A couple of completely stupid MIDI questions regarding sound and editing.

Okay, first of all, I looked for a similar thread, but couldn't find one. Secondly, I know very, very little about MIDI patterns.

So, in theory, should I be able to find a MIDI of a song, load it up in Sonar LE and strip away everything but the drum track? I have Session Drummer 2 and it seems like I would have to load it through that, but I can't quite figure it out. I SD2 as the out, but nothing.

Basically, I can import the MIDI file, it shows up in Sonar, I can see all of the notes in Piano Roll, and I see the meters bouncing, but there is no sound, which I am assuming is because there is no source?

I've solved some of my issues by loading a set... I will elaborate with my current issues after I answer your questions.

What version of Sonar LE are you working with?

8.5

Are the meters you see bouncing in the MIDI track, Synth Audio, or both?

Both.

If you see notes in the PRV, you have a MIDI source track. they won't show up otherwise.

Yes, I can even go in and edit.

Do you have a kit(program) loaded in SD2?

Yes, and when I do I now hear sound.

What do you have the SD2 Output set to?

SessionDrummer2 1

SD2 is GM mapped, so if the MIDI file is playing fairly standard drums, you should have sound. If the file is triggering bongos, you won't get sound from SD2, because these notes are out of range for SD2.

No bongos.

Describe your signal path in detail (I/O, patches,anything you see).

Nothing other than the loaded fie that I see.

Do you have sound in general from SLE?

Yes.

Now, my issues consist of trying to strip out the drum beat. First of all, I'll direct you toward the MIDI itself...

*Well, I'm not sure if we can post links here, so I'll describe, but it's an easy MIDI to find if ya wanna experiment.

"Sheena is a Punk Rocker" by the Ramones.

When I load it up it loads up a bunch of tracks.

1 Electric Bass
2 Guitar
3 Guitar
4 Drums
5 Track 5 (blank)
6 "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" (blank)
7  by The Ramones (blank)
8 GM Sequencing by Warren Rice, Seattle (blank)
9 Then it has an email address which I won't print here (blank)
10 SessionDrummer2 1 (this has the keyboard icon, which I assume means VST and everything else has the MIDI cable icon, which I assume means MIDI)

So, I've figured out tracks 5-9 are just useless labels. 10 is my loaded session drummer. I also think one of the guitars is actually the vocal track. I can mute all track and hear only the drums... actually I just went ahead and deleted them.

Now, the only thing I can't seem to do is get Session Drummer to NOT play a pattern when I start the song. It automatically jumps to the E pattern and plays it once. I can not get it to stop doing that.

Also, if I open a new project and import the MIDI file, it is the wrong tempo. If I just open the file, it's the correct tempo. Basically, now I just need to figure out hoe to get Session Drummer to not automatically play that first pattern. Even if I hit stop, it still jumps to it. Anyway, I knew I wasn't insane thinking I could strip beats from MIDI files, I'm trying to teach myself, but "gettin' learned" is hard sometimes.

Well, it just stopped doing it for some reason... don't know why/how. So, that's good.

All right. I have divided up all of the parts (intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, etc.) and have enabled groove clip looping and named them appropriately. Now, how would I go about saving each section as a drum pattern that I could insert into any project using Session Drummer 2? Could I copy and paste into my Patterns folder? I have downloaded a lot of sample beats, so I am familiar with placing them in folders and using them with SD2. I am just not sure how (or if) I can save individual groove clips from projects for later use.

Ha, it seems like every time I spend any amount of time on something, I post here, then figure it out right away. Oops. The pattern had something set on one of the lower octave keys so it was triggering the beats.

Anyway, talking to myself is fun in here.

Norrie, thanks, but I think I'm good now. I'm actually pretty good at stripping out the drum beats from MIDI song files now. It's like free unlimited drum loops! 

Ah, I think drummers will be okay. Like I said, I've been using the program mainly for doing demos for my band. Considering only a few weeks ago I only knew MIDI as those "wacky songs people made in the 90s," I think I'm catching on. I just wish I had more of a grasp on how drumming works... I can play a bit, but I really don't know what I'm doing. It is fun to also tap out a beat on the MIDI controller and edit it.