Roland V-Drums to Cubase Help Needed

[fry]

Hello all,

I will come clean.. i am very new to recording and am looking for some advice / help if possible.

I have been looking to demo my bands new cd to show labels/promoters etc. but don't want the hassle of having to go into the studio and pay large amounts of money to do so.

Seeing as i own a set of Roland TD3 V-Drums i thought i would have a go at demoing them at home.

My question really is (remember i am a novice! ) 'How can i record from my V-Drums into Cubase on my Mac?'

A friend told me that i could record it through a 'midi converter?' meaning i would be able to separate out each drum and edit them individually. What would i need to do this?

Many thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give me.

 

[mikeh]

Since I don't know what kind of A/D converters you have, (nor do I use Cubase), I can't give specific advice - but I can tell you what I do with a TD10. My method of tracking electronic drums is a rather common approach. I use either Sonar 6 or Pro Tools as my recording software (mainly Sonar)

I connect the MIDI out of the drum module to my computer. I use an M-Audio 8x8 MIDI interface (I do a lot of MIDI sequencing) - but any MIDI in/out should work. I connect the 8 audio outs from my drum module to my computer. I use a Delta 1010. If I recall the TD3 may only have 2 outs - so you may be limited to that.

When recording, I record the drum performance assigned to MIDI channel 10 (MIDI channel 10 is considered the standard channel assignment for drums). The computer send the MIDI data directly back to the TD10 - so I am able to monitor the sound of the performance in real time.

Once the MIDI information is recorded, I use the drum module as a "virtual track" (meaning I don't actually record the drum sounds). This way as I record more melodic tracks (guitars, etc) I can decide what snare sound, kick sound, etc. will work best.

At some point (depending on the project) I may actually record the actual drum sounds as seperate tracks - but most times, the drum sounds are not actually recorded until I'm ready for the stereo mix.

If you only have 2 audio outs, you have one of 2 options - simply commit to a stereo send of drums - doing all the panning in your module. Or (and this is a little more work) using the MIDI tracks - record two tracks of audio (let's say kick & snare - kick panned to the left out and snare to the right), and then play the track again (sync'd to MIDI) and then record two more tracks (let's say toms panned left/right) - repeat for as many seperate tracks of drums as you may want.