I like to use a MIDI track for each drum. If you have a MIDI with all the drums in it you can use Cal "Split note to track. cal" to put each drum on its own track if I didn't do that already. This gives complete control of routing and makes editing a snap. 

@John... You mean an actual MIDI track for every drum or just the audio outs? I split my drums (and synths) into however many audio outs are available but use one MIDI track to feed it all. I would be buried in MIDI tracks (and Instrument tracks) otherwise which might get confusing... however that does give me some ideas to try. As in if I want to micro manage certain elements of a performance or maybe even just use all those extra MIDI tracks to easily feed out to various synths to test sounds I could set up a track template simply for that.
 
Actually I have partially set up a test project with multiple drum setups with all the available drum synths inserted and was going to conitue the premise for synths and the like.
 
That way I could just open that project and already have ALL the synths I would be likely to use inserted and their tracks set up. Then I can just jam out on my devices or insert MIDI clips as need be to see what works best for what. If having all those synths loaded got to be too much for the system I'd just freeze everything in the Synth Rack and only unfreeze things as I needed them.
 
Of course all that is somewhat off topic... but I guess somewhat related.
 
Brainstorming, yo! It works!
 
:-D

And I just thought of a massive use for the suggestion of parting out MIDI tracks... at least temporarily. I recently posted a thread about being able to edit one note row of controllers. I got my answer and it is doable (hold down Alt while editing in the controller pnae IIRC) but it's not the most convenient way to do things.
 
What I COULD do with the multiple MIDI track set up is say click my Hi Hat rows in the main instance, Cut/Copy the notes so they are removed and on the clipboard, paste them in their own MIDI track. Then I can edit their controllers independently wihtout holding Alt (and I can still check them in reference to the main track). After it sounds good I bounce the Hi Hat MIDI edit track with the main MIDI drum track to reinsert my new hi hat parts and bingo bango... easy edits without worrying about messing up the rest of the kit.
 
hmmm....
 

Hi Beep.
 
What about setting up AD2 so that MIDI OUT is ON,
then sending that output to the INPUT of your BFD plugin?
 
That way if your drum samples are set to the same instruments/keys/midi chan.
on both plugins you could use one map to
trigger both.
 
Jonesey's method is prob. best/most flexible;
perhaps you could combine these approaches and come up with
something that works for you.
 
Peace
Mel
 

OldTimerNewComer
Hi Beep.
 
What about setting up AD2 so that MIDI OUT is ON,
then sending that output to the INPUT of your BFD plugin?
 
That way if your drum samples are set to the same instruments/keys/midi chan.
on both plugins you could use one map to
trigger both.
 
Jonesey's method is prob. best/most flexible;
perhaps you could combine these approaches and come up with
something that works for you.
 
Peace
Mel
 

Interesting. I guess what I could do for that is set up and and save (if possible) a keymap in BFD if the MIDI notes don't match up with the outgoing notes from AD2.
 
Thanks. I like having multiple ways to approach things. Helps me scheme and alternate methods are good to have in case workarounds are needed or I'm doing something particularly strange that won't work otherwise.
 
Cheers.

Yes I mean a MIDI track for each drum.  I always have multiple audio tracks for drums.  

I also use John's method, very solid.
Better performance IMO,
and better -control of/automation for- discreet drum tracks.
 
Peace.
Mel

I should add that here folders are your friend. I also never use simple instrument tracks. I also have a buss for drums sometimes more than one. The reason is I like to have each drum in its own audio track. Sometimes I like to use both Battery and BFD3. Though that is not as often as before because I have some extra expansion kits for BFD3. I recently used BFD3 along with AD2. To be candid I'm not all the keen on AD2 though.
 
 

John
I should add that here folders are your friend. I also never use simple instrument tracks. I also have a buss for drums sometimes more than one. The reason is I like to have each drum in its own audio track. Sometimes I like to use both Battery and BFD3. Though that is not as often as before because I have some extra expansion kits for BFD3. I recently used BFD3 along with AD2. To be candid I'm not all the keen on AD2 though.

Honestly the only reason I am now leaning toward AD (and now AD2) is that it seems to be easier to just slide into a mix than BFD Eco. These new samples are really nice too. BFD Eco has some great samples and I could certainly expand it more to my liking by purchasing more Platinum Samples packs (which BTW... to anyone reading this are worth a look... they make GREAT stuff). I cannot afford that though.
 
BFD3 probably would be much more versatile and useable as far as samples but again it comes down to money. I will upgrade eventually though or stick to my original plan of trying to find an old, unregistered copy of BFD2 somewhere which has more samples and routing options and would cost less. As time goes on though the chances of finding a boxed version get slimmer.
 
My main beef at this point is the new AD2 interface. I've only used it a bit but it's really crazy. I'm sure I'll get used to it and find workarounds to fix some of the very specific problems I'm having (mainly the aspect ratio of the GUI is too big for my graphic settings/monitor so it's cut off on the right side and refuses to let me resize the plugin window). The fact the program also seems to be one big advertisement to get you to buy more stuff is rather offputting. Considering it is tossed in as a "freebie" with Sonar though obviously makes up for a lot of that but after using it I do not think I would fork out money specifically for AD2. AD1 however, which was more compact/less visually intrusive, I would have considered it. AD1 was the drum sequencer I was going to purchase until folks here brought BFD to my attention which appealed to me more.
 
What would be really nice would be if we could maybe have a "classic" or "compact" view.
 
The other thing that BFD allows more of is micromanaging your routing. BFD Eco has some limitations compared to the full versions (less outputs) but it still allows more kit piece isolation than AD1 (not sure about AD2 yet on that aspect but I'm assuming it's more or less the same).
 
Anyway... the more options the better. What would actually be REALLY nice is if I were smart enough to get into the guts of the AD samples and somehow make them useable in BFD. I've just started learning a bit about sfz stuff and how multi velocity sampling works so maybe I can figure out how to get at the raw waves and create the appropriate set of instructions to allow usage in other samplers. Not sure if that is even legal (or possible) but could be very educational.
 
As far as your suggestions about parting out the MIDI tracks on piece by piece basis I will play around with that to see how advantageous that would be. I'm creating test projects (and I may just do it all in one project) to try out various synths and samplers. What I might do is use that project to set up an instance of every instrument I have with various set ups (would probably have to freeze/archive anything I'm not currently testing to not crush my system). Then I can go in and try things out as I learn and create track templates for configs I like which can then be easily inserted into actual projects I'm working on.
 
This is why I'm always interested in getting ideas from other users to see how they go about things.
 
I also picked up the SWA Producer Instruments vid by Karl Rose and have been watching them every morning for the past few days. Extremely helpful and will help with that test project. For now I've just been watching and I'm only up to the Pentagon section but I think I'm ready to actually start playing with the synths in question as I watch.
 
There are some specific things I want to try... like in Dropzone the feature of being able to take an audio file and active that backwards/forwards looping then mangle the audio is very interesting to me. I could do some pretty crazy stuff to vocal recordings with that or other live input.
 
The constant repetition of concepts about wavetables, filters, envelope generators, LFO's etc as he works through various synths is really solidifying some concepts that were VERY confusing to me.
 
IDK... I think I'm now starting to shift from being a novice to intermediate user. Maybe another year or so and I'll be getting close to the "Advanced" stage. Would definitely like to get to a level where I could legitimately say I'm a capable "sound designer". Gonna be a LOT of work and studying though.