Melda MDrummer MMD PB Exclusive

[Larry Shelby]

$109

https://www.pluginboutique.com/deals/show?sale_id=8129

[Fleer]

Dealio 

[Brian Lawler]

10 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Dealio 

Agreed.  Like all Melda, the UI is ... an acquired taste?  But the MIDI engine and MASSIVE sample collection are hard to beat.  YouTube videos by Chandler Guitar are the best learning resource.

[mettelus]

Be sure to get the Studio 2008-2018 Sample Pack (they are all free). Of all the packs, the Studio 2018 had the most content but they combined all the Studios into one file.

The drum engine has a full set of FX embedded, so you can morph just about anything into something else.

MDrummer is a complex beast though, so learning that GUI is worth the effort.

[Fleer]

Drum Empire 2020 is triple the size at almost 60GB 

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MDrummer/packs

[mettelus]

True, but Drum Empire is one file and is just high-resolution content that is fairly generic (5 kits basically that can be found elsewhere). That particular file is #1 on my axe-list if I ever need more HDD space. MDrummer will also import and sort (to the best of its ability) samples you already own (which can take a while). People with limited bandwidth are going to get frustrated by Drum Empire as well. Drum Empire could easily be down-sampled and lose nothing, but is in a proprietary format.

The Studio 2018 kit in particular has the most diverse content of all of them, but is still 14.3GB IIRC on its own. Now that it is bundled with 2008-2018, it is even bigger.

[daveiv]

23 hours ago, mettelus said:

Be sure to get the Studio 2008-2018 Sample Pack (they are all free). Of all the packs, the Studio 2018 had the most content but they combined all the Studios into one file.

The drum engine has a full set of FX embedded, so you can morph just about anything into something else.

MDrummer is a complex beast though, so learning that GUI is worth the effort.

Can you use them in a meaningful way with free MSoundFactoryPlayer?

[Brian Walton]

19 hours ago, daveiv said:

Can you use them in a meaningful way with free MSoundFactoryPlayer?

The basic idea is "no"

They would only be accessable from the Free Player is if a 3rd party makes an insturment that uses them in some way (which I have yet to see).

I have the Paid LE version and even that I haven't found any reason to actually download all that content as it really isn't exactly available to use...same situation as the free player for the most part.  

They clealy drive at needing MDrummer for the actual drum sounds to be available and usable.

Edited June 20, 2021 by Brian Walton

[sarine]

I wish I could actually use this thing. It refuses to do what I tell it to do, i.e. trigger loops. Looking for alternatives at the moment because I want to get back to making music instead of troubleshooting why a virtual drummer won't virtually drum on command.

[Monomox]

1 hour ago, sarine said:

I wish I could actually use this thing. It refuses to do what I tell it to do, i.e. trigger loops. Looking for alternatives at the moment because I want to get back to making music instead of troubleshooting why a virtual drummer won't virtually drum on command.

I got this about a year ago to replace Jamstix, which has too much a mind of its own. I figured this would be a happy medium between a "dumb" drum vst and one that just does whatever the hell it wants. The thing is that the learning curve is just too much. MChandler (hehe) is a great resource, but still, learning how to use this thing was too much for me.

One cool thing is that you can use it to drive another drum VST, if you have the patience to map every MIDI signal coming out of MDrummer.

[sarine]

53 minutes ago, Monomox said:

I got this about a year ago to replace Jamstix, which has too much a mind of its own. I figured this would be a happy medium between a "dumb" drum vst and one that just does whatever the hell it wants. The thing is that the learning curve is just too much. MChandler (hehe) is a great resource, but still, learning how to use this thing was too much for me.

One cool thing is that you can use it to drive another drum VST, if you have the patience to map every MIDI signal coming out of MDrummer.

Cool it is. I mean, aside from being unusable, I love it! Water under the bridge..!

In all seriousness, I thought I had gotten pretty apt at using the thing. I don't use pattern generation nor intelligent drummer features beyond the concept of the "virtual drummer" adhering to certain drummer's conventions such as keeping count of where to insert a break.

I load a kit, perhaps tweak it a little - but not too much as often it turns out the kits are kits for a good reason, and I've found the sampling quality, layering etc. to mostly work out of the box - and then I manually craft the loops following the intro-beat/verse/chorus-break-outro idiom, mostly ignoring the purported correlation between rhythm intensity and complexity (i.e. "level" in MDrummer jargon) because I feel I don't understand drumming well enough from the drummer's perspective to design natural intensity build-up in terms of layering gradually increasing single-shots (e.g. introducing and accentuating hi-hats, tomtoms, adding the odd crash cymbal etc. according to "level").

It's a mouthful but the gist of it is I "Keep It Simple, Stupid" - until I learn to think like a drummer about all the sounds and rhythmic patterns.

It makes it all the more infuriating when MDrummer seemingly fails to do the simple, stupid drumming jobs I expect from it. There is a bit in the manual about the sensitivity of MIDI timing when MDrummer is in the (default, channels 1-9) command mode, and that sometimes it helps to add a negative delay (the manual says 1ms should suffice) to the rhythm triggering MIDI track in the DAW to ensure that the commands are received on time. Otherwise, if MDrummer misses the mark it for some reason flat-out refuses to play anything. I suspect this has to do with the way MDrummer is synced with the host's tempo and how it tries to strictly adhere to the aforementioned rhythm conventions.

However, I have been unable to solve this timing(?) issue despite trying different negative delays and even configuring the DAW to pre-emptively read ahead the MIDI so that the correct notes should be sent to MDrummer acutely even in situations like jumping back to a loop beginning.

It shouldn't be the DAW crapping out as Vojtech (Mr. Melda) uses Cubase himself, and I am using Nuendo. So if anything this is the DAW I'd expect to handle this VST.

I really hope I just don't know whaddafuk I'm doing or that there's a simple answer, or even just a counter-intuitive or insane solution, but some of the other odd things happening in MDrummer - which I haven't even mentioned - make me worry that it is just buggy software. I'm at a point where I'm ready to try reinstalling the whole thing.

It would be a shame if I couldn't get this thing to function properly and had to go looking to replace it with something like Superior Drummer.

Edited June 23, 2021 by sarine