BluesMeister
Occasional Poster
Using Dyad Dxi
This tutorial explains how to use Dyad Dxi for playing SoundFonts. I will concentrate on Drums in this tutorial, but the technique can generally be applied to other SoundFonts that are not bundled with Dyad. For this tutorial I have used Douglas Natural Drums, but equally could be any drum SoundFont.
When you install Dyad on your PC it defaults to its own directory and the many bundled SoundFonts are also installed into a default directory. When I installed CakeWalk on my PC I overrode the default directory for CakeWalk and placed it in C:\CakeWalk. My SoundFonts are located in C:\SoundFonts.
The SF2s that were bundled with Dyad are in C:\CakeWalk\Shared Dxi\Dyad Dxi\Samples
Open HS2004XL
Start a new project
You will see one Audio track and one MIDI track.
Drag the bottom of the MIDI track downward until you can see the track’s entire drop down menu windows. They are labeled In Out Channel Bank Patch Key Time Fx
Click on Out then move the mouse pointer onto New Drum Map Click on GM Drums Complete Kit
Click on Piano Roll View (PRV) icon and in the LH pane where the keyboard usually appears you’ll see the names of all the instruments in the GM Drums (Complete) patch. Some of the instruments listed will not apply to the SoundFont you will load and can be deleted (that will be covered later).
Close the PRV view.
Close the MIDI track by dragging the bottom of the pane upward.
Open the Audio track by dragging the bottom of the pane downward. Move your mouse into the FX box and right click to open up a pop up menu.
Move the mouse pointer to DXi Synth > to open up another pop-up menu. Move the mouse pointer to Dyad Dxi.
The Dyad Dxi synth will appear with default preset (darkshortbass.sf2). Move the mouse pointer over the virtual keyboard to audition the SoundFont.
We must load a drum SoundFont to replace the default SoundFont in Layer 1.
Left Click on the text Layer A. Click on Unload Layer A.
Click on the small folder icon to the right of Layer B to open a dialogue box labeled Open.
Click on the Up One Layer icon to locate your SoundFont directory.
Double Click on Douglas Natural Drums SoundFont.
Click on Dyad’s virtual keyboard to audition the SoundFont. You may have to click on several keys before you find one that corresponds to the instruments in the SoundFont.
In the box next to Preset type in Douglas Drums, then click on the Save floppy disk icon.
Close the Dyad Dxi synth.
Click on the MIDI track to highlight it and open PRV.
Right click anywhere in the LH pane (where the instrument names are located). Select Drum Map Manager (DMM) from the pop up menu. Scroll to the top of the list in the upper pane Settings For DM-1 Default.
In the column headed Out Port it will have defaulted to your MIDI out port. All of these have to be changed.
Click on the inverted pyramid to open the pull-down menu. Click on Dyad Dxi. You must do this for all of the instruments (although some instruments named do not appear in the SoundFont file). Save the Preset as Douglas Drums and minimise DMM.
Now we have to delete any instrument names from the Drum Map that do not have an associated instrument in the SoundFont.
In PRV, scroll to the bottom of the list. Click on the first entry at the bottom of the list. If there is no sound, locate the name in DMM and delete the name by clicking on the name to highlight it, and clicking on XDelete.
Click on each name and delete entries that have no associated sound. Some instruments may have an incorrect name. You can change the name in one of two ways.
In PRV, right click on the instrument and select Map Properties from the pop up menu. Change the name by dragging the mouse over the incorrect name and overtype with the appropriate name.
Or, locate the name in DMM and double click the name. Overtype the appropriate name. When you have renamed all of the instruments save the Preset in DMM.
Close DMM.
You can now compose your drum track.
--
BluesMeister
This tutorial explains how to use Dyad Dxi for playing SoundFonts. I will concentrate on Drums in this tutorial, but the technique can generally be applied to other SoundFonts that are not bundled with Dyad. For this tutorial I have used Douglas Natural Drums, but equally could be any drum SoundFont.
When you install Dyad on your PC it defaults to its own directory and the many bundled SoundFonts are also installed into a default directory. When I installed CakeWalk on my PC I overrode the default directory for CakeWalk and placed it in C:\CakeWalk. My SoundFonts are located in C:\SoundFonts.
The SF2s that were bundled with Dyad are in C:\CakeWalk\Shared Dxi\Dyad Dxi\Samples
Open HS2004XL
Start a new project
You will see one Audio track and one MIDI track.
Drag the bottom of the MIDI track downward until you can see the track’s entire drop down menu windows. They are labeled In Out Channel Bank Patch Key Time Fx
Click on Out then move the mouse pointer onto New Drum Map Click on GM Drums Complete Kit
Click on Piano Roll View (PRV) icon and in the LH pane where the keyboard usually appears you’ll see the names of all the instruments in the GM Drums (Complete) patch. Some of the instruments listed will not apply to the SoundFont you will load and can be deleted (that will be covered later).
Close the PRV view.
Close the MIDI track by dragging the bottom of the pane upward.
Open the Audio track by dragging the bottom of the pane downward. Move your mouse into the FX box and right click to open up a pop up menu.
Move the mouse pointer to DXi Synth > to open up another pop-up menu. Move the mouse pointer to Dyad Dxi.
The Dyad Dxi synth will appear with default preset (darkshortbass.sf2). Move the mouse pointer over the virtual keyboard to audition the SoundFont.
We must load a drum SoundFont to replace the default SoundFont in Layer 1.
Left Click on the text Layer A. Click on Unload Layer A.
Click on the small folder icon to the right of Layer B to open a dialogue box labeled Open.
Click on the Up One Layer icon to locate your SoundFont directory.
Double Click on Douglas Natural Drums SoundFont.
Click on Dyad’s virtual keyboard to audition the SoundFont. You may have to click on several keys before you find one that corresponds to the instruments in the SoundFont.
In the box next to Preset type in Douglas Drums, then click on the Save floppy disk icon.
Close the Dyad Dxi synth.
Click on the MIDI track to highlight it and open PRV.
Right click anywhere in the LH pane (where the instrument names are located). Select Drum Map Manager (DMM) from the pop up menu. Scroll to the top of the list in the upper pane Settings For DM-1 Default.
In the column headed Out Port it will have defaulted to your MIDI out port. All of these have to be changed.
Click on the inverted pyramid to open the pull-down menu. Click on Dyad Dxi. You must do this for all of the instruments (although some instruments named do not appear in the SoundFont file). Save the Preset as Douglas Drums and minimise DMM.
Now we have to delete any instrument names from the Drum Map that do not have an associated instrument in the SoundFont.
In PRV, scroll to the bottom of the list. Click on the first entry at the bottom of the list. If there is no sound, locate the name in DMM and delete the name by clicking on the name to highlight it, and clicking on XDelete.
Click on each name and delete entries that have no associated sound. Some instruments may have an incorrect name. You can change the name in one of two ways.
In PRV, right click on the instrument and select Map Properties from the pop up menu. Change the name by dragging the mouse over the incorrect name and overtype with the appropriate name.
Or, locate the name in DMM and double click the name. Overtype the appropriate name. When you have renamed all of the instruments save the Preset in DMM.
Close DMM.
You can now compose your drum track.
--
BluesMeister
Q.
