Re-assigning drum sounds

[Greg Allen]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can point me to the right area here to get an answer. I'm very new to MIDI controllers. I (obviously) have Cakewalk. I just bought an Akai MPK Pro Mini II. So when I go into Cakewalk and load up the SI Drum Kit, the corresponding pads on my Akai are kind of all over the place. On one bank there's two of the same drum for two separate pads, and the kick and snare are on the second bank. I'm trying to re-map or re-assign these in a more user friendly way. For instance, the Hi Tom of the SI Kit is on the same bank on two different pads.  I want to have a bank that has kick, snare, hi hat, etc. In short I want to customize the pads on the Akai with the SI Kit. I've seen the Drum Maps tutorials on YouTube, but they really don't deal with the actually assigning of sounds to pad. Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

[John Vere]

https://www.akaipro.com/mpk-mini-mkii

Did you use the editor app? 

[Greg Allen]

Hi John, Thanks for the reply. I downloaded it it, but it looks like Greek to me. I'll give you an example, and maybe that will help. I'm trying to change a high tom drum sound that is created on Pad 5 of my Mini to a  kick drum sound in Cakewalk. There is a virtual drum set that you can see in Cakewalk of  the drum being played that corresponds to the pad on the Mini.  I have no way of knowing if I change the number on the Editor (it's 48) if I'm changing it to a kick drum note instead. I feel like I'm missing some information. Are there designated "notes" that will change it to a kick, and if so how do I find them?

 

Thanks,

Greg

[John Vere]

General MIDI Standard Percussion Set Key Map.pdf

I could not say with out reading the user manual for the editor app. But that would seem to be how you re assign pads. I Googled the list of GM drum note assignments SI drums uses GM ( general midi ) Kick is note 35General MIDI Standard Percussion Set Key Map.pdf

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by John Vere

[scook]

26 minutes ago, John Vere said:

Google the list of GM drum note assignments SI drums uses GM ( general midi ) 

Or click in the SI-Drum plug-in UI and press the F1 key to open its help.

The MIDI notes used by the plug-in are documented in "Using the Drum Pads" and "Using the MIDI Patterns" sections.

This covers a little more than the basic GM note info.

 

There are three ways to make the MIDI note assignments:

1. In the hardware - as suggested above by reviewing the hardware manual
2. In the PC before the DAW - there are tools such as MIDI-OX that may be used to intercept and remap MIDI data.
3. In the DAW - CbB provides a plug-in Transpose MFX and drum maps. Both can create translation tables to transpose MIDI data. There are third party plug-ins that can do this too such as Code FN42 NoteMapper. Some drum plug-ins have their own mapping tools too. SI-Drums is not one of them though.

[Greg Allen]

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate it. I'll give it a shot here in the next couple days!

[Greg Allen]

So I tried changing the settings in the MPK Editor, and supposedly sent them to the Mini ( I tried send to a program and to RAM), and the sounds don't change in Cakewalk, it's just the original configuration. It's like the info is in the controller, but the SI Drums or Cakewalk isn't getting the message of the changes. I also downloaded MIDI-OX, but I don't know how to use that. Maybe I'll try drum maps again, but I just don't get why this is so difficult. Maybe it's because Cakewalk isn't "professional" like ProTools or Ableton?  In those programs, a visual representation of your MIDI controller comes up in the UI and you can make changes there. Is this feature possible in CbB and I'm just missing it, or...?

[John Vere]

This has nothing to do with Cakewalk. Your controller is sending  midi data. Cakewalk receives the data and sends it to the VST. 

So if the controller is sending  note number 48 you’ll hear a crash or whatever that note is. If it sends a 35 you’ll hear a kick. 
You can do 3 things. 
1-Change the pad assignment 

2-Use a drum map to convert it  This would be the only time Cakewalks software is involved 

3-Re assign the notes in the VST’s mapping if it has this option. SI drums doesn’t.  As said. It is. simple GM kit   AD2 does 

So assign the pads is the easiest solution—but—
It would not surprise me if Akai  has not supplied a good quality editor that works. I have an Akai Synthstation  25 and it’s super buggy. Half the controls do nothing and when I looked into it  I was not alone. Support doesn’t respond and the user forum takes 3 months for a reply.

I love my Roland , solid drivers and everything works. And guess who wrote the book on GM. 
So nobody here  can really help other than possibly the drum map option.
Your best bet is google about using the editor and see if others have got it to work. 

Edited January 24, 2021 by John Vere