Drum Program & midi cable
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Posted on Nov 10, 2009 01:48 am
Fragile
Member Since: Sep 30, 2009
Alright, since I've decided to sell some equipment, I may be able to afford some things i've been doing a little oddly. I use a roland electronic drum kit, and to track each instrument i basically play the beat one drum at a time.
Which for most beats, isn't too difficult until i wanna do a slightly more fancy fill.
Anyway, I'd really like to get some sort of program that will work with my kit. What are some good starting programs? Primarily hard rock tones, but i'll need moderate versatility, i write some pop too, and i'm probably going to try my hand at some industrial or electronic music down the road.
And the cable, will just about any midi to usb cable do the job?
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J-botByte-MixerMember
Since: Dec 04, 2007
Nov 10, 2009 02:25 am So what kinda software are you looking for as far as drums? Are you looking for something with like pre-generated content, or something that has an AI that can do stuff on the fly based on audio or midi that coming in?
A number of people here use EZDrummer with some pretty nice results. I use Rayzoon's Jamstix2, which IMHO is a killer program for the price. (It's a crutch for me, I know. One of these days I'll learn how to write/program decent parts...honest!) Although Jamstix does have a bit of a learning curve especially when programming your own beats.
I think most any software drum kit would allow you to map the data coming from the roland to the software drum samples. And many programs let you mix and match those samples to create custom kits.
For electronic drum sounds, I liked the built-in kits on poly-iblit and DSK's mini-Drumz. Both of those are freebies that you can find over on KVR.
One of the nice things about jamstix, is you can take any drum-based VST, and load it into jamstix, and re-map the sounds if need be. So you can load EZDrummer or BOFH, or some of the freebie VST into jamstix for the drumkit sounds, and have jamstix AI write the drum tracks on the fly, or program your own tracks as well if you like the interface.
I know I'm touting jamstix a bit, but I really am impressed with their work. And the developer is a nice guy, and easy to get in touch with on their forums too.
Nov 10, 2009 06:50 pm Well, like i said the biggest thing is that i can hook the roland up to it, which like you said, should be pretty standard.
But other than that, i just want the best sound, a good bit of variation on the kits, and maybe a few other things to tighten my sloppy playing up. I think its called quantize, where it locks in your beats at a note value and shifts off time notes. Also, i'd like to be able to edit velocity after recording if possible. And heck, i'd really like to be able to edit kits and such after recording. Like "audition" in the kit i want and really tweak it while i'm in the comfort of my computer chair ;]
Oh yeah, i'd also like it if i can program beats in just on my PC, just for the sake of trying it.
I looked up jamstix, looks pretty nice. For the price i think i might just go with superior drummer 2.0 though. Its only $150 this month at guitarcenter.com and it looks like it usually goes for around 300.
Unless of course anyone else has other recommendations?
Last thing, midi cable interface. I have no idea what to use or what not to use. I'd like to keep it cheap, though i would like fairly low latency, i can always mute the program and just listen to the rolands sounds.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 10, 2009 10:01 pm You want to be able to play it from your Roland trigger kit, correct?
Does your Roland kit already have a drum brain (sound module)? If so that is all you would need to hook up to a USB midi cable. Although I would if possible pop for something like the M-Audio Uno or their 2 x interface. They can be had pretty cheaply and are a bit more dependable.
As for my drum software of choice. Its DrumCore.
www.drumcore.com/
Nov 10, 2009 11:58 pm Hmm, $40 is certainly doable for a cable. I'll go for it.
And i'll keep looking into software :] DrumCore does look pretty nice! Has anyone used Superior Drummer 2.0 yet? Maybe i'm too easily swayed by propaganda, but i saw a video talking about how it was made and showed some samples of it, and the sound absolutely blew me away. But i have to wonder, had i saw the same type of video for DrumCore first which way would i be leaning haha.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 11, 2009 07:29 pm I have several different drum programs as well as different hardware drum modules. Of the hardware I always fall to the Alesis DM5. In the software I like DrumCore as I can build my own kits. I think most of the others are that way as well. But DrumCore for me is rewired into Sonar or P5. That or I can use it as aVSTi if I want. But I prefer using it ReWired for control purposes.
Another to look at that is probably one of the better is Battery from Native Instruments. I know dB loves that one.
Nov 12, 2009 09:26 am Hmm, ive been looking for clips of them all on youtube, its hard to decide off of someone elses drum kit set up though. At the moment however, i do really like what i've seen of superior drummer 2.0, it sounds like it can be used as a VST, and at the moment its 50% off. I can't pass it up :[ I'm trying haha but i can't get myself to see past it enough to even really look into the other programs. Ah well, I'm going to pick up the software today :]
