer page going to the corresponding inputs of my individual drum tracks (NOTE the Kick & Snare are mono, the Toms are stereo so they can roll/ pan left to right )


Here is the mixer page for the SSD5 and you can see the how the outputs are assigned




And to assign the output numbers on the VI I click the output button on the VI Drum Mixer page ( yellow arrow) and select from all the available outputs for that particular drum preset patch (NOTE) the first 16 outputs are stereo and the last 16 are mono which is why the numbers I chose started with 17 for the Kick But are 2 on the toms



Hope this makes sense and helps

[skylar_battles]

Happy to shed some light on this as I've experimented with it quite a bit on different drum plugins. On almost all of them that have multi-output audio, if within the plugin you select that option per "sound" and route the audio out to the appropriate AUX tracks, it will work as desired. After, setting up the multi-output routing in the plugin, when you go to select an audio input for a track, there will now be an option for those outputs designated form that instance of that drum plugin. Similar with using multiple midi channels for input. If you enable it from the plugin, you can make use multichannel midi within the plugin from separate tracks.

[tommytime555]

Wow.. just saw all of these responses! Seems not all email notifications go out.

I am looking them over now.. thanks guys. I'll report back.

T