Is there a way to convert a signal transient into a midi note?

[tubedude]

What I want to do is record some real drums on a supremely crappy set, each drum miced up individually, and then convert that drum into a midi note without having to use expensive triggers and modules and shit.
I want to covert them all into the proper notes, and then run them through the Dr-08 and pow...
is there a way to do this? And cheaply?
Thanks
Paul

[James Argo]

Drumagog !!!

http://www.drumagog.com/


Jaymz

[tubedude]

What sucks is that I have the version of drumagog that doesnt do that.

Is there any other way that wont cost me?

Gotta be....

Paul

[James Argo]

Well, I never used it actualy (I don't have it )... but any version of drumagog supposed to do this job. It's their major function. If it doesn't work that way, then you better ask for their support (or their forum). Not that I insist you to use it, His Majesty, but believe me, other free ones won't get you any better place. I once run free wave to MIDI converter (don't remember which one, just google it), and after few hours the result was pretty acceptable (it was monophonic track anyway). But then again I had to export every single audio track recorded, and do the conversion outside Sonar, and import each result (.mid ) into the project. IMO, it's realy time consuming routine


Jaymz

[Jim Y]

Maybe Midifier?
http://www.knzaudio.com/index.php?midifier
Don't know it, but for 35 quid I might spring for it myself.

[tubedude]

The midid functions are an add-on at the time of purchase for Drumagog, and cost more. Didnt think I would ever need it or want it. THings change.
That midifier plugin turns guitar solos and vocal lines into midi tracks, which is kinda cool, I could sing a vocal line and covert it to a pattern for someone to sing to later as a guide track or whatever. No drums function though, it seems.

[Middleman]

What about a set of those midi triggers they sell at GC?

[tubedude]

Well, then we get up into pricey stuff again....

[Jim Y]

Well, there's this...
http://www.koen.smartelectronix.com/KTDrumTrigger/
It's free but is a BETA and looks tricky to setup.

What I usually do is to zoom the audio track and a new midi piano roll so that's all I see and draw hits to match the audio beats - bet you thought of that though and it is a bit time consuming but not as slow as you might think.

Midifier probably can be used - even if it attempted to make a melodic line, you can then use editing to force everything to the midi note of the drum hit you want.

[tubedude]

Done it, it takes FOREVER!
That looks pretty interesting, I might see if I can get it downloaded and see how it does... thanks!
Paul

[Lorddiagram]

I use an Alesis D4 drum module. It has analog inputs that convert signal to midi and is velocity sensitive.

lD

[mbuster]

Are you using Sonar? Why not record directly into Sonar, then use the "extract timing" function to convert to MIDI notes? It can be a little tricky to gety the parameters set right, but that's what I've been using to replace some old drum tracks I recorded from my old drum machine. Then I use DR008 with DKFH and as you said, "bam".

[Jim Y]

Doesn't the extract timing only work on Groove Clips, or short sections? I think I tried it ages ago and it kept telling me my clip was too big - couldn't be arsed to chop it up to find out what small enough would be!

[mbuster]

I've never had a problem with it. I just select the old track, choose extract timing, then play with the settings and audition to see what it does. Never had any track length errors.

[tubedude]

Never even thought of it. If it works out I love you.
What about the bleed the mics get, can that be weeded out? I guess I could apply a gate to it 1st and then go from there.
THanks!
Paul

[mbuster]

If the bleed is very pronounced, you'll probably need to gate the tracks like you said. However, the Extract feature does have threshold and duration parameters which help to discern what you actually want detected, and invariably there are a few errors. It's a snap to correct these in Piano Roll view, though. Just be sure to audition before hitting OK.

[tubedude]

Dig, excellent. Thanks.
I shall try it.

Know what I've seemed to notice? If I have a lot of mics on a kit, even if I gate most of them except when they are in use (toms, etc) it somehow... well let me think how to explain this...
Ok, lets say I record a live kit, 8 tracks, and then a bass line, and doubled guitar parts and mix them down, drums are gated, etc...
Then, I write the same beats on the DR-008 with a drum kit and archive the live kit out of the project... and mix it down.... there is a very noticable difference in sound of the OTHER tracks, guitars mainly.... I'm thinking the mix buss has some trouble when you get more and more tracks. The DR-008 tracks sound MUCH better and more clear than ones with the live drums, and not JUST the drums... anyone else experienced this? The less tracks, it seems, the better. Its part of my reason for wanting to do this. The Dr-008 brings 8 tracks down to a single stereo track, which saves a LOT of headroom in the mixbuss.

Also, a workaround might be to eq, compress, pan, etc your tom tracks and bounce them to a single stereo track... if you had 3 or 4 tom tracks, you just came down to one single stereo track. Same thing with doubled guitar parts, but I'm not sure if a bounced to stereo guitar track is actually saving any headroom over just having two hard panned tracks singly, but it might help to bounce them before mixdown so that they get full possible headroom during that bounce down period... maybe not.... who knows... I'm thinking too much again.
Whatever though, less tracks sounds better to me.

[Qwerty]

And we're back to arguing about track summing and floating point bit-depths again.........

Q.

[tubedude]

Worked like a charm! I love it. I coulda used this a million times before.
Thanks for pointing me at what was right in front of my face all along.
Paul

[mbuster]

Word is born