Step Sequencer And Session Drummer 3

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

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
 
 

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.

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.

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

I think SD3 has been using flac for awhile.Glad it worked out

Hypocrita
I suppose the first thing I would like cleared up is concerning the FLAC files: you said that SD3 does support them, and that the SFZ itself has no issue with any file type? The only reason I converted the files in the first place to a WAV was due to not having the sounds load up in SD3. I had the correct paths, etc. all leading the the proper FLAC files, and yet nothing was sounding. I could have been either doing it wrong, or missing something vitally important that I'm not currently aware of. If any of you know of why this is the case, do let me know as converting, while not a time killer, is also not something I want to bother doing!

SD3 samples are flac files, but the associated sfz files still contain references to the wav file equivalents, so SD3 was patched at some point to look for a flac if it can't find the wav (or something like that).
 
I converted all the flac samples for both DimPro and SD3 to wav files, and modified the sfz files pointing to them accordingly (DimPro sfz files were modified to refer to, the now, flac files).  Not all DimPro samples are flac, some are still wav.  I wrote up my experience in this thread which should be read in its entirety since I encountered several issues along the way before streamlining the process.
 
Regarding your above comment, I wrote the following in message 16 of the above thread which may be related :
 

Paul P
If a sfz file has no references to particular keys (key=, lokey=,hikey=), the sample will play on any instrument in the drum kit.

If there are references to keys in the sfz file, the sample will only play if the key (midi percussion instrument code) is appropriate to the instrument you loaded it for. There are some non-standard codes used in SD3.

So a hats sfz will not play on the floor tom.

All the various hats sfz files will play on the hi-hats, but nowhere else.

 

scook
There is nothing preventing any sample from being loaded on any note setup for playback in SD3. The sfz files handle the association of samples to notes. SD3 has a fixed strategy for loading each instrument pad but will load anything the sfz defines for the notes in the pad.

Which can prevent a sample playing back.  Only certain notes are allowed per drum kit piece (the midi percussion instrument code for that instrument), if they are specified in the sfz.  If no note is specified in the sfz, there's no problem. For example, if you load a floor tom sfz (with notes 41,43 specified in the sfz) into the SD3 "DRUM" field of its crash cymbal (49,57), it won't play.
 
This is not a standard thing to do, but it's the sort of thing you might do when you're just testing things out and grab any old sfz file at hand to try something out, as Hypocrita appears to be doing.  I lost a few hairs figuring this one out when I was playing around with having SD3 trigger non-drumkit sounds.
 

scook
Loading an sfz file specifying notes an SD3 pad does not play would not make sense.

Maybe, but for this to hold you have to know 1) that SD3 assigns notes to pads and 2) which ones they are.  I have no idea of Hypocrita's experience, but when I encountered the problem of SD3 not playing a sample on a pad I had never heard of midi precussion instrument codes, and a lot of other things.
 
I just wanted to save Hypocrita some hair loss in case s/he was in a situation similar to the one I found myself in.  I hit this issue while converting flacs to wavs so the situations are already somewhat similar.
 

Good morning!


I suppose I should comment on what previous experience I do have so that there's no more confusion concerning that (as there seems to be a bit of that going on.)

In short, I worked to a small degree with SD2, but never got too in-depth with it, like I am now with SD3. That is to say I never have, until the creation of this thread, worked with SFZ files, or multi-layered samples, things of that nature. I did, however, spend a little bit of time creating GIG files for LinuxSampler, which seems to share some things with SFZ files.
What I do (or did, as I've learned so much in the past few days) know is basic routing and how to set up SD3 to route to different tracks. Another new thing for me is the use of drum maps.
As far as the specifics of how SD3 handles notes, that it can only handle certain notes on certain drum pieces, that I was unaware of. Up until now, that all seemed rather arbitrary to me, but of course, thanks to everyone that commented on that, I know better!

After reading your comments, I went back and decided to check to see if I could get FLAC files to load up, now knowing how things are to be handled. In short, it works!
Apparently I was trying to load up an SFZ with incorrect key bindings for that particular drum piece when I first tried this.

In the past few days, I've learned so much, and again, I have to thank everyone who contributed to this thread!
I feel that my drum creation is finally going in the direction it needs to go to get a smooth and intuitive workflow.
There are still some hurdles to jump over, and things still to learn, however, as is always the case!

Since the starting of this thread, I delved deeper into the step sequencer and discovered it does have some drawbacks, ones that, at least for me, pretty much kill it as an alternative to the piano roll, at least in the sense of one or the other.
The primary one being that it makes triplets a bit difficult to pull off, whereas I know from experience that the piano roll can handle this quite elegantly. Overall, the step sequencer seems to fit into my workflow to make simple snare rolls, things of that nature, that otherwise I can't quite figure out how to pull off in the piano roll view.
As far as I can see right now, I'll be using both to achieve the drum feel and flare I'll need.

With all that being said, as mentioned earlier, I do have some questions still, and these are aimed at the piano roll this time.
Now, I absolutely love how intuitive it is to edit velocity and things of that nature in the step sequencer on a note-by-note, sample per sample basis. What I really need to know is the following: is there a way to solo or otherwise select one sample and all the notes using that sample, and from there only show the velocity of those notes in the piano roll view? I know now that with drum maps, you can solo a sample, and the notes it contains, but I'm not clear on how editable the velocities are, which is something I would really like to start doing to create a more varied and realistic drum sound. The same goes for time offset, swing, and flam, all things I've grown to love about the step sequencer.
In a nutshell, can I achieve the same effects in the piano roll view that I can in the step sequencer, yet still in an intuitive fashion?

I feel like I've gone on long enough, apologies if my walls of text annoy you! I like to make sure that I'm as clear as I possibly can be to avoid any questions regarding what I'm asking. Sometimes it works, sometimes, well, not so much!


In either case, thanks for your time, and have a great day!
-Hypocrita