Hello and good morning!
I hope all is going well for you.


I'm betting I've not worded my searches correctly, but nevertheless, I'll ask my question.

As the title suggests, I'm using Session Drummer 3 and am wanting to use all of the sounds loaded from a program in the step sequencer. So far, all I've gotten is the very basics: one sound in Session Drummer 3 is tied to one note, and all I can access is that one sound (IE, one velocity of kick, mapped to note 36, or one velocity of crash, mapped to key 54.) Now, I know my program files contain SFZ files, which contain multiple different samples in them, such as one that has both a china and splash in them. The problem is that I cannot seem to access anything specific: it all appears to be set up for me, which I rather strongly dislike!
I've been using the piano roll for years to set up my drum tracks, but after discovering the step sequencer, it has so much potential that I would rather not have an issue like this go unresolved, so if anyone could kindly take the time to help me, I would much appreciate it!


Thanks for your time, and take care!
-Hypocrita

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN41ILp4SzA
 

You can open each row to bring up properties, and you can edit velocities and all sorts of things, in Step Sequencer.
 
I am not particularly familiar with using SD3, as I use Battery 3 from Native Instruments, but you should be able to create customized kits from the sample library of SD3 (I would think).  Also, sometimes synths and/or drum synths, have either key switches or react to things like mod wheel changes, to open up different flavors of a particular kit piece.
 
There are others in the forums far more knowledgeable about using Session Drummer 3, and once some of them wake up, I would hope they would give you some better guidance than what I can.
 
Search the Cake TV and YouTube for video tutorials on just about anything you want to do in Sonar, or in recording in general.
 
Bob Bone
 
 

Not sure what the question is regarding SD3.
 
When loading samples with Drag and Drop, only one sample can be loaded into a pad. The pad will trigger the sample at the notes associated with the pad.
 
SFZ files can load multiple samples which is how SD3 achieves multiple velocity layers for the kit pieces. It is also how several kit pieces are loaded into each pad. The notes which each pad can trigger are hard-wired in the synth but that does not mean they are locked into using only those instruments sounds. The pads have a drop down option to audition the instruments loaded into them but this has nothing to do with triggering the instruments via MIDI. An SFZ file can be setup to trigger any collection of samples on a note. For example, you could define duck call samples to trigger at note 36. This would cause the kick to play a duck call. It is possible to create an entire SD3 kit containing cymbals. The UI and the notes which each kit piece represent cannot be changed but the actual sounds can be anything which can be loaded by an SFZ file.

When you insert SD3 as a soft synth, its MIDI track output should have a drum map. Then when you open up the Step Seq, you'll see rows that correspond to those drums in the drum map. If not, call up a drum map, or click the (+) button in the step sequencer's upper left to add another row for triggering sounds. Then you can assign that row to a drum. 
 
I hope I understand your question correctly, if not, we'll try again.

Hey there Robert_E_Bone, Scook, and Anderton, thanks so much for your time and effort!


As it was around 2 AM when I posted this, I can understand why I may not have been very clear with my intentions.
I do have a few questions, though, so I do hope that will help clarify where I'm trying to go with this!

Robert_R_Bone, I appreciate your thoughts! The reason I'm here, honestly, is because I watched a video about drum production and the person happened to use the step sequencer. It just about blew my mind! Here I was, using the piano roll and basically giving up on using velocities due to how seemingly tedious it was in the piano roll, and all this time, there was something that made it so much easier to do velocities, as well as other things (snare drum roll? What is this madness? Time offset? Swing? Holy cow!)
Scook, so the names and notes in SD3's interface are locked in place? As a for instance, there will always be two notes allotted for kick drum with the same names, five for high hats, and so on? However, what they actually represent can be as varied as your imagination allows?
Anderton, you mention drum maps. Under a row when I click the arrow, where it defaults to saying "Track," right click, and then drum map manager? Then, do I need to create my own custom drum map? If so, that's not a problem, I just want to make sure I understand the proper workflow. I don't exactly know how to do that, but I'm sure there are tutorials out there! If you know of great ones, please let me know.
One thing that I can foresee as being a problem is manually adding all sorts of rows for all different hits: is there a more automated way to do this once a drum map is created, or am I pretty much stuck doing things manually? Again, not really a problem, I just want to make sure I know what I'm getting into.

Something else I would like to know about is that once I have everything set up the way I would like, what are the options for saving the settings in the step sequencer for use in later projects (if things are indeed not automatic,) as well as the routing settings in SD3? I remember in the video I mentioned earlier something was used that was called a track template, however are there any other options and would this option store the information in the step sequencer? Basically, I want to make sure I'm not overlooking anything that would make my life easier. I've already spent five years of my music life with the piano roll, and I don't want to make that same mistake again!


Thanks again for your time and effort, and take care!
-Hypocrita

Hypocrita
Scook, so the names and notes in SD3's interface are locked in place? As a for instance, there will always be two notes allotted for kick drum with the same names, five for high hats, and so on? However, what they actually represent can be as varied as your imagination allows?

Yes, think of SD3 as a re-skinned DimPro with all the samples loaded in one element and the added feature 8 slots for MIDI loops. The MIDI loops are triggered with notes 27 through 34, 24 turns off the loops. SD3 plays samples on notes 22, 26, 35 through 81. I use the PRV. If I was going to build a custom instrument using SD3, drum maps would help with naming the notes for the appropriate samples.
 
There are already track templates bundled with SONAR for SD3 which are useful as is or as starter points for new templates.

I DO happen to use Step Sequencer all the time, in any case, and like it a lot for drum parts.  I just happen to use Battery 3 and not SD3.
 
Bob Bone
 

Thank you all to your help, it has helped out tremendously!


I've been at this all day and I believe I have it all set up and ready to go.

I'll detail things a bit in case anyone else is curious as to what I've done so far, or have any suggestions as to how I could do things differently.
The first thing I realized I had to do was convert the FLAC samples to WAV: apparently SFZ doesn't support FLAC files. After that, I created the custom SFZ files I would need for the drum kit I had in mind. I then created a program file for the drum kit after making sure all the SFZ files were error-free.
I jumped into drum map creation next, making all the note and name associations I would need. Lastly, I assigned the MIDI output in the SD3 track to be the drum map, loaded up the step sequencer, and everything shows up beautifully! It's not in the order I would like it to be, but that's an easy fix.
As a final touch, I mixed everything together and saved the whole thing to a track template.


Thanks again so much for the help and time you've taken to assist!
-Hypocrita

The current version of SD3 ships with FLAC files. I don't know much about the format though. I don't recall if SD3 always supported FLAC. The sfz engine synths were modified a few years ago adding FLAC support. The supported file formats depend on the synth, it is not defined in the sfz spec. Anyway, it sounds like you have found a solution.