Sonar Drum Maps - How and Why - Tutorial Inside

Hey all,

I spent a bit of time going over a topic that comes up often around the Sonar forums and one with which I'm pretty familiar. I thought I'd share the information now that there is an efficient way to do so.

This video is about 15 minutes long and goes through the details of setting up a drum map, using one, and a few examples of how they can be beneficial that I use.

This is a supreme way to get rid of the need for a split notes to tracks CAL, and adds a lot more enjoyment to drum editing.

Please let me know what you think of it. I will be (by request) doing one of these on automation envelopes, but I have to get a few details down for myself to do it. I'm open to other topic requests as well, if you have them. Eventually, I'll have quite a catalog

Enjoy!

Check in the Sonar section of my website at www.blades85.com

One day I'll get a quality LOOKING video uploaded. I'm doing my best with the free space
edit: Updated video location.

1 quick question, Why do you have Windows system sounds enabled?

Nice! Thanks! I'm sure many will find this useful...

Lay in Wait. Some things I actually wanted to wind up there and I'm having to do a little bit of funky routing to get everything to record at the same time in two applications, so those "ticks" of Internet Explorer are actually the Sonar Forum Page refreshing! I usually don't have the sounds enabled OR my SBLive even mixed anyplace beacause I like to keep it clean, but for this demo, I certainly didn't want to go back and redo because of it.

Thats cool! Your efforts are appreciated, I just had to ask

Awesome, thank you. The video content is very clearly laid out and easy to understand. If the free upload space makes the image iteself less than pristine, I don't think it matters, because anyone who has Sonar can easily see what you're pointing to. Thanks again for sharing this on the forums.

Wow Blades, you're on a roll with this stuff! Thanks much.

Good job!

Thank you.

20x7

I've had a little extra time for the last few weekends - and I'm trying to learn the software - I just got it last week and I'm trying to find interesting things to demo and trying out different features of the application. I mentioned in the other thread that I'm trying to get the skills up to be able to some professional examples of this - like with MS Office and the like.

Thanks for the compliments thus far. Glad the vids are appreciated.

nice job

Blades,

Just watched your video, and it's quite good, really helps wrap one's head around the drum map concept a little more comprehensively than Sonar's materials do, so hat's off to you for that!

It's unfortunate that your tutorial also reveals that drum maps are, for lack of a better phrase, still big fat pain in the arse. Sure, once they're setup it's more helpful, but sheesh that setup looks interminable! Plus, in the end you gotta know the note numbers of all your preferred drum hits, which seems kinda crazy. I can barely remember my own phone number!

One thing your tutorial doesn't mention if it's possible, which is the rapid naming of notes. It seems you have to pull up the properties for each note to name them in a map. Could you just toggle through the "name" fields in a map and quickly markup your map? (hrm, I suppose this is something I should just check out and answer myself!)

Still, great job! I look forward to your Sonar DVD tutorial!

Blades -

Outstanding job! Can't wait for the the subsequent tutorials.

Only shortfalls are the quality of the video limits detail on the screen (can't read the numbers). GREAT otherwisde.

Thanks

good stuff man. thanks!

Blades, excellent job again. Thank you. Can't wait to see the one on Automation Envelopes.

You the ROCK..!

Pleaseeeee, record your room even with webcam... I want see how is your setup.... your V drum sounds giant..!

I seen your previous tutorial too.. Hope you continue your lessons.. Brilliant..!!!!

How many tutorial you made before.. I only aware 2 of them

Thanks a lot....!!!

Perfect timing. I am just getting into them. Thanks again for another great resource. BTW, does anyone have drum maps for the Roland Groove Synth kits? (I posted this in another thread before I saw this one)

As I'm starting to understand it, a drum map is sort of like a splitter, not unlike plugging a power strip into a wall outlet. A "normal" MIDI track outputs on one channel - like a synth. You could play a drum kit from a synth on one MIDI channel - i.e. channel 10. However the cool thing about a drum map is that aside from the piano roll view changing to a mode where each instrument can be named by the user (very cool), by using a drum map, each note can have its own MIDI channel and output. So you could be using a variety of sound sources, each on their own MIDI channel, all within one drum map.

I haven't checked out the video yet, but I will.

The pain in the arse (as someone else put it) is the way you have to set them up. So far I have not found an elegant way. But they are a useful tool, that's for sure.

Thanks very much!
Regards,

Very useful
thanks

Thanks for that. Really helpful.
How about remapping a whole kit from one with a drum map to another with a drum map. Can this "merge" be done automatically or is it manual work? Ultimately I would need to set up a matrix with all the kits that I have, so I can change from any kit to any other. That's a lot of mapping to do:

ORIGINAL: ...wicked

Blades,

Just watched your video, and it's quite good, really helps wrap one's head around the drum map concept a little more comprehensively than Sonar's materials do, so hat's off to you for that!

It's unfortunate that your tutorial also reveals that drum maps are, for lack of a better phrase, still big fat pain in the arse. Sure, once they're setup it's more helpful, but sheesh that setup looks interminable! Plus, in the end you gotta know the note numbers of all your preferred drum hits, which seems kinda crazy. I can barely remember my own phone number!

One thing your tutorial doesn't mention if it's possible, which is the rapid naming of notes. It seems you have to pull up the properties for each note to name them in a map. Could you just toggle through the "name" fields in a map and quickly markup your map? (hrm, I suppose this is something I should just check out and answer myself!)

Still, great job! I look forward to your Sonar DVD tutorial!

I agree. I always thought there must be an easier way to set up drum maps.

jeffn1

Actually, some of the editing can be done faster via the drum map manager rather than the map properties for each individual note. From there, as long as your notes already exist, which is why I just went ahead and put all my notes in via midi ahead of time in the video, you can change the name, port, channel, whatever. And if you want to change more than one row of the table at once, you just hold down ctrl-shift when you select the option for one of the row and that parameter will be set to the new value for all rows, so the "channel 10" change could really have been done in one set of clicks (which is how I did it for my "full" kit.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the way that I do things, I only use my vdrums to input the data, so I put every possible note that kit can produce in my map - then I can reuse the map for any project and it'll work.

I realize that I still have work to do in regards to the material in the videos - they are really pretty adhoc - I just record it as I am doing it, so it's not as structured as it could be and it misses out on some features. Fortunately, I'm not trying to sell these!

Great stuff and thank you. I did not know I could get a consolidate view of the drum data. I have been scrolling up and down the keyboard map for years looking for midi data mapped across the keyboard. This is much more useful.

awesome..........

thanks!

Tony
www.myspace.com/livesayrox

Thanks Middleman - that's one of the prime benefits for me. My vdrum kit lays stuff out all over the place beacause most of the pads have moret han one trigger, so they fall well outside of the GM mapping that the basic kit parts generally fall in. Getting ONLY the notes I want to see, ALL the notes I want to see, Named, and in order would be worth using it, even if you couldn't remap the note numbers or ports.

I'd like to see a few things done, however:

1. Some more intelligent creation of the maps. Even though my map is now set up completely the way I want it, it's still a nuassance, especially if you change things around a lot. It's not terribly hard, just a little inconvenient. Like in the case of wanting to set all the notes to channel 10 - you have to get them to show in in the drum map preset, but the only way that seems to reliably get them there is to modify SOME piece of their data - THEN everything can be handled from the manager. I certainly might just be missing something.

2. Velocities being able to change note numbers would be very helpful - so I could map my vdrums to i-map or some other esoteric layout that splits different velocity samples to different keys.

3. I'd like to see remappable controller info as well - since the Roland TD series brains send out controller 4 for the hi-hat pedal and most sample sets have absolutely no idea how to handle this, it would be cool if you could set thresholds for kicking different note number. The same could apply for getting location information from the TD-series snare pads, which send cc#16 dependant upon WHERE on the head you hit it - to the TD-20 brain, this means something and it sounds appropriately, but to most sample libs, this is not the case - again it would be nice to be able to at least focus that only a different sample at some thresholds.

there are tons of features that would make these even better, but we've unfortunately not seen any progressive change with the drum maps in a few versions and I don't see any mention of changes coming in 6 either...but they work the way they are, just could be a lot more powerful and easy, at least for me.

One more bump...

This video is about 15 minutes long

Blades:

When I clicked on the link nothing loaded, and at the bottom it says "error on page." I then searched Google video for "sonar drum maps" and found the video, but when I clicked on the link I got the same message.

Tried it in both IE and AOL, and got the same problem. Are you aware of any linkage problems, or is it just at my end?

Thanks

Still working ok from here.

Hey Blades

What a great idea to put these tutorials up on Google Video. It seems so obvious now, but this is the first time I've seen this done and could pave the way for many more users to share their knowledge and workflow. I especially enjoyed this drum map video because it explains its usage in practical terms. I asked for this feature back in the pre-Sonar days (long before this forum) and the irony is I don't use it as much as I thought I would. Just watching your video reminds me why I wanted this feature and your casual approach makes it easy to watch. Great job indeed! And so cool of you to post it and share...

Thanks, Mr. VariousArtist. I think it may be a bit too casual, and I've been "criticized" by a co-worker that a 15 minute video would be WAY too long - is it? Or is that the right pace and length for the depth presented?

I'd like to get more form to it in the "planning to record" stage, without making it stuffy, but also streamlining how big the resulting vid is so that I can present it someplace in better than youtube/google video quality.

What do you guys think?

I wish they had a learn button in the Drum map manager. That would be a time saver. It's available for control interfaces but would be useful in this environment too.

Yeah really. I was trying to do some things based upon some of the comments and I have a list of things in my head that would make this better - like incorporating the "hit a note on your keyboard" causes the value in the note box to at least change - a fix that they added to the interpolate dialog and I thought they said "now available in all views" at that time, but this isn't one of them.

Or some other graceful way to get all of the played notes into the drummap manager so you could easily do the sweeping changes, etc. Again, for me or someone with a vdrums kit, it's pretty much a one-timer setup, except for changing one output here or there to remap something, which could be made easier by the above. The same would apply for getting that input map set up for someone who has a KAT, or Trigger Finger or whatever, but it's the output side that just doesn't have the intuitiveness that it could.

I also forgot to mention in the video that this is a great way to avoid the need to split notes to tracks and also makes an easy way to select all snare notes and then perform a process on them, without having to look hard for the note and without having to split it out from the midi stream to do so. I know you can do this with the regular piano roll, it just seems more intuitive to me this way. I also should have shown how fast a bounce can be by porting all the kit parts out to a soft synth as opposed to the "real time" nature of multi-pass midi hardware, which is probably a little bit niche, if you will.

Blades
Thanks, Mr. VariousArtist. I think it may be a bit too casual, and I've been "criticized" by a co-worker that a 15 minute video would be WAY too long - is it? Or is that the right pace and length for the depth presented?

I'd like to get more form to it in the "planning to record" stage, without making it stuffy, but also streamlining how big the resulting vid is so that I can present it someplace in better than youtube/google video quality.

What do you guys think?

You're welcome Mr. Blades. I think the answer depends on what your goals and target audience are. Right now you have an easy to watch video that gets the point across without getting mired down with being too exhaustive in all the possibilities, nor sounding too corporate (boring) like. It appealed to me because it has a sense of real-world practical usage about it.

You could work a whole bunch more on it, and clean it up and make it more professional, but I think you will find that you'll be crossing into that zone of 80% more effort to gain 20% more results. If that's what you, and importantly, your target audience desires, then go for it.

Me, personally? I'd like to see more of these videos at the expense of higher quality professional clips. As long as they're free. But if you made me pay then I guess I'd change my stance ;-) But I think I can get enough out of these as they stand and at 15 minutes I think you're just inside my "google video" attention span, lol!

And just a quick note...

I like the bit where you pause for a second looking for the right audio output, and then mutter something about "who's looking forward to being able to name these audio outputs in Sonar 6". It's an off-the-cuff remark, unplanned, and it made me smile, nod my head in agreement, and gave me a few more minutes capability to focus on the video clip. If you re-work the video to remove that or, worse still, try to force those comments, then it may not be so easy to watch...

I agree with Middleman, a learing function for the map manager would be time saving.
I do not think the video was too long. I think it streamlines the process of working with the drum map manager. Thanks Blades.

Hey Various Artist. Thx for the feedback. That's exactly the balance I'm trying to get to - I don't want it to feel scripted, and I wouldn't read my way through, but there were some things I had to cut out for a few reasons - they were blank time, or me meandering around for something, or forgetting to set up a few things and having to come back to the PC. I ran through the ideas of what I wanted to do beforehand, but there was not real script or anything.

I am also not planning on getting these to be "so good" so as to sell them. I'm just trying to get a good size, quality, length, ralaxed "I'm sitting here with you describing how I use the program", not - " look how good I am at this!" or anything. I'm completely an amature with this stuff - total hobby.

Thanks again for the feedback. It's helpful.

Hi Blades
Thanks for this. Just getting into it myself and hope that it stays up long enough for me to get completely through it. (I'm still trying to get the basics of Session Drummer down)

Curious,
I'm a video guy as well as into music and use a couple of different programs in productions that call for on-screen scenes such as you have done here. These products all have differing qualities of rez and output to usable video. Just wondering what you use.

Also, there's a whole group of people on a forum I found that do much the same sort of tutorials about video editing here. They have nice looking stuff too.

Thanks for a great job on an important subject for me.

Blades that was a great tutorial, thanks very much.

I was having problems creating a map for my RY9 drum machine but after watching your video I did it in half an hour this morning.

Much appreciated.

Blades,
Excellent work! Thanks alot! This is the sort of thing that a newbie such as myself might like to find over at the Sonar Wiki http://sonar.sonarama.com/sonar/index.php/Main_Page
Perhaps you might consider adding it there as well.

Blades:

The tutorial was extremely helpful to me. I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for a while to figure out a streamlined way to organize and edit drum tracks and render each drum to a separate audio track. Your tutorial did the trick. Now I can readily create drum kits out of BFD and Reason Drums 2.0 instead of picking one or the other. My only suggestion (as others have mentioned) is to improve the video quality on the screen shots so it is easier to see what you are doing. You mentioned an envelope tutorial - please post a link if it is available.

BTW, I am a big Kevin Gilbert fan and enjoyed your cover very much.

Thanks.

Jeremy

http://www.garageband.com/artist/Jeremy_Cubert_Project

Hello Blades,

This is one of the most-excellent tutorials (on any subject) that I have ever viewed. Of course it would take a drummer to figure out drum maps. You have an inherent feel for explaining things. I hope you are giving drum lessons because you'll produce some very good playing students. The presentation has some rough edges, I'd edit out throat clearing and coughs (no one needs to hear someone elses bodily functions on a recording). :-)

What software did you use to create this tutorial? I could use it for somethings I'm working on.

If I were Cakewalk, I would acquire this video and include it on the install DVD. Thanks so much for your time and effort.

Regards,
George

and I've been "criticized" by a co-worker that a 15 minute video would be WAY too long - is it?

Anyone who tells you that should go do their own tutorials. I appreciate your work, especially your "input quantize" tutorial. I never used midi track layers until then. Now, they're everywhere.

a newbie such as myself might like to find over at the Sonar Wiki

I've signed up for a Wiki ID. I will put something in there about Drum Maps and link to the video when I have access and time.

You mentioned an envelope tutorial - please post a link if it is available.

BTW, I am a big Kevin Gilbert fan and enjoyed your cover very much.

Thanks for the cover compliment. On one hand, I'm surprised how many folks DO know if this tune, but on the other hand, it's unfortunate so few people even know who Kevin Gilbert was. I have not gotten to the envelope tutorial yet. Before I continue to create them, I'm trying to optimize how I'm outputting them and finding a place where the least degridation and expence is incurred.

This is one of the most-excellent tutorials (on any subject) that I have ever viewed

Can I use that in my marketing materials? jk

What software did you use to create this tutorial?

Camtasia. It's pretty cool, though, like anything, especially at its price, you'd expect some things about it to work better. But it has a ton of features and appears to be about the best out there for this type of software. It's unfortunately $299! Ouch. Fortunately, I'm hopefully getting my company to foot the bill (I'm the boss, ya know ) for this one, as I'm planning on using it for real corporate stuff - the resolution stuff will not be an issue with LAN based videos. Obviously, those will be significantly more polished as well, beacause I WILL be getting paid for them. I'm just scratching the surface of this tool, and it's pretty fun to think of the things you could do with it...but I'm a geek

I never used midi track layers until then

Just watch out for the midi track layer gotchas in the piano roll view. It's fine if the layers are florming one cohesive thing, but if they happen to be "takes" or something where there is overlap - it will be a confusing mess to look at...ask Susan or, really, don't...another topic she's probably sick of trying to explain the importance of!

Thank you, Blades. I've just watched your tutorial and it's very clear and very helpful.

Laurence

Hi everyone - I will drop this after this update

I got some cheap web space and uploaded a flash version of this video there. It takes about a minute to load with a decent inet connection, but I think the quality level is much better and easier to see what's going on.

Anyway, here it is: http://www.blades85.com/SonarDrumMap/SonarDrumMapFLV.html

Cakewalk needs to hire you! That was very informative and I'm going to put it to use right away.
Thanks again!

Mr. Blades...one question, does this method work for rewire devices such as giga? I've been messing around with it this morning and can get my TD20 to map as you instruct, but so far not the rewired Larry Seyer drums..any adivce?

Thanks in advance.

Blades: Great work! Maybe you could post a tutorial on how to make a tutorial! :) (Teach a man to fish...) I'm really happy that members of this forum are starting to embrace google video/youtube and the power of wikis and whatnot. I wish I had more time to contribute to these things! I've been a SONAR User since 2.0...always sitting quietly on sidelines but always really benefiting immensly from this forum. Reading about people's real life experiences beats the hell out of any manual, IMHO. Cheers to everybody who pitches in. And in this day and age couldn't we all deal with a little extra good karma? Now that I think of it, I'd love to post a tutorial on using track templates...

Hats Off,

Chris

Don't rewire things show up the same as any other plugged in instrument? I thought they did, so I'd expect it to work...may have to look at that.

Hi, I love the idea of user tutuorials and would appreciate the link the your other tutorial video if its still available. As a newer user, 15 minutes is great amount of time to cover a topic though I would gladly accept any length necessary to cover the topic fully... as the alternative is usually many, many hours of frustration.

As for future tutorials, as a guitarist/songwriter, my greatest interest would be on tips, tricks, and speed techniques to create GREAT drum and bass loops quickly that have a human/nature feel, ie non robotic, sterile. Specifically, how to great sounds or make the most out of what you've got, how to get the most out of the quantize function, use of swing, nudging notes ahead/behind the beats, audio snap in S6 (locking your tracks together in a groove), ideas and theories on use of groove throughout song (ie use the same groove for entire song, change with each section, etc.), stealing grooves from other music (ie cd's), overview and tips with 3rd party drum loops and groove products, etc.... and then any tips for creating/managing a useable library of these clips to pull out for songwriting purposes.

This is something I would actually pay money for right now, and the one area I have been struggling with since I originally purchased home studio edition several years ago, and through every upgrade of sonar, 2, 3, 5, and now 6 on the way. So far I have found great advice and ideas on the forum, but to actually see a video of someone doing it would be of tremendous value and a great time saver :)

Thanks for your valuable contribution, keep up the great work!

Doug

ORIGINAL: Blades

Hi everyone - I will drop this after this update

I got some cheap web space and uploaded a flash version of this video there. It takes about a minute to load with a decent inet connection, but I think the quality level is much better and easier to see what's going on.

Anyway, here it is: http://www.blades85.com/SonarDrumMap/SonarDrumMapFLV.html

Blades,

This is an excellent tutorial, both in terms of content and execution. I think the pacing was just right and loved the conversational style you used. You obviously have a gift for teaching. Thanks very much for taking the time and effort to do this!

Great resource!

I just added a link to the video and to this thread in the Tutorials section of the Sonar Wiki, just so you know.

Cheers,
Scott

Hi Blades,
That link does not work for me. Takes a while, then I get a Google header and
"error on page" in the status bar.

ORIGINAL: Blades

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-846998225868834934&hl=en

Hey mewsicknerd: Try this new Flash version: http://www.blades85.com/SonarDrumMap/SonarDrumMapFLV.html

though the google one is still working for me

Thanks for this, Blades. Makes it all very clear. Guess I'll have to start using these now.

Paul

Thanks Blades.
Java isn't enabled on the work PC, but with your link I'm able to download the SWF
file directly and will run it once its done.

We appreciate your going through the effort to share!

ORIGINAL: Blades

Hey mewsicknerd: Try this new Flash version: http://www.blades85.com/SonarDrumMap/SonarDrumMapFLV.html

though the google one is still working for me

I’m at my wit’s end. I’ve got a Yamaha DTXpress IV Special set I want to hook up to Sonar P&S 7 over the MIDI connection. I have no experience with MIDI at all, but via the Tutorial 1 I was able to be sure my MIDI setup is functional (that is I that it plays the supplied MIDI track and my drumset is triggering MIDI sounds - just not the ones I want!)

I played your video, but the screen is unreadable - just a fuzzy blur, so I can’t see your settings. In the video you said you skipped over a lot of things. I think I might need those things!

I really can’t expect you to “hold my hand”, but if you can at least steer me to where you got hip to this stuff it would at least be a start! Yamaha doesn’t seem to have any forums and there doesn’t seem to be anything of use here at Sonar! Any books you can recommend? Something, anything!

Thanks in advance
Mick

Hi Mick,

If you need help learning how to use Sonar, you might want to check out one of my Sonar Power books. You can find more information in the Power Books section of my site: http://www.garrigus.com/

And be sure to check out my free music technology newsletter:
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series. Get Sonar 7 Power & Sound Forge 8 Power - Today! Go to: http://www.garrigus.com/

Publisher of DigiFreq - free music technology newsletter. Win a free copy of Toontrack Music EZdrummer, go to: http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/

Publisher of NewTechReview - free consumer technology newsletter. Win a free WWF Slam Cam digital camera, go to: http://www.newtechreview.com/newtechreview/

Ive bought your books. No help.

Hey Micklean - thanks for popping an old topic to the top. Have you tried the Flash version that's at this address: http://www.blades85.com/SonarDrumMap/SonarDrumMapFLV.html - that one should be much more clear than the one on google video. It's still pretty blurry when zoomed out, but when going intoi the details, I zoom in and the clarity is pretty good.

What are you missing in the process? Is it creating the notes, changing the settings for the notes or what?

Yeah the “flash” version is much clearer. I watched more of it and am kinda getting more of an idea as to how things work. What I’m missing is the basic stuff you said you skipped over in your video.

Up front, I have never used any of the MIDI stuff in CW/Sonar - strictly an analog guy to audio tracks via mic’s and/or “signal line” outputs from amps. Ya know, plug in a mic hit record and play. CW/Sonar (and all outside reference material) is really “midi-centric”. That’s problem number one.

Problem number two is that my Yamaha DTXpress IV set does not have a MIDI in port so I have to route the output to the computer to hear what I have recorded. It seems that most of the CW/Sonar manuals (and I’m talking to you Mr. Scott R. Garrigus) assume one has MIDI in AND out on their “control surfaces” - if I’m using the correct terminology.

Playback while recording is not a problem - the drum set has normal audio out lines going to a separate amplification system. (BTW - what do you use for live performance?)

I am currently working on tutorial 2 from the “on-line” help and tutorial 9 from the book that came with the software. Those two resources combined with your video are starting to help, but man -my head hurts!

Right now I’m having a problem with “latency”. I hit a drum and the sound comes out a “second” later - not good. What’s up with that?

Mick