Hey all
I made some headway on my drums tonight. Was able to take my DR-880, send the midi out, capture it AND modify the MIDI info so that what plays through superior is the same as what plays in the DR-880.  

So, after editing the midi, I made buses for everything, then sent the buses to the output lanes in Superior.  I even gave everything names. However, when i go back into Sonar and I want to use those drum tracks as input, I don't see the nice friendly names for the outputs. All I see is the standard 3 inputs for everything.... 

Is there a way to get Sonar to read the friendly names I assigned the outputs?  If not that's going to be problematic as the kick drum itself takes three tracks in Superior itself.  Not sure how I would take those three kick drum tracks from superior and pipe them into one single track in Sonar....

I hope I'm making sense. 

The process is similar to EZDrummer http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.ashx?m=2784703 The only difference is that you have a more complex mixer inside Superior Drummer. No, SONAR is not going to read the labels that you assign inside Superior Drummer. You will be responsible for labeling the audio tracks in SONAR. That is why it might be a good idea to create track templates for the drum synths that you intend to use.

That is how I created my tracks. I was simply hoping that I could utilize the buses that I created in SD2 so I would not have as many drum tracks in Sonar. 

Because in SD2, there three kick tracks that I bussed down into 1, there were three snare tracks that I bussed down into 1. That's a lot right there. 

Sure you can do that. In Superior Drummer you can route the microphones to "bus" options in the mixer output dropdown and then route the busses to the "out" options. The "outs" are routed to SONAR audio tracks. Alternately, you can route more than one microphone to an "out" and skip the Superior Drummer busses entirely using the SONAR tracks instead of busses in Superior Drummer. It is up to you. Just like EZDrummer the output section also has a multichannel selection for quick output layout.

scook


Sure you can do that. In Superior Drummer you can route the microphones to "bus" options in the mixer output dropdown and then route the busses to the "out" options. The "outs" are routed to SONAR audio tracks. 

 Alternately, you can route more than one microphone to an "out" and skip the Superior Drummer busses entirely using the SONAR tracks instead of busses in Superior Drummer. It is up to you. Just like EZDrummer the output section also has a multichannel selection for quick output layout. 

And I have it setup this way. In fact, right now I changed how I have it setup now, skipping buses and going straight to the outs to create my groupings so to speak.  Three kick mics going to 1 output, 3 snare mics going to one output, the toms going to another out etc etc.


However, when I go back into Sonar, and try to set the input for one the drum tracks, I see all 31 SD outputs.  L/R and Stereo for everything.  I was really hoping I could group everything in SD, then just bring that group in Sonar... 

That is why you want to consider setting up a track template. When you insert a multi-output synth like Superior Drummer into SONAR all that SONAR knows is that the synth can send X number of outputs and creates the appropriate number of tracks. It is up to you to decide which outputs you want to use, what the outputs represent in SONAR and delete the unused tracks. When you get the synth and the host configured, save that configuration away for future use as a track template. For example, my Avatar template uses 11 SONAR stereo audio tracks for all the microphones, 1 SONAR MIDI track and 2 SONAR busses. It does not use Superior Drummer busses at all. Anytime I want to use that drumkit, I load that template into SONAR and all Superior Drummer config and SONAR routing is setup with a couple of keystrokes.

+1 on setting up the track template.
Mind numbing to not do it that way as you are seeing.
I have a template setup to load that way every time I start a new project.
In fact I have 2 options, one is midi and 1 audio only if I know this will just be a rehearsal type project and another that has all the EZDrummer 
Outputs to multiple audio tracks.
Both of course exist in a track folder.
Dave 

Ok, I'm sold on creating a template.  Does the following sound about right?



No reason to group by bus in SD2 because Sonar won't know anything about those buses. From the SD2 side of things there not much to do other than set levels, bleed, maybe some FX.

From sonar, create a drum folder to contain all the SD2 tracks / there will be a 1 to 1 mapping between Sonar and SD2. 
In Sonar create my various buses. Kick bus, Snare bus and any others I may choose to have.

Save as a template.
Create a new project in Sonar and choose my template.
When it opens I will have a SD2 synth, all it's tracks and buses I created and any FX I've applied...

Is all that correct?  Any suggestions to that?



edit to add

When mixing drums, is it standard to only have the kick, overheads and room in stereo?

Yeah, that is the idea. The template I described above does group some of the the microphones to one SONAR track so there is no 1-1 mapping of microphones to tracks. For example, the kick only gets one SONAR track. I do keep the snare top and bottom separate to control the bleed in the bottom mic (which could be done in the Superior Drummer mixer). Same for all the microphones that bleed and ambient tracks since I might not want to use them. All the audio tracks are stereo, it is easier for me to work that way. Superior Drummer already pans everything pretty much where they need to be. I only have two busses, one for the complete drum mix and another for a compressed drum mix. There might be other busses involved, such as a reverb, but I add those to the project as needed.

I try to keep the drums as unaffected as possible when tracking, like all the other tracks, so that I do not have latency issues; adding effects during mixing when latency is not an issue.

scook

Yeah, that is the idea. The template I described above does group some of the the microphones to one SONAR track so there is no 1-1 mapping of microphones to tracks. 

Hey, that's exactly what I would like to do. But I've not figured out yet how to do that. What is the proper terminology here? Mix down???