Feature: Drums maps are garbage

[Neel Modi]

UPDATE to my earlier thread:

I recently got my Battery working better for me, after years of using it. I managed to get all Battery 3 kits into Battery 4 and consolidated all drum maps for Cakewalk by Bandlab / Sonar users.

I did enter my serial number for Komplete 8, and even 12 hours later, Native Access wouldn't show anything from my Komplete 8 stuff. I have discs but I think they're in storage in my parent's basement :).

However, I did find Battery 3 installation files here:

https://support.native-instruments.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000549845

And here's how to import Battery 3 kits into Battery 4:

https://support.native-instruments....-the-BATTERY-4-and-MASCHINE-2-Library-Browser

And finally, my consolidated drum maps for Cakewalk users:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0phgxjosspkvqfe/Battery 1-4 Drum Maps for Cakewalk.zip?dl=0

Enjoy!

Neel

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by Neel Modi

[Robert Bone]

THANKS! @Neel Modi for sharing all the maps

Bob Bone

[Trensharo]

On 6/13/2020 at 6:21 PM, Starship Krupa said:

As you point out, it's little different from editing any other Cakewalk MIDI. Setting it up is what's like playing Zork in 1986.

It could be much simpler, and when the time comes, I have some ideas. It looks like others have some ideas about making them more versatile as well.

This.  It's setting up the Drum Maps that's a PITA.

Using them can also be improved, as well.  Drum Maps should be per-track, not per project.  Maybe you want to try out two different Drum Instruments while producing.  The way the Drum Map system works in Cakewalk makes this inefficient.  In other DAWs (almost everyone I've used - Cubase, Samplitude, ACID Pro, etc.) this is easy to navigate because Drum Maps are track-based.

Track 4 can use a Map for VD-PHAT and Track 8 can use a Map for Battery.  I don't need to change anything in my Project Settings, and the tracks will list the correct drums/notes when I select them in the drum editor.

On 6/14/2020 at 8:46 AM, chuckebaby said:

The other method is using the Drum pane. Which for me anyway, is a bit difficult, you are grabbing those little triangles which i can not always grab in one click unless my Zoom is maxed in. Using 1/4 or 1/16 notes are easier to grab and lets you work in a wider field.

 

For some styles of music 1/4th or even 1/16th notes are simply not small enough.  It's hard to work that way if you're producing Trap or some forms of Hip-Hop, for example.  It simply doesn't work, because often you want 3-4 closed hats to trigger in the length of a 1/4 Note (depends on tempo, ofc).

This looks like this in the drum editor:

 

[Starship Krupa]

34 minutes ago, Trensharo said:

Drum Maps should be per-track, not per project.  Maybe you want to try out two different Drum Instruments while producing.  The way the Drum Map system works in Cakewalk makes this inefficient.  In other DAWs (almost everyone I've used - Cubase, Samplitude, ACID Pro, etc.) this is easy to navigate because Drum Maps are track-based.

Oy. I haven't run up against any of this because so far I've only used a single drum instrument while composing/producing (and used the composition workflow within the other drum machine to bring in my other beat). I am disturbed to hear you say that there are issues with composing with multiple drum instruments.

What you say has me thinking I'm going to go with the @chuckebaby method of using the instrument names over on the left and then using the normal MIDI blobs instead of the Drum Grid.

My favorite new plaything is Break Tweaker, I've been getting way into David Tipper's most recent collection of insane sound holograms. So far I've been using Break Tweaker's internal workflow separately and having Cakewalk tell it "Play" rather than triggering it as a drum instrument, but I also want to start doing it the other way, where I use its editing capabilities and trigger individual shots as a sampler.

My other DAW, Mixcraft, drum maps are very simple, you have the PRV open and it's under a button. You pick the one you want to use and if there isn't one, select "new" and make a new one. No Zork adventuring. Pick up axe, hit zombie with axe. Done. Now you may commence to program your beatz. That's what you mean by "track-based," I think?

[Nigel Mackay]

@Trensharo A project is not limited to 1 drum map. You could have 100 tracks, each with their own individual, unique drum map.

I wouldn't like to have to create them for you, but it is possible. ?

[chuckebaby]

4 hours ago, Trensharo said:

For some styles of music 1/4th or even 1/16th notes are simply not small enough.  It's hard to work that way if you're producing Trap or some forms of Hip-Hop, for example.  It simply doesn't work, because often you want 3-4 closed hats to trigger in the length of a 1/4 Note (depends on tempo, ofc).

I use 32 notes and 64 notes all the time using this same exact method. You are suing triangle drum grid. Piano roll is a lot easier than grabbing those little triangles.

[Scott Wheeler]

On 6/16/2020 at 10:04 PM, Scott Wheeler said:

It's on our tentative to-do list for the next release, but we haven't actually messed around with it yet.  Basically, if it ends up being straightforward, it'll almost certainly be included in the next release.

We did get this implemented in Sitala, and it'll be part of the release we have coming up in a few weeks.  A couple of quick questions:

• Right now we're blanking out the notes that aren't support by Sitala.  Anyone have a strong preference to that vs. showing simply note names for the unassigned notes?
• Anyone happen to know of any other hosts that support effGetMidiKeyName?  It'd be nice to test to see if it's working in other hosts.

Unfortunately there's a little bit of a lag for Cakewalk pulling in the updated note names into the piano roll, and in the step sequencer, it seems to never update the note names once the step sequencer has been activated.

[scook]

1 hour ago, Scott Wheeler said:

Right now we're blanking out the notes that aren't support by Sitala.  Anyone have a strong preference to that vs. showing simply note names for the unassigned notes?

AFAIK, only two other plug-ins support this feature (Cakewalk Session Drummer and FXpansion BFD3) and both only change the notes mapped to the instruments in the plug-ins. They leave the rest of alone. They show up as MIDI note numbers.

 

[Robert Bone]

On 7/8/2020 at 7:10 AM, chuckebaby said:

I use 32 notes and 64 notes all the time using this same exact method. You are suing triangle drum grid. Piano roll is a lot easier than grabbing those little triangles.

I actually work in Step Sequencer, for drum data, and it is quite easy to manipulate.  Piano Roll also works well, for this - I just happen to prefer Step Sequencer.

Bob Bone

 

[Scott Wheeler]

3 hours ago, scook said:

AFAIK, only two other plug-ins support this feature (Cakewalk Session Drummer and FXpansion BFD3) and both only change the notes mapped to the instruments in the plug-ins. They leave the rest of alone. They show up as MIDI note numbers.

 

Yeah, I'd noticed that that was the default when we don't set a value (in the screenshot above I'm actually setting the names to a single space), and found that a bit ugly (note names would have been less so), but it's probably worth doing what the others do just for consistency.  I assume that they (at least BFD3) have the same issue of things not updating in the step sequencer?

[scook]

15 minutes ago, Scott Wheeler said:

I assume that they (at least BFD3) have the same issue of things not updating in the step sequencer?

yes, the step sequencer does not update until the project is reloaded. I will put in a bug report.