I want to control the overall volume of separate drum tracks. How?

[tdehan]

I have a project I've been working on where the drums are all on separate tracks.  I would like the ability to control the overall drum volume without having to adjust the slider on each separate drum track.  How can I achieve this?

Thanks!

[tdehan]

Each drum is on a separate track as I mentioned.  Yes, each TTS-1 drum is on MIDI channel 10.  However, when I move the slider for any one of the drum tracks, only that track is affected by the volume change.  I would have to adjust each individual slider for each drum part which is not what I wanted to do.

The work around that I mentioned was to BOUNCE all the separate MIDI drum tracks to one track (.wav).  Though not ideal, this is the only way I could find to achieve a global volume change for all the drums collectively.  If I adjust the channel that Cakewalk TTS-1 is on, then other instruments besides the drums that are also using TTS-1 are affected.

[David Baay]

39 minutes ago, tdehan said:

However, when I move the slider for any one of the drum tracks, only that track is affected by the volume change

Try moving a Volume control all the way to 0 during playback. If your setup is as described, I guarantee all the drums will be silenced, and if you look at the fader for the drum channel in the TTS1 UI, it will be all the way down. If that track is not the last one, the volume will come back up to the level of the last track when you restart playback

[Sock Monkey]

What is to understand is that if those are midi tracks the level control is not an audio control but a Midi CC7 volume event adjustment for the channel that it is assigned to. 
So you cannot adjust each track separately if they are all using the same midi channel and are assigned to the same instrument. 
Each track would need to be on a different channel and using the track header you would enter the bank and patch to choose the correct instrument which is probably the standard kit. 
If I still had the TTS-1 I could post a screenshot. But I don’t. 
Really this would be much easier if you used Session Drums or the SI kit which have level control for each kit piece. 
Otherwise use velocity. 
 

Edited Monday at 10:57 PM by Sock Monkey

[tdehan]

1 hour ago, David Baay said:

Try moving a Volume control all the way to 0 during playback. If your setup is as described, I guarantee all the drums will be silenced, and if you look at the fader for the drum channel in the TTS1 UI, it will be all the way down. If that track is not the last one, the volume will come back up to the level of the last track when you restart playback

Bingo!  That's it!  I was not listening when I moved the individual sliders.  I just saw that all the sliders were not moving together.  Thanks!

Edited 23 hours ago by tdehan

[Amberwolf]

3 hours ago, tdehan said:

Each drum is on a separate track as I mentioned. 

Separate MIDI track, or separate audio track?

Separate instances of TTS1, or just the one?

Both of those are crucial bits of info to know how you have it setup, so that correct advice can easily be given without "random" advices that "eventually" hit the right answer.

Each way you could have it setup has different answers to how to do what you want to do, that don't apply to the other ways. 

 

Knowing your complete setup of how your instruments and tracks are routed is often key to someone being able to help you with a particular problem (especially things like the topic of this thread). 

 

3 hours ago, tdehan said:

  If I adjust the channel that Cakewalk TTS-1 is on, then other instruments besides the drums that are also using TTS-1 are affected.

If you want completely separate control of every sound, you'll need to use separate instances of your synth(s), each with it's own audio and midi tracks.

If you use just a single instance of a single synth for every sound, then there are things you can't control or do individually.

Some synths have multiple audio outs that you can assign to different instruments, but most don't.  Someone above said TTS1 has four, so you setup separate audio tracks for each of those four, and then setup TTS1 internally so the instruments you want grouped together are all sent to the same one of those four, and all the ones you want separate are on each of the other three. 

If you need more than four you would have to use a second instance of TTS1 and route your midi tracks for those to that one. 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Amberwolf

[tdehan]

I believe I've already answered that a couple times.  With that said... this issue is now solved...  as I mentioned.

[Amberwolf]

5 minutes ago, tdehan said:

I believe I've already answered that a couple times.  With that said... this issue is now solved...  as I mentioned.

I'm glad it's solved, but despite saying that you had them on separate tracks, you didn't specify which kind of track (audio or midi), or whether you have separate instances of TTS1 or just a single one, etc.  

...something you should keep in mind for future troubleshooting sessions that will help people help you faster and more accurately with less wasted time on all sides.  

[tdehan]

I thought I did!  I said it as ttS=1... that's MIDI right?

[Amberwolf]

7 minutes ago, tdehan said:

I thought I did!  I said it as ttS=1... that's MIDI right?

Well, it's much more complicated than that, whcih is why the info is important to know how to help.

 

TTS 1 is a synth.  

That means it takes input from MIDI tracks, and it has an audio output. (several, actually, per another user's post above)

So you can set up a "multitrack" drum part in several ways.

You can feed a single instance of TTS1, that has just one audio track output, from a single MIDI track that has lanes for each drum's notes.

You can feed a single instance of TTS1, that has just one audio track output, from any number of multiple MIDI tracks;

--each of those tracks could be sending on the *same* midi channel, so that all of them are sending ot the same instrument (drums, etc) in TTS1.

--or each of them could be sending to *different* midi channels, so that they are sending ot different instruments in TTS1

--or some combination of those two

 

You can feed a single instance of TTS1, that has multiple audio track outputs with separate instruments on different audio outs, from any number of multiple MIDI tracks (see the variations above again for that, multiplied by the mulitple audio outs)

 

You can feed separate instances of TTS1, each of which has just one audio track output, from a single MIDI track.

You can feed separate instances of TTS1, each of which has just one audio track output, from any number of multiple MIDI tracks.

(again, complicated by all those --ways to set those up, listed above).

(there are further variations, but you get the idea)

 

This "complicatedness" makes it possible to do a lot of different things if you don't mind the complexity, but doing it the "simple" way limits the things you can do while making it much easier to setup (and remember how it's "wired").

So some of the advice in the thread assumes you're doing it one of those ways, some of it assumes another, but all of it has to make assumptions because we don't know which way you have it setup.

 

[tdehan]

7 minutes ago, Amberwolf said:

Well, it's much more complicated than that, whcih is why the info is important to know how to help.

 

TTS 1 is a synth.  

That means it takes input from MIDI tracks, and it has an audio output. (several, actually, per another user's post above)

So you can set up a "multitrack" drum part in several ways.

You can feed a single instance of TTS1, that has just one audio track output, from a single MIDI track that has lanes for each drum's notes.

You can feed a single instance of TTS1, that has just one audio track output, from any number of multiple MIDI tracks;

--each of those tracks could be sending on the *same* midi channel, so that all of them are sending ot the same instrument (drums, etc) in TTS1.

--or each of them could be sending to *different* midi channels, so that they are sending ot different instruments in TTS1

--or some combination of those two

 

You can feed a single instance of TTS1, that has multiple audio track outputs with separate instruments on different audio outs, from any number of multiple MIDI tracks (see the variations above again for that, multiplied by the mulitple audio outs)

 

You can feed separate instances of TTS1, each of which has just one audio track output, from a single MIDI track.

You can feed separate instances of TTS1, each of which has just one audio track output, from any number of multiple MIDI tracks.

(again, complicated by all those --ways to set those up, listed above).

(there are further variations, but you get the idea)

 

This "complicatedness" makes it possible to do a lot of different things if you don't mind the complexity, but doing it the "simple" way limits the things you can do while making it much easier to setup (and remember how it's "wired").

So some of the advice in the thread assumes you're doing it one of those ways, some of it assumes another, but all of it has to make assumptions because we don't know which way you have it setup.

 

As I mentioned.... this issue is solved.  Thanks

[Amberwolf]

53 minutes ago, tdehan said:

As I mentioned.... this issue is solved.  Thanks

 

Yes, and I acknowledged that before, but you posted a question, so I answered it. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Amberwolf

[Sock Monkey]

13 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

 

Yes, and I acknowledged that before, but you posted a question, so I answered it. 

If you read the other answers you would see you only repeated what was already stated. 
And it was  clear exactly what the OP was doing and now they understand why. Solved. 

[David Baay]

Too many cooks serving too few customers. 😜

[User 905133]

25 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

If you read the other answers you would see you only repeated what was already stated. 
And it was  clear exactly what the OP was doing and now they understand why. Solved. 

The original post just referred to "separate tracks" and then "separate drum tracks."  It was also unclear to me what kind of tracks the OP was using / wanted to use.

On 1/19/2025 at 10:11 AM, tdehan said:

I have a project I've been working on where the drums are all on separate tracks.  I would like the ability to control the overall drum volume without having to adjust the slider on each separate drum track.  How can I achieve this?

Thanks!

Amberwolf sought to clarify the kind of tracks being used because of the ambiguity.  Later on the OP stated:

15 hours ago, tdehan said:

I thought I did!  I said it as ttS=1... that's MIDI right? [emphasis added]

Saying "that's MIDI right?" is ambiguous, too. If "that" = "TTS-1," to me it looks like either the OP doesn't understand something or just responded haphazardly.  The way I see it, Amberwold sought to err on the side of clarifying the possible misunderstanding, perhaps for the benefit of the OP, perhaps for the benefit of others.

I would say TTS-1 responds to MIDI data, but that's me. Saying TTS-1 is MIDI, says nothing about the tracks being used and the OP did not include an image of the track headers. 

Unfortunately not everyone communicates as clearly as they could every time. 

JMO: Clarifications of ambiguities is not a bad thing. 

Edited 7 hours ago by User 905133
added the or part to "either . . . ."; fixed capitalization error.

[Sock Monkey]

I’ve answered plenty of the OP’s questions over the last few years and have adapted to their style which is very limited information indeed. 

 

[User 905133]

7 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

I’ve answered plenty of the OP’s questions over the last few years and have adapted to their style which is very limited information indeed. 

Thanks for confirming that.    

36 minutes ago, Sock Monkey said:

If you read the other answers you would see you only repeated what was already stated.

25 minutes ago, David Baay said:

Too many cooks serving too few customers. 😜

For the record, my comments and the "Too many cooks" comment were submitted at the same time. 

[Sock Monkey]

Yep pretty quiet around here. There are days now when you open this sub forum and last activity was a day or so ago. 
The Cakewalk forum is also slowly dying. Sad. 
My few questions about Cakewalk Next have all gone unanswered.