session drummer 'rehearse'

  • Thread starter Thread starter guttadaj
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guttadaj

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Hello, fellow Cakeys.

I am new to all this and am working on trying to figure out the session drummer, which looks very cool so far. There are a couple of things that are bugging me with it though. The main problem I'm having is that I can't listen to the different patterns in the session drummer window as I'm building my "Song", so it's basically a guessing game based on the brief descriptions provided. I would hope that this sort of review is something that should be doable - is it? Can anyone give me any thoughts on what I could be doing wrong?

The other thing, which may be related, is that, after I'm done building a Song and close the session drummer window, my track is still empty. I have to highlight a little bit of the track (in order for Apply MIDI effects to be enabled), then select Apply MIDI effects, and then drag the skinny clip that it creates in order to see the MIDI data. Is there a simpler way to get the session drummer song to show up in the track?

Thanks,
-Jeff
(using HomeStudio 2002)
 
1. the way I get around it is highlighting as many measure as it takes to complete the loop. Then I apply midi effect. I edit it as I want, copy, tell it how many times to paste. I mute that track and drop down to another track and preview a loop I want next, highlight the number of measures it takes to complete the loop, apply effect, then drag it up to the point i want it inserted in the initial track. A preview option would be nice and lots less work. Sometimes I double click the track and highlight the whole thing, apply the loop to the whole track, then select a fill and drop it where I need it.

2. double clicking the track will highlight the whole track, when you apply midi effect it will drop what ever you built in session drummer into that track in its entirety.

i hope that helps
 
Thanks for the tips, Toki987.

So, it basically sounds like there's no way to tell what a pattern sounds like without going through the whole process of adding it to a session drummer 'Song' and then applying the MIDI effect to a track to get it to show up, eh? That sort of blows.

How are we supposed to know what a "var2 Fill - tom/SN/crash" will sound like? Hmmm... maybe I'll just make a song with all the patterns for the particular 'Style' I'm working on, so then I can have a track with all of them in it. Then, I can listen to the track and copy the pieces I want out of there and into my actual drum track.

Seems like a big pain, where you would think some sort of preview/rehearse functionality at Session Drummer 'Song' creation time would make the most sense. Is there a place to go to put in a suggestion to the Cakewalk developers for upgrades/patches?

Thanks,
-Jeff
 
The way to preview in session drummer is to press "play" on the transport panel. If the song is playing, teh session drummer is playing, if the song is not playing teh session drummer is outside having a smoke.

Just click "solo" on the midi track with the session drummer, press play, and then click on a style and pattern in the session drummer and it will play that pattern, or if you want to hear it with the whole song playing then don't solo it.
 
SOLVED!

Hey, guys.

Thanks again for chiming in with your suggestions. They seemed to say, in a very nice way of course, "Just press the %$&!$# play button, you moron!" :) This was very helpful because it just made me realize even more that it must be me doing something really stupid (often the case). :o

Anyway, in case there are other newbies out there pulling their hair out like I have been, let me tell you what the stupid thing was. The Outputs for my MIDI Devices were set up with 1 being my External MIDI and 2 being my soundcard's synth. Well, I'm still playing around with things to figure them out before I go connecting my keyboard for external MIDI and getting myself really confused. So, I would go to a track and change the Output setting to the 2nd option (and of course select track 10 to get General MIDI Drums). Then I called in the Session Drummer from his smoke outside (nice, I like that...), started building my "Song" but would not hear anything when pressing Play. I actually had to come out of the Session Drummer, select the track, select Apply MIDI Effects, then play the track to hear it.

It turns out that I guess the Session Drummer doesn't use the Output you've selected for your track, but instead always uses the 1st Output for your MIDI Devices! At least that's what I think is the deal, because, after I switched the order of my MIDI Devices Outputs so that my soundcard synth was first in the list, I am able to hear the Session Drummer 'rehearse'!! Whew!

Thanks again,
-Jeff
 
Re: SOLVED!

guttadaj said:
It turns out that I guess the Session Drummer doesn't use the Output you've selected for your track, but instead always uses the 1st Output for your MIDI Devices! At least that's what I think is the deal, because, after I switched the order of my MIDI Devices Outputs so that my soundcard synth was first in the list, I am able to hear the Session Drummer 'rehearse'!! Whew!
Click to expand...
Interresting! And of course I had to check it out... ;)

It seems that you're right! Session Drummer will always preview on MidiOut 1. BUT it will preview using Drum Maps too! Now, this is great news. Just make a drum-map for your synth (it's easy!) and route the Drum Map to play the sounds you like, and this doesen't need to be on MidiOut 1... :)
 
Re: Re: SOLVED!

moskus said:
Interresting! And of course I had to check it out... ;)

It seems that you're right! Session Drummer will always preview on MidiOut 1. BUT it will preview using Drum Maps too! Now, this is great news. Just make a drum-map for your synth (it's easy!) and route the Drum Map to play the sounds you like, and this doesen't need to be on MidiOut 1... :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Moskus, I been doing it the hard way for a long while now. :)
 
I've never gotten the Session Drummer to work... Now I find out that's because my Midi-Controller is connected to Midiout 1.. I never thought of that... :p
 
Re: SOLVED!

guttadaj said:
It turns out that I guess the Session Drummer doesn't use the Output you've selected for your track, but instead always uses the 1st Output for your MIDI Devices! At least that's what I think is the deal, because, after I switched the order of my MIDI Devices Outputs so that my soundcard synth was first in the list, I am able to hear the Session Drummer 'rehearse'!! Whew!
Click to expand...

Well, had some time away from the computer, so I bought and read the "SONAR 2 POWER" book cover to cover, which gave me some good nuggets o' knowledge. Anyway, when I got to the Session Drummer part, I read what is actually going on here. The Session Drummer uses its own settings to determine how to play. I would think that it would make the most sense to default these to what's set in the track, but hey... that's just me. :rolleyes: Anyway, you can click on the Plug-in Settings button (the little sprocket - sprockets, we dance! :D) when you're in the Session Drummer and change the Output Port to whichever MIDI Out you want. That's at least better than always using MIDI Out 1, which is what I thought it did. You can always save your setting as a Preset too, in case you most often want to use a MIDI Out other than 1.

-Jeff
 
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