Roland V-Drums Help

[Yourssincerely]

Okay, so I'm trying to hook up some Roland TD9KX V-drums up to my mbox 2 with pro tools 8 by using a stereo output from the V-Drums into the inputs on my mbox; so far so good, and I can record stereo drums quite easily, no problems there. However, I'm wondering if it's possible to quantize the drums if they're being recorded onto one stereo track only, as a pose to an acoustic kit where you can control each drum seperately and quantize each part of the kit. Is there a way to either quantize a single stereo track or split the track somehow, or is this just one of the downfalls of electric kits?

 

[Simman]

Okay, so I'm trying to hook up some Roland TD9KX V-drums up to my mbox 2 with pro tools 8 by using a stereo output from the V-Drums into the inputs on my mbox; so far so good, and I can record stereo drums quite easily, no problems there. However, I'm wondering if it's possible to quantize the drums if they're being recorded onto one stereo track only, as a pose to an acoustic kit where you can control each drum seperately and quantize each part of the kit. Is there a way to either quantize a single stereo track or split the track somehow, or is this just one of the downfalls of electric kits?

Record midi out of the drum brain. This gives you the option to isolate each individual part (and adjust volocitiy (i.e., volume)), quickly quantize potential timing issues, as well as use the midi to trigger better sounding drum samples.

 

[LemonTree]

what simman said, get yourself EZDrummer as a starting point, you'll be amazed by the playability of it, and forget all about roland's samples.

 

[Yourssincerely]

Thanks, guys; one last thing: say there are 12 pieces of the kit I want to record, do I have to make 12 seperate MIDI tracks with EZdrummer on or do I have to make 12 seperate instrument tracks with EZdrummer on? Cause when I tried to make the MIDI tracks, they wouldn't produce any sound...sorry if this is noobish, by the way.

 

[LemonTree]

You select EZDrummer as a VSTi (instrument). When you record the midi output from the drum brain it will record all the midi onto one track in your DAW. You select the output of that track to go to EZDrummer. EZDrummer has a built in mixer and you select from there whether you want the output to be stereo for the whole kit or have each piece on a seperate track (multichannel output) each track can then be assigned both insert & send effects just like a regular audio track. It's really easy to use.

 

[suprstar]

If you like your module's drum tones, you can record the midi, quantize it, and run it back thru your module too. You don't need a vsti for that, I've done that with my TD-8. The latest TD-3's have the TD-20 samples on em, I bet the TD-9'shave em too, which are as real as it gets for elec. drums. Cym's, ya, well nobody's perfect, not even ezdrummer..

 

[Whale Bone]

Beware: Look for multiple threads in this forum on V-Drum hi-hat midi issues. In short, the Roland module can vary the hi-hat based on pedal position, but the corresponding midi messages are simply open or closed. You may end up recording midi data and panning the hi-hat left and the rest of kit right so you can record the audio of the hi-hat. Then you could filter out the hi-hat from the recorded midi data and do whatever you want with it.

 

[Simman]

Beware: Look for multiple threads in this forum on V-Drum hi-hat midi issues. In short, the Roland module can vary the hi-hat based on pedal position, but the corresponding midi messages are simply open or closed. You may end up recording midi data and panning the hi-hat left and the rest of kit right so you can record the audio of the hi-hat. Then you could filter out the hi-hat from the recorded midi data and do whatever you want with it.

It's been a while since I messed with this and I seem to recall that there are work arounds for this. The best V-drum site I've found is here http://www.vdrums.com/news.shtml . There is a wealth of information on this and many other topics related to what you'd like to do. I do know that there is no hi-hat issue using a TD-20 but, that's an expensive brain.