Changing Drum VST in existing project

[Mark Bastable]

I'm pondering the logic here before I actually do it and give myself a whole bunch of grief.

The midi drums I have already recorded using MS Power were triggered by given pads on my MPD  218, and subsequently edited by me, using both piano roll and a drum map view.

The drum map shows piano key > drum sound.  I don't have a pianomidicontroller, but I assume that that mapping is specific to the VST, rather than generic. In other words, the snare on the MS Power might be C3, but the snare on another drum VST might be D3. 

So if I were to change from one drum VST to another, would I have to create drum map that, as it were, maps MS Power's key assignments onto the new VSTs drums?

Or is there an easier way round this?



 

[scook]

Looking at the MT Power Drum VST it mostly follows GM MIDI note values for drums by default.

Most drum plug-ins support GM mapping even if it is not their default.

In general, when drums don't map to the same MIDI notes there are a few of ways to address the issue:

• modify the map in the plug-in
• apply a different map in the DAW (this may be done using MFX Transpose or Drum map)
• move the MIDI data to the note values expected by the new synth 

Of course, there may be other differences that go beyond note mapping such as how the plug-ins respond to velocity, different articulations and instruments. 

[Mark Bastable]

10 minutes ago, scook said:

Looking at the MT Power Drum VST it mostly follows GM MIDI note values for drums.

Most drum plug-ins support GM mapping even if it is not their default.

In general, when drums don't map to the same MIDI notes there are a few of ways to address the issue:

• modify the map in the plug-in
• apply a different map in the DAW (this may be done using MFX Transpose or Drum map)
• move the MIDI data to the note values expected by the new synth 

Of course, there may be other differences that go beyond note mapping such as how the plug-ins respond to velocity, different articulations and instruments. 

Ah, so there's a convention that they tend to stick to. That helps. Thank you.

[Mark Bastable]

On 9/8/2021 at 10:50 AM, Mark Bastable said:

Ah, so there's a convention that they tend to stick to. That helps. Thank you.

  ….which brings up an interesting development idea. Thinking aloud here….
 

If manufacturers stick to the convention, it must be possible to produce a damn-nearly-universal drum map. And if you can do that, it should be possible to create a  ‘just change the unusual things’ GUI, to map the bits that differ from one VST to another.

But, then again, the manufacturers know where they’ ve modified the convention, so they could provide that map, or just the delta.

So the map could be part of the download.

So it could be loaded in the DAW with the VST.

So Drum Map could replace Piano Roll as the default midi editing mode for percussion.

So why are we managing Drum Map libraries and explicitly invoking Drum Map use as an Output assignment?

…or have I missed something?

[jackson white]

I use multiple drum vsts across multiple daws and wanted a consistent display for editing across platforms. It took creating a custom keymap in the drum vst and a corresponding custom drum map in each DAW. There is a bit of a challenge with different kit piece articulations across drum vsts, just went with the 80/20 rule. I expect a GM map should work, but never found the GM layout useful enough for editing purposes to try it.

The drum map manager in CxB is bit dated and clunky, but entirely functional and does the job. I only needed to do it once.