Can I get some clarification on Si-Drums please

[Roy Slough]

Hi, I am using SI-Drums in Cakewalk by bandlab with a drum map and it meets most of my needs (there is a separate post about brushed snares)
However, I am finding some midi notes trigger "other" drums or cymbals OR the way they are hit within the SI-Drum kit. I have less control of these "others" within the GUI interface.

E.G note 49 triggers a crash cymbal, so does note 57 and Note 55 does a Splash cymbal. They appear as one cymbal and They do sound different but the SI-Drum interface only gives one set of controls (Volume, panning etc. for one crash cymbal)
similar is true for rides = Interface has only one ride cymbal, note 51 triggers one sound note 59 triggers another and 53 triggers the bell.
Same true for sidestick and snare (possibly Elec Snare)
Toms there are only 3 in the GUI so some notes just trigger the same drum 48&50   45&47  41&43

Therefore may I assume different midi notes are assigned as to how the item is hit with the stick - is this correct and where can I see more info about this (in case there are other variations I am missing) or ways to manage their sound?

Thanks

[Glenn Stanton]

SI-Drums is pretty limited compared to say Addictive Drums and EZ Drummer, and of course for fuller control you'd probably look into Superior Drummer etc). so your're not going to have much options around placement compared to other VI drums with more outputs and flexibility in setting the triggers, positions, things like overhead, room, buss positions and options for distinct outputs.

given the limits, and sample/triggering, you probably just need to work out what are the things you need for a given project and set your MIDI up to use it within the options SI-Drums provides. not sure if there are detailed maps for each of the provided kits or not.

Edited July 19 by Glenn Stanton

[57Gregy]

If you right-click the drum/cymbal icon, you can select which sound you want it to play. Is that what you mean?
Clicking the icon at the bottom, middle or top changes the velocity, so altering the velocity of a note in the PRV or Staff will also change the sound.

[Roy Slough]

16 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

If you right-click the drum/cymbal icon, you can select which sound you want it to play. Is that what you mean?
Clicking the icon at the bottom, middle or top changes the velocity, so altering the velocity of a note in the PRV or Staff will also change the sound.

Thanks Greg, I didn't mean right clicking on the icon. I am only triggering the notes from midi. Once I have a good groove going I can open the SI-Drum GUI und tune the drum/cymbal up or down,  Alter the reverb (If I want to utilise this reverb as opposed to adding one I have more control over. etc.)

I understand Glenn's comments above and this is pretty much what I expected = a basic 8 piece kit. I also use a drum map to split the kit as I need for panning and fx on certain areas, which works for me. I was curious about how a side stick snare or bell ride cymbal was achieved (other than the midi note number) this knowledge could assist my programming of the drum patterns.

[Sock Monkey]

The SI drum kit is GM midi by default so it will play most of the basic kit pieces of a GM kit. But it is also missing possible 2/3 of the other GM  sounds.   

Other VST drum players might have a lot of other sounds available as well, depends.  Some can have zillions of variations on the sounds sampled. But those are not usually GM mapped. 

If you open the SI drum kit and observe the GUI as you step through the keys on your midi controller you will see what happens. You'll also see that with the SI drums  the D#2 is silent but the GM TTS-1 plays a hand clap. You'll see it's cymbals move when you play the C#3 ride,  , D#3 crash  and then Bell and the splash move the same GUI image.  

It depends on which kit you load as well, I've never really figured out exactly how you could customize the sounds because I don't really bother with the SI drums because of these limitations. For a freebie I like the Steven Slate drums. But I have Addictive drums and a few kits and add ons from the old Sonar Platinum days. I see they added Session drummer again to Sonar. That had a lot of sounds but I hated the clunky way you had to load them to preview. Possibly that has changed. 

Edited July 21 by Sock Monkey

[Roy Slough]

17 hours ago, Sock Monkey said:

The SI drum kit is GM midi by default so it will play most of the basic kit pieces of a GM kit. But it is also missing possible 2/3 of the other GM  sounds.   

Other VST drum players might have a lot of other sounds available as well, depends.  Some can have zillions of variations on the sounds sampled. But those are not usually GM mapped. 

If you open the SI drum kit and observe the GUI as you step through the keys on your midi controller you will see what happens. You'll also see that with the SI drums  the D#2 is silent but the GM TTS-1 plays a hand clap. You'll see it's cymbals move when you play the C#3 ride,  , D#3 crash  and then Bell and the splash move the same GUI image.  

It depends on which kit you load as well, I've never really figured out exactly how you could customize the sounds because I don't really bother with the SI drums because of these limitations. For a freebie I like the Steven Slate drums. But I have Addictive drums and a few kits and add ons from the old Sonar Platinum days. I see they added Session drummer again to Sonar. That had a lot of sounds but I hated the clunky way you had to load them to preview. Possibly that has changed. 

Thanks sock monkey.  I experienced the hand clap issue myself, wanted to add some and couldn't find any in the Si-Drums (although I didn't try every variation of kit - life is too short)  I did find some in the Drum Pro 32 VST but everything else there was for dance/techno style music.  I also experienced some synchronisation problems using the Drum Pro 32 together with all my Si-Drums, so I rendered the claps to an audio and ditched the drum pro 32 from the project.

We are creating demos of rock/indy style music so any reasonable drums that are free will suffice, but I like to get full value from my free stuff as much as I can.

Thanks again