Alesis Crimson SE2 Hi-hat midi

[Tls Cud]

Hi guys,

 

I'm very new here, and to midi recording in general, but have been drumming most my life.

I'm having some issues with the Hi-hat on midi tracks via a Alesis Crimson SE2. Having spent a fair amount of time searching online, I know I'm not the first to have this problem, however, most solutions seem to assume much more base knowledge of this type of thing than I have.

So, plugging the kit in, easy enough. I have created a instrument track using the default virtual instrument in Cakewalk, and everything else sounds fine, but the hi-hat I get nothing.

 

I've read online about the midi note being set to 8, and have experimented changing this number to match the default 'open' hat in the virtual kit. When I do this, I get an open hat sound, but then I get nothing with the pedal closed. Likewise, I've mapped it to the closed pedal, obviously resulting in a closed pedal sound (With the pedal physically up), but again nothing when I hold the pedal down.  I have also tried remapping, in the drum map on Cakewalk, the open hi-hat to midi number 8, but this doesn't seem to yield any results at all.

 

So, long story short, how do I get the hi-hat to function through midi properly via the default Cakewalk virtual kit? I'm a bit stuck now, and would much rather not have to spend more money on an audio interface and lose the midi functionality.

 

Thanks

[HOOK]

Have you read this and tried it yet?  Hope it helps.

From Alesis support:

Preparing your Drum module

Notice in the Default Assignments sections above, that the Hi-Hat Open and Hi-Hat Closed triggers both send a MIDI Message of #8 or G#-2. Because of this any software will be unable to distinguish between the hi-hat open and hi-hat closed triggers. Before we can map the functionality of the trigger, we must assign a different MIDI message to one of these functions. 

Press the Menu button on your module, then toggle down to Trigger and press Enter to enter the Trigger Settings menu.

Use the knob to change the selected trigger to Hi-Hat.

Press the Down button and select MIDI Note.

Use the Data Dial (big knob) to change the assigned MIDI note. In most cases, and for this example, MIDI note 009 (or A-2) will work.

From here, you have manually adjusted the MIDI assignment for the open Hi-hat within your module! Your Open & closed positions will be sending separate MIDI messages.

[HOOK]

I believe that your basic problem is probably that your kit comes from the factory with midi note 8 (no idea why) on both open and closed HH.  Change one of those to 9 in the drum module.  And then make sure your drum map correlates.  

[Lord Tim]

8 is a weird number for hats anyway, honestly, I'm not sure I'd ever seen that before. Everything else seems close enough to General MIDI standard. This is probably likely because your module is interpreting everything from a Continuous Controller rather than MIDI notes like a lot of synths expect, but 8 is still an odd choice.

I'd be inclined to change Hi-Hat Open to 46 and Hi-Hat Closed to 42 just to get them similar to GM standard (and probably change Hi-Hat Pedal to 44, and Hi-Hat Splash to maybe 46 as well unless there's a specific mapping for the softsynth that exposes a Splash). The full list is here:

https://pjb.com.au/muscript/gm.html

[Tls Cud]

Thanks for the replies guys, I'll give this a go tomorrow and report back!

[Tls Cud]

On 9/20/2023 at 6:36 AM, Lord Tim said:

8 is a weird number for hats anyway, honestly, I'm not sure I'd ever seen that before. Everything else seems close enough to General MIDI standard. This is probably likely because your module is interpreting everything from a Continuous Controller rather than MIDI notes like a lot of synths expect, but 8 is still an odd choice.

I'd be inclined to change Hi-Hat Open to 46 and Hi-Hat Closed to 42 just to get them similar to GM standard (and probably change Hi-Hat Pedal to 44, and Hi-Hat Splash to maybe 46 as well unless there's a specific mapping for the softsynth that exposes a Splash). The full list is here:

https://pjb.com.au/muscript/gm.html

So, I've changed the midi note to 9, and it does indeed split them between two notes, so that's great!

 

How though, do I go ahead and do this now? If I change the midi note to 46, then I just get the open hat, but nothing when I press the pedal down, and I can't independently set the closed to 42?

[John Vere]

FYI.  Most 3rd party VST drums have a mapping page and there will be a list of most common digital kits to choose from. There’s a free version of Steven Slate that has this feature. If your using SI drums the SSD 5 is a good upgrade. https://stevenslatedrums.com