Recording V-Drum MIDI - Question about the MIDI Notes

[Joel Pixton]

On 5/3/2023 at 7:16 PM, JnTuneTech said:

Now that you've cleared up the long note issue, it is also worth mentioning that some MIDI input will need adjusting, if you get further into playing instruments like Addictive Drums. -And though you can just use an on-screen keyboard, or even the preview you get by clicking on a note on PRV, I find it useful to have a keyboard when mapping out your virtual kits.

I just saw your post. I appreciate these types of insights. I have been wanting to get a desktop midi piano keyboard for some time. I might just grab one used soon, I see them for sale all the time. It makes a lot of sense to have one now that I'm becoming familiar with Midi operations. It sounds like it makes producing midi inputs quite a bit faster.

In regards to adjusting inputs, I posted a screen shot of the velocities of my selected recorded clips. I noticed there are quite a few '127' peaks.

I was wondering if you had any general advice about velocity settings?  And, if by looking at my project, if you can tell if this looks normal for 'rock/jam' style drumming? The peaks in the screen shot are not from same pads  (some kick, snare, hi-hat shaft, ride), and none of the pads are constantly peaking, so, I'm assuming this is okay for the style.

I had set my pad velocities so that 'hard' hits peaked, and normal hits were a little under peak in a Cakewalk recording track. 

I was wondering if this is a matter of taste or if I should really turn down some of these velocities? Or, if anyone reading this has a good link or read about this? I had a hard time finding any good sources.

I noticed the Addictive Drum beats midi were generally not peaking like this. Though, some of the rock beats had some peaks.

 

 

[Joel Pixton]

6 hours ago, Troy Winemiller said:

I found the Focusrite MIDI-in totally unstable with the drum brain

I'm curious to hear what stability issues you were having? Your set-up was basically identical to mine.  

[msmcleod]

Sorry for chiming in so late in this discussion - last week was a busy one.

I don't use any of the Roland TD modules, but I do use both the Alesis Nitro Mesh and DM5 with AD2.   The Nitro is used for the standard kit pads, and I'm using the DM5 for extra cymbals (I modded some Remo practice pads to turn them into triggers).

I've got both modules going to a separate input in my Miditech MIDIFace 8x8. The first three inputs/outputs are used by my Mackie MCU, XT and C4, with the Nitro Mesh on input port 4 and DM5 on input port 5.  My main MIDI controller keyboard is connected to my Focusrite 18i20.  Despite the heavy MIDI traffic, I've never experienced any glitches.

If you want to use both the TD6 and the TD8, I'd recommend using a similar set up - i.e. have them connected to their own separate MIDI IN ports.  Cakewalk will merge all of the inputs for you, but personally I prefer to set the MIDI filter to only listen on the two drum module ports and my main controller keyboard.  This ensures that it never picks up anything from anywhere else.

I had to build my own map within AD2 due to my strange hybrid setup, but mine is pretty close to GM. IIRC AD2 has drum maps set up for the Roland TD modules, but you can tweak the AD2 drum maps to adjust velocity curves as required. 

[John Vere]

A word of caution about used keyboards. They wear out. Some cheap one very quickly. The trigger strips start glitching.  
I’ve had to replace them a few times on Yamaha and Roland boards but both of them were like 20 years old.
  I bought an Akai and they didn’t have replacement parts so the controller now has 4 glitchy notes right in the middle and it’s only 4 years old. 
Even if your not a keyboard player best to get a name brand and one you like the way the keyboard feels.  
And then there’s the extra controller features that are certainly worth having available.  
Most new controllers are now using Midi 2.0. This is a huge leap in technology after a long wait. Latency issues are now solved among other things.  

Edited May 7, 2023 by John Vere

[JnTuneTech]

11 hours ago, Joel Pixton said:

I was wondering if this is a matter of taste or if I should really turn down some of these velocities? Or, if anyone reading this has a good link or read about this? I had a hard time finding any good sources.

@Joel Pixton - I can only speak from my personal experiences, but I do also know it is always a matter preference, and highly dependent on your choice of drum samples - kits, etc. For me, there is no easy answer, it always depends on the sound I want to hear, compared to how it plays back at a certain velocity. -And sometimes I will revisit a MIDI track after adding other parts, and try another pass at adjusting velocities, to be quite honest. -I am glad though that MIDI makes it so easy to do that after the fact, or at least it's more flexible than having to make multiple takes of an audio recording.   -Usually, anyway!

I haven't used Addictive Drums as much as some other software, but recently I began fiddling with some tracks that I thought might work well with some of the default kits. They seem fairly forgiving on the velocity curves in their samples, maybe not as much dynamic range as some others, -which has its uses. As in your example with the supplied MIDI clips, the range of velocity can be fairly wide from lows to highs, and in Addictive's default kits it doesn't sound too abrupt. -That of course is just the defaults, as all that stuff can be modified, but that usually is just too much for me to want to deal with at that level, unless some MIDI file or input has some glaring problems I can't quickly fix any other way.

I still find playing the samples, -"hits"-, on a keyboard - or a touch pad set (I have 8 pads on one of my MIDI keyboards) to be very helpful in quickly getting a feel for what the sounds - velocity levels, etc., are going to play like, especially for auditioning in a mix, and especially when tweaking settings in a custom kit. -Trying to do that with a full set of pads, sitting on a drum stool is rather difficult!

Otherwise, MIDI velocities in PRV - mostly help me to see any glaring errors, and sometimes point to whether a particular track is going to have enough human dynamics (or not, depending on your goal) and help decide if it needs editing. -Especially if I think a note or two seems to be missing, or way out of place. Velocity tails can even alert me to small glitches I might have missed in note view. -But generally, you have to play it all with the specific sample set you want to try, and evaluate how it all works together, to judge what velocity levels are "right" - it all depends.

I have only used supplied MIDI "grooves" when I really am bored - but that's just me. I noticed long ago that for me, they are definitely tailored to the specific sampler & kit for which they are targeted, the velocities & mapping often only work best with a certain kit, and for a very specific feel. -But, that is what they are supposed to be. if you build a project using them it will probably work great, but mixing them with real input can be confusing. -I do like to see some of the extreme examples of mapping in the samples that get presented, as sometimes that's a good guide to re-program your live input to get a more realistic feel - since you can really only map pads to 1 or 2 initial samples. Things like hi-hats, toms, even the snare, can have so many variations available in a sample set. -It can get real time consuming though, between mapping and adjusting velocities... be careful not to let it take away all the fun of just playing!

[Joel Pixton]

13 hours ago, msmcleod said:

If you want to use both the TD6 and the TD8, I'd recommend using a similar set up - i.e. have them connected to their own separate MIDI IN ports.  Cakewalk will merge all of the inputs for you, but personally I prefer to set the MIDI filter to only listen on the two drum module ports and my main controller keyboard.  This ensures that it never picks up anything from anywhere else.

Thank you for sharing your set up. Your extra module that you're using for cymbal pads is exactly what I'm trying to accomplish with 3 Toms, 1 'dirtier' ride, 1 aux, and a secondary piccolo snare to the side.

 I spent at least a week trying to make the daisy chained (TD6->TD-8->Focusrite)  modules work. And, after it was all set up and actually working (TD-8 channel 10 sent to AD2 and TD-6 channel 11 sent to SI Drums for test) -- I noticed the second module had much more significant latency lag (which I was prepared to fix/ move in edit to make it all work). And, then I became aware of the glitched notes mentioned in this post.

So, I now believe having multiple MIDI IN ports is the way to go with multiple drum modules like this. Especially hearing about your set up and that you've had no glitch issues. 

 

[Joel Pixton]

7 hours ago, John Vere said:

A word of caution about used keyboards. They wear out. Some cheap one very quickly. The trigger strips start glitching.  
I’ve had to replace them a few times on Yamaha and Roland boards but both of them were like 20 years old.
  I bought an Akai and they didn’t have replacement parts so the controller now has 4 glitchy notes right in the middle and it’s only 4 years old. 

I appreciate your words of caution here. This would most likely explain why there are so many used ones for sale. Also, might explain why there are so many used Akai's for sale.

7 hours ago, John Vere said:

Even if your not a keyboard player best to get a name brand and one you like the way the keyboard feels.  
And then there’s the extra controller features that are certainly worth having available.  
Most new controllers are now using Midi 2.0. This is a huge leap in technology after a long wait. Latency issues are now solved among other things.  

Interesting. I was initially drawn in by the idea of having a keyboard for the 'touch pads' so I could punch in quick late night drum beats that I needed to record. I'll have to do a little research. I saw a person selling an Arturia Midi board locally with all the controller features, and I regretted not purchasing. Though, I think I'll read up a little more about the Midi 2.0 boards on the market now that you've mentioned it.

[Joel Pixton]

1 hour ago, JnTuneTech said:

It can get real time consuming though, between mapping and adjusting velocities... be careful not to let it take away all the fun of just playing!

I really appreciate your thoughtful and thorough posts. I have a tendency to over think a lot of things and it's why I've avoided the recording side of making music for most of my life.

I will say - I like the way my recorded Midi clips sound with AD2. And, it's why I have no desire to dig too far into editing velocities. I'm glad to hear you confirm a lot of this. Other than turning up a few Crash hits that look a bit weak compared to others, and, possibly cleaning up a few hi-hat chokes (adjusting CC values?)-- I'm going to trust my ears with everything else as they apply to default settings in AD2 for now. 

My original thought was that a snare at '127' was the equivalent of a snare being 'slammed', but it really depends on the sample and default values. And, the AD2 Fairfax kit I'm using never did sound like that to me, so I'm glad to hear your take on all of this.