SI Drums adjust erratically to Gain knob

[Dave G]

I've set up an instrument track for SI Drums -- nothing quirky/out of the ordinary set up here.

In the SI Drums synth window, all the drum pieces in the kit play fine and at normal velocity. However, in the Piano Roll and in playback, only some of the drum pieces are heard -- and some are much lower volume. Again, this is all one drums track and I have adjusted no velocity/volume dials here.

Then I noticed that the culprit could be the Gain dial in the Console. When adjusting the Gain dial (traditional gain staging), I notice that some drum pieces are affected more than others (i.e. only the toms). The pieces of the drum kit don't seem to respond to gain at the same consistency. However, this seems to work fine in other drum synths (TTS-1, Addictive, Session Drummer 2, etc.)

I really like the SI Instruments suite, but if the Drums don't work well with Gain, what am I to do here?

I've read that gain staging is a necessary step in mixing. But it's diminishing the output of only some of my drum pieces.

How do I manage/fix this? Any information is appreciated. Thanks!

Edited September 2, 2021 by Dave G

[Glenn Stanton]

are the velocities set to a given level? the SD kits can have varying volume levels available. so if you set the velocity to 100 (as an example) does the volume still appear problematic?

[reginaldStjohn]

I think the gain knob in a midi track, or simple instrument track, adjusts the midi velocity not the audio gain. You would need to make sure you are on the audio track fed by the synth to adjust the audio gain. 

[abacab]

Try not using a simple instrument track.

You can see and adjust the MIDI and Audio track separately by instead using Soft Synth insert options [MIDI Source] + [First Synth Audio Output].

[John Vere]

The Input gain control at the top of Audio and Instrument tracks are identical in nature.   

There is no difference for the Gain control at the top of a channel strip  between a Simple instrument track or the Split instrument track .

For all audio tracks including instrument tracks it controls the Input gain coming to the top of the signal path for the channel strip from either an audio track or the audio generated by a VST instrument. 

Pretty sure the Gain control for a Instrument track follows after the Level control of the GUI. 

  A Simple Instrument track has midi Channel and bank and patch boxes just like a midi track.  And a Split Midi instrument track doesn't.

A Simple instrument track can record Midi data but a Split Instrument track will actually record the Audio of the VST, not midi.   

The MIDI gain control in the same location on the channel strip is for Velocity, not audio gain.  Don't use that or you could change the timber of many VST samples. I think this is what is happening to the OP.   

Velocity might seem to be volume but is not what it was designed for. It's the difference in how hard something is played. Of course you hit a drum harder it will be louder, but the timber changes as well.    

For Midi Use the GUI mixer or level,  or Instrument ( audio ) tracks gain or the channel fader.  For the midi tracks you would use the  fader for volume. 

Individual drum kit pieces or multi timbral VST's are adjusted in either the GUI mixer or if you split the instrument output into multiple audio tracks.  

Edited September 3, 2021 by John Vere