The inexplicable wretchedness of trying to use the drum pane

[aleo]

David,

With regard to annoyance 2, I didn't explain this clearly.  I was referring to the pane to the right of the Drum Notes pane where you have the time grid with the colored rectangles representing notes, except in this case they represent beats or hits on the various percussion instruments when you've selected Show Notes with Duration.  If you select Session Drummer 2 from the New Drum Map list and Show Note Names, the colored rectangles contain the names of the various drum kit pieces e.g., Bass Drum, Snare, High Conga, etc.  When you select Session Drummer 2 Default you get the Drum Note pane on the left, and the rectangular notes on the time grid to the right, but it will not show the names of the kit pieces even when you've checked Show Note Names.   My point was if the Bakers could find a way to do this it would make editing the drum beats easier, like it does when you're editing notes in a MIDI track.

With problem 3, your solution is a good one, I've done something similar with my Templates folder.

I'm grateful to Starship Krupa for bringing the Drum Map feature to everyone's attention in the Forum.  I hadn't worked with Drum Maps for more than a year, but I remember the fun I had working with it back when I was using SONAR X3, and I began to get some new ideas for using percussion in some of the compositions I've been working on.   That's why I think it's important for the powers that be in Cakewalk to make some improvements here.  If the feature is fun to use and fairly easy to learn it will attract more users and new customers.

 

[Starship Krupa]

On 11/15/2024 at 8:53 AM, David Baay said:

I think '"Add Drum Map" would be more accurate.

"Add Drum Map" or "Use Drum Map," either of them would be way better than "New Drum Map."

If needing to look in an entirely different area of the program (Inspector or Console) doesn't stop the inexperienced user, then "I don't want to make a new drum map, I want to use an existing one" is waiting for them to trip over (in two senses of the word).

[David Baay]

17 hours ago, aleo said:

If you select Session Drummer 2 from the New Drum Map list and Show Note Names, the colored rectangles contain the names of the various drum kit pieces e.g., Bass Drum, Snare, High Conga, etc.

You only get note names in the notes if no drum map is applied. But I understand now the request is to have this happen with a drum map applied which should be fairly straightforward and would be nice.

[Starship Krupa]

22 hours ago, aleo said:

I'm grateful to Starship Krupa for bringing the Drum Map feature to everyone's attention in the Forum.  I hadn't worked with Drum Maps for more than a year, but I remember the fun I had working with it back when I was using SONAR X3, and I began to get some new ideas for using percussion in some of the compositions I've been working on.   That's why I think it's important for the powers that be in Cakewalk to make some improvements here.  If the feature is fun to use and fairly easy to learn it will attract more users and new customers.

This.

One of the reasons that I keep bashing my poor head against this is that when I can get it to work, the Drum Pane is great to work with. I prefer a view and workflow that's designed to work with percussion, showing "hits" rather than rectangles of varying length.

The way that you can rearrange where the instruments are vertically just by dragging and dropping is handy (I like to group kick, snare and hats together), being able to mute or solo individual instruments is useful, the way the notes/hits show the velocity right on them is very useful, and easier to see than the plain piano roll.

I know the general consensus is that it's easier to just use an instrument definition, and when I talk about the feature, I usually only talk about having the note names on the left, but the Drum Pane has more to offer than just note names. About the only thing I'd change would be the bland grey-on-grey text and background of the note list. Something easier to read.

I also like the "external hardware on channel 10" version and wish that it were easier to access.

[JnTuneTech]

Well, in reading this thread over several weeks now, I seem to glean only that everyone has differing tastes on working with percussion MIDI in CbB & Sonar. So far I can only agree generally about the definite issues of naming conventions, and challenges learning/discovering the drum map and PRV note name toolset itself.

I began many moons ago discovering MIDI mapping tools, and have since lost the taste for default sample maps and drum grid views, but that's not to say I won't use them, when it seems the best fit for the material being edited.

I do find that any time a drum map view seems empty, it will be a view setting carried over from a previous session, or just a wrong track output assignment/selection. I get what I click, though there are the odd times when editing a drum map that the PRV doesn't immediately update when doing modifications. I then close, re-open. A few clicks.

As others have stated, understanding & organizing the maps & templates is a bit clunky, -once you finally learn how they are set up by default, of course, and that selectively changing that helps a lot. For me doing that also helps backup the data, though it's never as critical as realizing the exact drum map(s) you want are saved within each project anyway.

Whether it's little rectangles, or asterisks, note views can be entirely up to each project, so it seems good there is a choice. Sorting the view really seems to be the key tool to have, for me. I mostly hate the default instrument mapping in drum synths, and am happy to do away with duplications and have only instruments I need for the project at hand, organized by my tastes. I happen to mostly prefer using note value views (rectangles), as I use them in varying sizes to visually emphasize certain aspects of dynamics, not to mention that several samplers I use have uses for varying note values on select instrument notes.

Everyone has their comfort zone, but drum maps did seem a bit complex to me at first. I don't know if that could quite be called wretchedness, but that is a colorful way of putting it!

 

Edited 2 hours ago by JnTuneTech
clarification...