RE: Sonar Drum Maps - How and Why - Tutorial Inside
2008/04/21 10:25:36
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The difficulty with some synths (Roland being one of those, especially when using add-in cards in the unit - like the SRX cards) is that they require you to select stuff using certain banks and presets. The only easy way to get to those banks in a meaningful way is to also use an instrument definition. These allow you to specify where things are within the synth - for example, the drums on an SRX card may be located (making these numbers up) in a place like Bank 10245 - where the presets for the different kits would reside. From there, you'd be able to choose the port and channel within the drum map to point to those locations and be able to route your midi appropriately.
Micklean: Like Mick said, if there is no MIDI IN port on your drum brain, then you will not be able to control it with Sonar, with or without drum maps. The drum map that you have chosen is simply a collection of midi notes that are "translated" from input to output, and a limited number of notes that would correspond (in this case) to a "General MIDI" drum layout. These are pretty common for many drum related synths to map to, but not all of them. This simply means that the kcik will be on the C of the octave, the snare on the D above, the snare rim on the E above, sidestick snare on the c# in that octave, the toms would cascade from the D above down to the F, the cymbals will be above that someplace, etc. You can pretty easily find a description of "GM Drums" layout all around the web.
What does that have to do with the drum map? Only that the notes are organized in such a way that they point out to those note locations. Drum Maps have NOTHING to do with the actual device or softsynth that is attached to the output. Their names may imply that they do for simplicity, like GM Drums, or Yamaha XG Drums, or Alesis DM5, or whatever, but what really matters is what "port" you have patched out to in the map. For example, I could use a GM Drum Map and set the output on each note to go to my vdrums brain. I'd get SOME of the notes to trigger right, but there would be others that may not get the desired sound, and certainly a LOT of notes that would be missing (like some of the extra trigger's edge assignments, like the low tom rims, or the extra splash edge or whatever). That's why I started with a new one and just played all of the notes in that I knew I'd use. This way, all of my input notes would be represented. Then, depending on what you attached synth or soft-instrument has its notes on will determine what you need to punch in for each of the OUT notes in the map. For example, if your DTXPress sends a kick drum on midi note C2, but the softsynth you want to trigger (like I-map layout from IK Multimedia products) may be located a the C note two octaves up. THIS is the note you'd want to assign as the out note on that line of the map. So, you play a C2 (kick) on your kit and it then sends the output over to the other synth at midi note C4, or wherever. You can think of it like a virtual patch bay for midi drum notes. The important thing to remember is that the map presets that come with Sonar are named for simplicity and the actual mapping on the INPUT side of those maps may have nothing to do with what you get in from the DTXPress. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
Does that help at all?