Strategies on getting a MIDI Clip written for EZDrummer to play properly in AD2?

This is kind of a followup thread. I had been asking (last week I think) about good ways to yank MIDI clips out of an existing project so they could be pulled into a new project. Based on the advice I received there I have successfully accomplished this. We'll leave that at that.
 
Now I'm just trying to get suggestions on making AD2 interpret this data better. It's kind of sort of triggering the correct kit peices but not really. I know there are multiple ways to approach this (some drum programs have instant mappers to specific programs, there are the internal Sonar Drum Maps, there is doing it manually using the various goodies in Sonar like Event Inspector or in the PRV... etc).
 
So this is a "more than one way to skin a cat" type thread. Tell me how you skin this particular cat.
 
I could totally figure this out on my but I am new to this type of thing and know anything I try will be the "long way 'round" so why not ask the experienced users... yes?
 
Alright, gonna just poke at it now but any tricks, tips, hints and whatnot are appreciated as always.
 
Thanks muchly.
 
Cheers!
 
PS: I may also try this clip with BFD Eco and I may encounter MIDI drum files created in other programs. So this is about general strategy. Not just specifically cramming an EZD track into AD2... however that is what I am currently attempting to do so a quick tip on that would of course be more than welcome.

I can send you the map if you PM me your e-mail Beepster. It's not perfect, but it's close. It seems something has changed in one of the many updates that Toontrack and Xlnaudio have had. I had to move something with the PRV last time I used it. I have since added Toontrack's EZ Player Pro to help when there is a problem.

Awright... brain has had a moment to heal.
 
Here's the trip. As I contemplated using some kind of mapping preset in AD2 I figured I'd check out the actual Key Map presets already there. Most of them seem to be designed for external hardware units (Alesis, V-Drums, some yamaha stuff, etc). I poked around those for a bit and some of them kind of sort of worked (and definitely worked better than just allowing the midi to hit AD2 directly in it's default map).
 
So that was cool. The Alesis presets seemed to work best but still there were some things going to odd places.
 
I was also screwing around by switching kit presets which seemed to result in key map presets that previously working almost perfectly to not working so great and it also did weird stuff with the "Extra" perc slots.
 
Add to that I wasn't (and kind of never have been) completely impressed with the kit presets as it is for this project so I'm thinking I'm going to have to build my own kit preset. If I'm going to that trouble AND I want to completely make sure ALL the hits are going EXACTLY where I want them (this is 150bpm crazy drum stuff with LOTS of hits throughout) I think I'd better just go through the MIDI clip in PRV and move things where they actually should be.
 
Of course I will copy the clip first so I'm not borking out the original but yeah...
 
So now it kind of becomes a matter of how to do that efficiently which I guess is more of a PRV editing topic. Gonna have to bursh up on that I guess...
 
BUT ideas on bulk moving stuff around like this would be great. Gonna try the event inspector I guess and hope I can properly select whole rows of notes. Whatever.
 
I WOULD use this opportunity to dig into drum maps but I've decided against it because that's gonna require it's own little crash course which I don't want to screw with in this project (and may not work out so great anyway since I've already gotten this far with the drum track).
 
So that's my story (and I may or may not be sticking to it).
 
Cheeeeers!!!

bapu
Beeps,
 
Let's say the MIDI you make (or cop) from somewhere was originally done for drumpler A and you "map" to drumpler B.
 
Let's say drumpler A has 20 velocity layers for their snare but drumpler B only has 15......
 
I'm not sure just mapping notes will be enough especially if the MIDI was written for drumpler A.
 
Seewoteyemsayin?

Hi, Baps. Indeed I do and I think in this case there may indeed be that type of discrepancy...
 
However I'm thinking I may be looking at reverse situation where I actually have more layers available (and/or the vel layers weren't programmed in with a lot of complexity).
 
So I will explore that and thank you for confirming something that was merely squishing around my squishbox as an abstract.
 
I actually have been thinking of getting right into and altering the MIDI a bit as far as a touch of humanizing/velocity tweaking anyway so again that's something leading me toward sucking it up and just dealing with all this in PRV one way or the other. I don't want to go too crazy or spend too much time on that but I think a bit of tweaking will result in the whole song sounding just that much slicker.
 
Thanks, dood.

Beepster...If I have a midi track made with EZD2. I can insert AD2, then copy & paste the EZD2 midi into the AD2 track. Then open the AD2 map window and select my EZD2 map. It works perfectly most of the time. EZ Player Pro is the ultimate tool for this...I bought it for $20 on KVR a while back.
You may as well try the map...it's free. It used to be on the xln audio forum, but they did away with the forum...I just happen to save it before.

bapu
Let's say drumpler A has 20 velocity layers for their snare but drumpler B only has 15......
 
I'm not sure just mapping notes will be enough especially if the MIDI was written for drumpler A.
 

 
For this and other reasons, I wouldn't spend too much time trying to map one software's MIDI patterns to another. If the loops were recorded by a drummer playing the synth live using an e-drum controller, the velocities are going to be tailored to that synth's velocity response and even the particular timbre of the kit pieces that were being played at the time.
 
In the particular case of AD2, this synth is so good and flexible that I can't think why you would want to spend precious creative time porting its MIDI patterns (whether bundled, 3rd-party, or of your own composition) to another instrument. Kick and snare is one thing, but complex hi-hat, ride and tom patterns are unlikely to sound good, (much less better) on another synth without a lot of tweaking. And there are always going to be some things that just won't translate for instruments that have rolls/paradiddles/flams built into the programming or samples.
 
EDIT: I see I mis-interpreted which direction you're porting, but the same applies to some extent.

Ah yes... of course there has to be something stupid.
 
AD2 and Sonar do not seem to share a common middle C.
 
So C1 in AD2 = C3 in Sonar.
 
Fookin' annoying crap. I know this is common and there are various ways to fix these things between programs but good cripes... with all the geniuses who came up with the MIDI standards you'd figure Middle C would ALWAYS be middle C. Kind of the simplest concept in music.
 
Yeesh.
 
No problem. Just gotta keep track of a two octave discrepancy. Just a whinge about silliness that should not be.
 
Cheers.

To piano tuners, and all pianos,  Middle C = C4
So I really get confused....

Tunerman
To piano tuners, and all pianos,  Middle C = C4
So I really get confused....

Interesting tidbit (which I think I recall hearing abotu before). It also reminded me of an interesting piano tuner fellow I used to occasionally chat with at my local pub. He was blind and felt his way around for the pegs.
 
And now I'm recalling another dude I once met who did pipe tuning/refitting/restoration for those massive church pipe organs. Only met him once. He was ultra weird but damn was it cool hearing about that craft.
 
Cheers.

BobF
I always read these threads of yours and end up learning something new.  So no annoyance here! 

Well that's good... and you've been doing this a lot longer than I have. I think maybe I work in a weird way so I asked more obscure stuff (or maybe not... IDK). I certainly have a vested interest in getting the most out of this software and I realized a couple years ago it's better to ask about stuff before even considering dropping extra money on something else (or worst of all getting frustrated and not accomplishing something).
 
As far as scook... I can assure you he is indeed very human. Great guy. He's just mastered the art of being efficient and concise with his answers/posts. One skill I am sorely lacking in. lulz
 
He also seems to have a massive collection of documention and materials about Cake stuff and has it at the ready. I've been collecting quite a bit of material myself and have a special folder on my laptop for it all (and bookmarks in my browser) but I'm a newb and not nearly as organized.
 
 

Alright... that's done and I think it was actually worth it in this case to take the "long way 'round"... by which I mean manually moving the rows of notes to the correct spot in PRV.
 
As I said this is someone else' drum file created in EZD. Doing this this way (moving the notes in PRV) with just an unknown MIDI drum file would have been stupid. HOWEVER in this case I was fortunate to have not only a mixdown of the entire song (well actually multiple mixdowns I created and bus stems of everything) I had a stereo mixdown of JUST the original EZD performance provided to me by the composer.
 
That meant I could solo that stereo mix of the original drums created in EZD and use it as a reference to move notes in my PRV MIDI clip so it all matches up by ear. As I said if I didn't have an audio reference then a map would have definitely been better to avoid guessing what was supposed to be what.
 
The extreme advantage of all this (aside from getting a chance to poke around in AD2 and the PRV for extra experience) was simply getting right into the MIDI clip and looking at all the hits. With just a map I may not have really seen a bunch of double/errant triggers and I got more familiar with the performance.
 
It was annoying jumping back and forth between the AD2 Key Map, the PRV and the TV (for soloing/muting the audio ref/MIDI tracks) and the two octave discrepancy was annoying but I've become more intimate with the part and came up with some good ideas for various things... AND of course I learned some extra stuff forcing the issue in the PRV (and I actually haven't used the new updated PRV much since Splat came out so that was good too).
 
Anyway... all mapped, learned lots from the thread and just muscling through it, drums are sounding fuxxored (using an old shool Grtsch kit for a hyper modern metal song is filled with teh lulz) but as I cruised around kit presets they all obeyed the notes well so now I can just create my own custom kit and mix it.
 
Excellent.
 
Of course if anyone has more tricks and tips no reason not to post them just because I got this sorted.
 
Cheers.

I started comparing the mapping from an AD2 kit to an EZD2 kit.  It looked simple until I dug further and found the same kit piece assigned different slots between kits by the same vendor.
 
Because of where I'm at and likely to go with this stuff, I will prolly end up with a ton of dust on the XLN stuff while I invest more in Toontracks.
 
Life's to short to spend precious time futzing about with this stuff.
 
The only other option I can think of is to buy MIDI from a 3rd party that includes formats/mappings for both.  I haven't really checked that option out yet though.

Elffin
would this be useful?

http://midifilemapper.codeplex.com

Not sure, but I'll sure check it out!
 
Thanks