VSC - set up individual volumes, or move each drum to dif't tracks...?

[shawn gibson]

Hi guys, been busy actually writing a tune he he Feels good

Can the drums in the VSC plug-in in Sonar 2.2 be adjusted individually? The snare in the 'power' set is a bit loud, and when everything else is where I want it, the open hi-hat is clipping...even with preset compression in A (with the Timeworks) and a good output level in both Sonar and the VSC interface.

Can you go into tomething like events and adjust the levels of the drums individually?

Can't seem to...

BETTER yet...can I route the different drums to different tracks...?

Shawn

Thanks guys!

ps I'm really really having a blast, purchased the 2 Edirol plug-in's to compliment the VSC, now I have all three open most of the time

[moskus]

I think the best way to acomplis this is to use Drum Maps.

Just go to Options -> DrumMaps and load the GM DrumMap, and then route the output (or input, whatever) to the VSC. As far as I know there's no way you can adjust the volume for "toms" or symbals...

But you can also select the, for example, hihats by clickin on the relevant note in the PianoRoll, and then rightclick on the PianoRoll, and select Effects -> Cakewalk -> Velocity. Then turn them down...

[shawn gibson]

OK we're back to the drum maps LOL. Guess I'm just gonna have to figure them out. Thanks moskus, as always

[moskus]

No problem...

[cstockdale]

you can use the CAL for "split notes to tracks" and get each MIDI note into a separate track for further tweaking.

[moskus]

Yes, but if you change the volume on one "drumtrack" you will change the volume of all the "drumtracks" because they're all connected to the same MIDI-channel....

But velocities would be easier to change that way...

[cstockdale]

Originally posted by moskus
Yes, but if you change the volume on one "drumtrack" you will change the volume of all the "drumtracks" because they're all connected to the same MIDI-channel....

But velocities would be easier to change that way...

true again, but I forgot to add that from there you can convert each one to audio (which I find necessary to do to optimize each drum with compression/limiting to attack peaks), and then remix it back into a single stereo audio track.

My general approach to MIDI drums is something like this:

1) initially use session drummer/slicy drummer/drum maps to get the rough track laid out (so that the rhythm is right to play to). From this I can then get all my other parts (vox, bass, keys, guitars etc) finished

2) set the MIDI drum track to DR008 as the output source to get the desired drum sound for each part right

3) adjust fills as necessary from here, then archive this MIDI track

4) CAL split note to tracks

5) convert each track to audio

6) apply limiting/compression/eq/reverb/pan/stereo imaging to individual drum tracks

7) bounce all drum tracks back to a single stereo audio track

8) finalize mix, retweak other tracks relative to the new "complete" drum track

I know that there are a million ways to do this, but this has worked well for me. Before I used the CAL split-note-to-tracks bit I found that certain drum hits were spiking really badly, and by compressing the whole drum track as one unit I would squash other bits I didn't want squashed. The resulting drum track had to be kept low to prevent clipping, whcih meant that the overall mix was really weak because I had to keep all the other levels low to match the drum levels. This way I find that I can really push all the levels right to their limits and get the most out of the mix.

[Porter]

Here you go... I've got a similar situation... however in reverse.

When I wrote a MIDI Drum track ages ago (in a separate program from SONAR), I wrote the Kick on one track and the Snare on another...each Tom on another etc.... in the early stage of the song I was going to play each one separately to my VS-840 then mix it from there... ended up recording the song as straight MIDI.. still sounded great. Now I want to put all those tracks onto one track. I was trying to work out last night how I can get them all onto the same track. Is there a CAL Script or a method that will do this for me?

Porter

[BluesMeister]

Porter,

I've experienced this very problem when down loading MIDI files from the Internet.

For the sake of this particular exercise, let's assume you have kick on track 6, hi-hat on track 7, snare on track 8 and crash cymbal on track 9.

Go to track 7, copy from time 0 to 400 (or whatever - I always pick a number greater than the number of bars in the song) and paste onto track 6 starting at time 0.

Repeat for tracks 8 & 9.

Delete tracks 7-9.

Check the velocities and correct as necessary (it could be quite a tedious task I'm afraid).

Voila! No CAL script soluton for us Sandgropers! I prefer to get my hands dirty...

--
BluesMeister

[Porter]

Thanks for that.... I should have thought of that last night..

I'll let you know how I go

Porter

[Porter]

I was messing around with a clearer mind tonight (ie not 'trying') and I worked this out... thought it might be useful.

1. Highlight the tracks that you want to merge.
2. Edit -> Copy
3. Edit -> Paste
4. Set you starting track to <new>, Check 'Paste to One Track' and click OK... voila

All the velocites are kept.

One for the memory banks,

Porter

[moskus]

I really didn't get this...

I thought HomeStudio could run CAL-scripts (which would be much more simple)?

[BluesMeister]

Originally posted by Porter
1. Highlight the tracks that you want to merge.
2. Edit -> Copy
3. Edit -> Paste
4. Set your starting track to <new>, Check 'Paste to One Track' and click OK.

An elegant solution. Definitely one for the memory banks.

--
BluesMeister

[BloodHound]

When you want to combine midi tracks, just click on a track with the mouse and drag it on top of the other one. Hold down shift while doping it to ensure it does not move in time.

All clips will be layered on top of each other. You can mix them into one if you really want to, just click on the track number to highlight the whole track, rightclick and bounce to clips.

About the earlier question, re. controlling each drum seperate. Use the CAL as described earlier. When you have each sound on a seperate track you can set each track to a different midi channel and have full control over all track settings. There is nothing to stop you from using all 16 midi channels to the drum bank.

To make this even more interesting, go into the setup and set the output channels to different audio tracks. You can have up to 4 audio tracks to apply different audio effects, etc.

[BluesMeister]

BloodHound,

Another great tip!

One for the FAQs Moskus?

Thinks: Gee, we're a brainy lot!

--
BluesMeister

[moskus]

Originally posted by BluesMeister
BloodHound,

Another great tip!

One for the FAQs Moskus?

Thinks: Gee, we're a brainy lot!

--
BluesMeister

Shure! Just tell me once again what the question is...
seriously...