Roland V-Drums

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mattkw80

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Does anyone else here own Roland V-Drums ?

Specifically the TD 6 model ?


If any else here owns these, I have a question about Stereo output.
 
I have td-10 but you should ask your question anyway... I or a lot of other people on here who don't specifically own td-6 should be able to help you out....
 
Okay cool......

My question is regarding the Stereo Outs......

What is the difference between the RIGHT and LEFT ?

Are different drums supposed to be panned to different sides ?

My ears can't hear the difference.


Does this mean I could seperate the kick by hard panning it one way ?
 
Well first off, right and left you know is standard stereo.. there are two signals always and normally they are sent to a right/left speaker or in the case of like headphones one side or the other. If you are panning any individual drum either way and can't hear it, then you are probably monitoring in mono weither it is your headphones or an amp or PA. It also could be possible that the TD-6 is set to mono mode but I believe roland has it set up so if you only have left plugged in it runs mono but both = stereo.

As for panning.. think of your snare and kick being centered, and your toms being slightly panned left to right, your cymbals being slightly panned left to right, your high-hat mostly one side and your ride mostly the other... in otherwords, somewhat the way that you would hear the drums if you were standing in front of the kit listening with your own ears. There are no set rules that say that is how you HAVE to pan but generally that sounds better...
And, if you panned the kick hard one way, and the rest of the kit hard the other way, you could technically separate it, but it would sound like crap especially since you are panning the rest of the kit to a mono track. To record the td-6 i'd say get as good of a sound and mix as you can with headphones and just send stereo out to 2 channels and pan them hard. Recording digital drums is hard.. especially when you can't isolate each instrument to a certain track and record 8 or so outputs..
 
And that is why you should probably use it to trigger samples via midi. Much more flexibility that way. Not to mention a better sound.
 
Speaking of which, on the same topic, could I use my TD-10 to trigger samples in EZDrummer?
 
SirSlurpee.... Thanks for the great info. You've explained it perfectly.

Myriad.... I have no idea how Midi works..... but I do have some Midi cables and a computer.....

.....could you give me a qucik overview as to how I would use the TD-6 midi capabilities, the way you are suggesting ?
 
Yup!!! You'll need a MIDI interface for your computer (Many audio interfaces include one built in). You may have to adjust each pads MIDI note # on your TD-10, so that they correspond with EZDrummer, or remap the incoming note #'s within your sequencer. But it is a painless process, and the expanded capabilities are worth it.
 
mattkw80 said:
.....could you give me a qucik overview as to how I would use the TD-6 midi capabilities, the way you are suggesting ?
Click to expand...
Like I just stated, run a MIDI cable from your Roland's MIDI Out port to your computers MIDI In port (on aforementioned interface). Open your software of choice, and select your MIDI interfaces In port as the input port for your software. Load up your samples and go. Like I said you might need to adjust MIDI note #'s, which is easy enough, and Roland does a good job covering this in all the Roland manuals I have seen. Of course if you use a sampler such as Halion or Kontakt, all you need to do is hit your pads and and look on the screen to see which note they are sending, and drop your files over those notes, no remapping needed in this case.
 
Cool.... so EZ-Drummer is somthing I'm going to want to get ?


I do have a Midi in via a Midi/USB cable.

I have toyed around with it and reason.... but there was an annoying delay.
 
mattkw80 said:
Cool.... so EZ-Drummer is somthing I'm going to want to get ?


I do have a Midi in via a Midi/USB cable.

I have toyed around with it and reason.... but there was an annoying delay.
Click to expand...
Personnaly I like a full fledged sampler, as they are much more flexible. If you want turnkey sampled drums with no fuss, than EZDrummer is a pretty good deal, but it is fairly limited in what it can do.

I assume by MIDI/USB cable you are talking about a MIDI interface (should look like the one on the back of the Roland), and plugs into your computer via USB. If this is the case then you're one step closer. The delay you refer too, is called latency. If you are using your computers onboard sound card there is little you can do to reduce the latency (short of installing some 3rd party drivers such as ASIO4all, but these are hit or miss). If you have a dedicated audio interface with ASIO drivers (which can be purchased for cheap money these days), you can adjust the buffers in the audio interface's control panel, to lower the latency.
 
Recording with MIDI is brilliant when in a pinch. Perfect for home recording situations. As mentioned, you are best off using a card that supports ASIO, the M-Audio 2496 is a nice inexpensive choice. But you can get ok results with ASIO4ALL, the latency just probably won't be as low.

Incidentally you can trigger your MIDI with other means other than EZDrummer.. some solutions out there are free, they won't sound as good or have as many options.. and there are also other drum packages with pro quality, for a price, but yeah EZD is probably the best easy solution available. Thus the name.
 
Drumkit From Hell is by the same company as EZD. It began as a standalone product, and is now an addon "metal" style drumkit for EZD. There is also a product called DFH Superior which is much more expansive, but meant for the serious studio musician.
 
These days there is so much triggering going on, it's hard to NOT justify it. Nearly all rock/metal drums are triggered and/or layered. If you don't have the room to record real drums...or the mics and pres...your best bet is an e-kit with something like Drumkit from Hell Superior or BFD. Or you can go with some other sample pack. That is, if you want to record it yourself. You COULD rent some studio time at a good studio...but I like doing things myself and not paying large sums of money to accomplish what I could do on my own.

My drug of choice is BFD. I love it for its ease of use, flexibility, and sample detail. It's also unprocessed so I have total control over the drum sound. Plus you can expand it like crazy. I have a few of the expansions for it and love them. I'd like to get Drumkit from Hell Superior just because. BFD has a converter that automatically converts the Drumkit from Hell Superior samples into a format for BFD. And since BFD has a better interface and is easier to use, it totally makes sense to do this. Ah, the best of both worlds. Drumkit from Hell Superior doesn't have anything like this for BFD.

I'm going to be recording a band here in a few weeks. It's a hard rock/modern rock band. I'm going to be using an e-kit to lay down the midi and trigger BFD. Then I'm going to layer drums to my heart's content.

Man, it's going to be a blast...if I don't kill a band member in the process.
 
there was delay because of a latency. not because of reason, more like your hardware buffer settings or just some crappy latency. it's gonna happen with any app.
 
duh, delay=latency. has nothing to do with buffer settings, it has to do with what driver mode he is using.

WDM/KS/MME = high latency
ASIO = low latency

this is because ASIO allows the application to effectively bypass the system kernel and communicate directly with the audio device.
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
Drumkit from Hell Superior doesn't have anything like this for BFD.
Click to expand...
Because BFD uses its own proprietary format, whereas DFH does not. Thus the need for a convertor..
 
Okay...... so is this what I do ?


1. Get EZDrums software and Drums from Hell

2. Hook my Roland kit up to my Midi Interface

3. Play my performance into the computer, where EZ Drums records the performance

4. Use Drums from hell to put sounds onto the performance ?


Do I have this right ?
 
Not quite..

EZDrummer and DFH are similar products. They perform the same function, and that is to map realistic drum samples to the MIDI recording. You don't need DFH if you don't want metal sounds, because EZDrummer provides a rock kit that is suitable for most purposes. It lets you choose different snare, kick, tom, hi hat and cymbal types so you can customize the sound, and it has its own mixer to let you adjust the level of the drums and assign them to outputs.

BUT.

EZDrummer does not RECORD the performance. You need a recording program like Sonar, Cubase, Logic, or any other that supports MIDI recording as well as VST instruments. Some programs, like Adobe Audition, do not meet these requirements.

So you need:

1. EZDrummer (It's a VST Instrument plugin)
2. Host recording software to record the drums and then add the EZDrummer plugin. After you've added the plugin, you can assign the different drums to their own outputs/tracks, where they can then be mixed just like a real mic'd kit. You can even easily edit your performance via the MIDI editor. There are tools that fix timing problems (Quantization), change the velocity of the hits, etc.

So having these 2 things, you hook up the MIDI OUT of your Rolands, to the MIDI IN on your PC, choose a MIDI track in your recording software, and set the input device of the MIDI track, to whatever device is plugged into the Rolands.. it could be the name of your soundcard for instance..

Arm the track for recording, and you're set. It is probably a good idea as well to match the tempo of your recording session to the tempo of what you're playing on the Rolands. You can always monitor through the PC with a metronome enabled in your software, to ensure it will be easy to edit afterwards.
 
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