Questions & Answers

How can I create a multitrack midi drum instrument

0 votes
1,304 views
asked Mar 26, 2021 in Studio One 5 by dickmarjanovic (180 points)

I have successfully recorded midi drum events from my V-Drums to a single track in Studio One.  I can then explode the notes so that I get one drum sound per track; which is great because mixing the drum kit sounds becomes much easier.  My question is; do I have to go through this process every time or is there some way of me storing this setup as a new keyboard?

It would be great just to create a track, select a "my V-Drums" keyboard and have it appear as a packed folder of individual drum tracks in its own bus channel.

__PRESENT

3 Answers

+1 vote
answered Mar 26, 2021 by aka_busker (32,890 points)
Hi.  I see you only refer to "V-drums" so I will work from the assumption that you are using a Roland kit.  I use a Roland TD1-DMK connected by usb to my windows machine and have it set up as a keyboard.  What I found was that you can use the drum kit to fire the impact XT virtual instrument without much issue.  You can make patches or load existing ones and they should fire off pretty easy.  The reason I recommend using Impact is because it is easy to drag and drop samples to the pads, you can multi layer each pad to have different dynamic sounds - like a snare -  that are triggered by the velocity.  Also, with Impact you can set it to be a multichannel output allowing snare, kick, hats etc to have their own track.  My favourite routing so far was to have my drums triggering both ImpactXT and Ezdrummer at the same time during a recording.  Just something to consider if you have or in the future purchase something like Ezdrummer.  (Just remember if you are using a Roland kit, then the cymbals are often dual zone meaning the same pad triggers two different notes.)
0 votes
answered Mar 27, 2021 by dickmarjanovic (180 points)

Thanks for your response.  To be honest I don't quite understand how Impact automatically creates multiple channels in the mixer when it's added to the track list but I think that's the sort of functionality I'd like with my V-Drums; add a new track; select V-Drums as an instrument and have several channels appear in the mixer (one for each drum etc.).

I understand the attraction of using Impact (even though it's very much EDM orientated) and other libraries such as EZDrummer but for now I'd like the option of editing drum sounds in the V-Drum module (e.g. damping, shell type, etc.).

So perhaps a follow-up question is that if it's not possible to create an instrument that creates several exploded tracks (one for each drum trigger), is it possible to create one that behaves like Impact (one channel per midi note)?

0 votes
answered Apr 4, 2021 by aka_busker (32,890 points)
Okay, sorry for the delay first.  The app still doesn't notify me that there was a reply.  Secondly, Impact can have multiple stereo and mono outputs.  Sixteen mono and sixteen stereo, giving a total of thirty-two outputs.  There are two buttons next to the patch dropdown, one with an arrow point away from a bar which is your outputs.  Click it and then tick the boxes you want to have as your ouputs.   On the pads, click the double cirlce to bring up the output selections.  Now you are assigning your ouputs as you desire.   #####  Impact has the look and feel of and MPC controller and can be controlled by the Atom or Atom SQ controllers, or amy Akai or similar.  (I used both Atoms b.t.w. and they are fun to use).  But you can drop any drum samples as you see fit.  I gave gigabytes of kits that can be built from any of my samples i have collected over the past decade.  Plus the kits I have for Impact.  Also Impact may sit on one instrument track but it can output to 32 audio tracks - due to the way Studio One handles tracks and channels.  ####### Studio One controlling your drum module?  Depends on your module.  On a technical level, Studio One sends and receives standard midi data.  Again it depends on how you are set up.  Do you connect via usb or Midi 5 pin din?  What kit are you using?  
...