Session drummer basics tutorial

Millerbill, got me to thinking, lots of session drummer post come thru here, so i went back and wrote a more detailed tutorial for session drummer basics, here it is.

How to use Session Drummer
Session drummer is a plug in that allows you to create a complete drum track it can then be opened in a midi track, and then converted to audio thru a soft synth.

First open cakewalk and add a new Midi track and an Audio track.

Go to the midi track and maximize it, this is done be clicking the little box icon on the track itself. Now set your midi track fx to session drummer, in the track view you will see a long thin box that says fx in the left side and has two faint arrows in the right hand side, right click in the fx box in the track, and a pop up will say midi effects, slide the cursor to that, and another box will open called cakewalk effects, slide to that and a bigger box will open from that click on session drummer. Session drummer will open.

You will see three boxes, Style, Pattern, and song. Style is just that, the style of music the patterns work well with. Choose a style and left click it, you will see a list of patterns in the pattern window. You can audition those to see what you want by left clicking it once and then clicking the play arrow on the top tool bar. One is just a click count in and one is silence, others have a basic pattern, and still others variations of that then, there are also fills, and usually an ending.

Find the one that is named “Soft rock 152 – Rock and Roll” in the pattern list double click the one named “click” it should have been added to the song list below, now double click the one named “SN fill1”, It should be after the click in the song list, now double click the one named “Crash/Kick/SN/Hat” , next double Click “SN/Tom fill1”, double click “Crash/Kick/SN/Hat” once again and then double click “SN fill2” Now count the measures that you have added, session drummer will list these on the right side of the pattern list, It should total 18 measures.

Close session drummer, then go to the ruler bar (the scale looking thing above the tracks) left click near the 0 point, and drag until you highlight the exact amount of measures of your drum tracks on the ruler bar, stopping at the end of 18. This should place a darkened area in the midi track for the same amount of measures. Go to the beginning of the midi track, right click in the dark area of the track, A box will open, go to midi effects/session drummer and click it to reopen it and slide it to the bottom of the page, move your cursor to the very beginning of that track, hover over the start of the track, near the zero position, in the darkened area of the midi track, you should see a small square symbol pop up, click and drag open the drum track all the way to the end of the highlighted area, there should be a colored stripe with data in it now. If you are using a sound card with a built in chip it will play if you hit the play arrow in the top tool bar, you now have a midi drum track.

Now you can enhance that by using a better sounding synth to play the track thru. Go to the audio track that you opened, and maximize it, go to it’s fx box and right, go to DXi instruments, and find Edirol VSC, click that. Edirol will pop up minimize it and go back to the midi track, find the output box, left click ant it should have the option of Edirol VSC, click on that, Hit play, it will sound pretty good. This same setup can be used for any softsynth that you have and there are many of them out there.

Now if you want the midi file to become a wave file, so you can add some real nice effects to it like compression or reverb, you can use the bounce to track feature. Go to edit/bounce to track, click that and a box will pop up, hit okay and a blue bar will proceed across the bottom of the screen. You will have a new track below the others, maximize it and right click the fx box and go to audio effects, find cakewalk reverb, click on that, go to presets and find concert, chose that and close the effect, then hit play and you have a drummer in a stadium. Have fun.

wow you should write a book that was the best tutorial ive seen in here i really had fun playin with the drums

I love you, man!! The help file was so unhelpful. I couldn't even find the Session drummer. Finally got it.

Nice job!

Thanks

found a really cool site would like robo to check it out and post it where nessesary i called them and they seem very informative expecially for new guys like me. www.audiomidi.com/classroom/hardware/laptop_audio.cfm
just browsing around the site gave me ideas of what i needed to do to get better recordings.

Hi, I have a problem. I can get to the session drummer, but then once I am there...THERE ARE NO STYLES, PATTERNS, or ANYTHING! and then i try to search for .sdx files on my computer but I cannot find any. PLease help! thanks

on the computer go to start/my computer/local disk (C)/programs/cakewalk/music creator/drum styles/ and they should be in that folder, if not then you need to search the install disk for them, they did not load.

Hey Robo, I also have a problem.

I highlighted the measures in the ruler in the track view, opened SD, moved it to the bottom of the page, but when I move the cursor back to the Track there is no small square symbol. If I click on anything, the SD box makes a sound and blinks like hello, I'm still open and you can't do anything outside.

I managed to get the square to open into a red box with the SD closed, but I can't get the drum events into it. It will play if I have SD open, but there is no data appearing in the track field. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks...

Here is a variation from ROBOMUSIC's excellent tutorial, that may help you.

Create your drummer as Robomusic has detailed. Then close Session Drummer. Your most recent song/drum creation is always saved.

Highlight in the measure area the number of measures you need for your beats, as Robomusic has explained.

SELECT a MIDI track (Highlight the number)

In the pane on the right you will see that your measures are highlighted (Even a MIDI track without events/notes will be highlighted.

Right click on the highlight.

Choose MIDI Effects - then "Cakewalk Effects" - then "Session Drummer"

When Session Drummer appears, click O.K. and your most recent song/drums you created in Session Drummer will be transfered to the highlighted MIDI track.

Robomusic's system is MUCH easier, but this will also work.

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I have same problem. I cannot get any patterns,styles, songs, whatever, into Session Drummer to get to first base with your tut. Robo. My Drum Styles folder is there as subfile of Music Creator,under Cakewalk,under Program Files, in C drive. What am I doing wrong & what is the definition of 'Song' ? Thanks

This is how tech support told me to open session drummer: Go to the console view. In the track you want SD, right click in the black area. A menu will appear. Click Cakewalk FX, then session drummer. Works for me every time. Greg

Thankx Gregy....I get Session Drummer 'work face' up on screen fine, but I have no styles, patterns or songs therein....When I click to open file I also get the Open dialog 'face' OK, and my Drum Style files just looks at me and will not open....I presume Drum Styles is where the styles come from, and I guess Patterns follow that....I note that my Drum styles are .mid files, whereas SD is asking for .sdx files? Is this my problem...can I copy them and label as .sdx? 'Cakewalk' it isnt!

Struggler:

Try this:

Get into session drummer. Click on the gear-like icon on the far left about half way down. [Plugin Settings]

At the bottom of the screen that appears is "Content Folder" with dots to the left.

Click on the dots and browse until you find the "drum Style" folder.
On my setup it's C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Music Creator 2\Drum Styles. [Your mileage may vary]

Now syles and patterns should be available.

OPEN is only good for loading previously saved 'Songs' or beats

I'm having a similar problem to Meridith. When I right click on the grey box in track view, the session drummer window becomes dominant/exclusive and won’t let me do anything else until the box is closed. If I try to click on the grey box or anywhere out of the session drummer window, I get that annoying Window's tone indicating I'm trying to something I can't do. I can’t get the little box Robomusic is talking about either.

MillerBill’s system works, but I still cant add new drum tracks later in the song.
When I add any new tracks, they are put at the beginning of the song. I can move them, but it's kind of a pain.

Is this feature available in the introductory version or pro only? If it’s available in the intro version, any ideas?

Back again..frustrated! My Drum style files are all suffixed .mid. SessnDrummer open file box is asking for .sdx files. I resubmitted the entire MC programs, but drumstyles are still .mid. To get anything at all into SD Styles and Patterns etc I renamed a DS.mid file as .sdx and it will appear in SDrummer styles but the response is 'Bad SDX format. not SD file. I think I'm getting closer.... Help, please

Struggler: Please read my previous post on this thread. It doesn't sound like you followed my suggestion!

And I repeat:
OPEN is only good for loading previously saved 'Songs' or beats

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Yeah, TGRANT - I have to move them also - No mater how I highlight the tracks. A real pain in the xxx! I don't know about other versions. A post on the Sonar Forum might get an answer.

I don't plan to upgrade as I'm afraid that now I going to get bad documentation with every Cakewalk program I buy.

And to think I still wear my Cakewalk tee shirt. At least the washing instructions that came with it were to the point, and worked.

MillerBill
Thanks. I agree the documentation is pretty awful (Hint Hint to cakewalk technical writers), but I agree the program is really quite nice. Thanks for the insight.

One more question. I'm not having any luck turning my session drummer midi track to audio. I'm playing it thru the VSC soft synth. I tried arming the audio track playing the VSC and recording the track for the duration of the song - that didn't work. I also tried to figure out Robo's advice re bouncing the two tracks, but unlike Robo, I'm spatially challenged, so I couldn't get it to work. I think I'm missing a step. Robo, can you tell me in detail how to do it. I'll send you a case of beer.

No beer neccessary, but thanks for the thought.

once you have your session drummer track built and openned in a midi track, and it is playing thru an armed audio track containing VSC, you now want to turn it into an audio trackall you do is to go to edit/bounce to track(s) and click that option, the program will process the data thru VSC and a new track will appear below the others. It will be audio

man, I tried it again and its not working. The first time I got nothing on my new track, the second time, I got a track with all my tracks mixed down. Can I just create a new audio track with the drums? I armed both the audio (vsc) track and the midi (session drummer track and selected bboth tracks then did edit, bounce... What am I doing wrong?

do not arm any tracks and solo the drum track or mute the other tracks

once the drum track is soloed then hit bounce

The idea is to bounce to a new track what is in the midi track, but to do that the midi must have audio output, so the audio track with VSC allows it to bounce or actually record itself as audio

Millerbill: Megathanks...in a couple of sessions I have moved forward past something blocking me for months. Read a kiss smiley here.....Struggler

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HI I am i think quite proficient with Music creator as far as basic recording and programming goes but I programmed a rhythm track into midi and used Ch 10 to play it as a drum track, I then used and audio track so i could use Edirol and play through that, it sounds much better, however when I came to convert it to an audio track it would not record! The Edirol synth is far better than the basic synth, please tell me there is a way to get it audioed!

refer to Robo's earlier advice to me. Solo the MIDI track that you want to convert to audio (or alternatively mute all the other tracks). From the drop down menu select Edit - Bounce to Tracks. You will get a dialog box select stero audio track or whatever and make sure all the boxes are ticked. Voila.

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thanks robomusic, that's great fun.

the only thing is this :

ORIGINAL: Robomusic

... A box will open, go to midi effects/session drummer and click it to reopen it and slide it to the bottom of the page, move your cursor to the very beginning of that track, you should see a small square symbol pop up, click ....

as others have mentioned, if the SD is open at this stage you don't get the small square symbol, cos the SD wants attention; but if you close it, then you can click it and continue !

thanks again

great point i will modify the tutorial to fit everyones suggestion. Thank you guys too, together we will master this thing!

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To convert your MIDI to AUDIO see Newbie Tutorials and other posts on the forum.
Also you may want to check your HELP File

ORIGINAL: master110x

right click in the dark area of the track, A box will open, go to midi effects/session drummer and click it to reopen it and slide it to the bottom of the page,

This no longer works in 5.01, any known work around, I'm having to use my old version create midi tracks and import them into ver 5, not ideal! any work around or am I missing something, all I want to do is to get session drummer to be an actual midi tack.

First thanks for comen threw with help can you please explain how to get to the latency slider Im sorry for bugen you on this form, Can you please get back at me on my form with that and any other reasons this could be happening.
Thanks Agin

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ORIGINAL: Dgoo

ORIGINAL: master110x

right click in the dark area of the track, A box will open, go to midi effects/session drummer and click it to reopen it and slide it to the bottom of the page,

This no longer works in 5.01, any known work around, I'm having to use my old version create midi tracks and import them into ver 5, not ideal! any work around or am I missing something, all I want to do is to get session drummer to be an actual midi tack.

This no longer works in 5.01, any known work around, I'm having to use my old version create midi tracks and import them into ver 5, not ideal! any work around or am I missing something, all I want to do is to get session drummer to be an actual midi tack.

Oops Isnt help a wonderful thing, in fact this is a lot easier now in ver 5 just go to the process menu and apply midi effects,
A dialog appears asking that gives you the option to remove the plug-in from the track.
Make sure the Delete the Effects From the Track Inserts checkbox is checked and click OK.
The patterns in the song appear in your MIDI track.

Finally got it to work...Now if i can just remember what I did...

bummmmmmppppppy

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Nevermind...

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I followed Robos instructions but when I open Cakewalk FX there isnt anything there for session drummer... any suggestions?

If you have MC3 it does not have Session drummer

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so, thanks for the tutorial. but what's the best way to get some basic drum samples for mc3? if you don't mind me asking...

I'm sure no one minds you asking, but you should start a new thread instead of asking in the tutorial. thanks for bumping it, tho.

If you have a question don't ask it here.

Create a new post from the front page - upper left area

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On the topic of using Session drummer... If i program drums in guitarpro then export as midi, then import it into Cakewalk is there a way to make them sound more realistic than the bad techno drums CAKEWALK TTS 1 provides? Help a noob. Or would i be better learning to program with session drummer all the way and forget guitarpro?

EDIT: okay i just read that i shouldn't ask questions in this thread. Sorry, does this question warrant a whole topic on its on though? I hope its fairly simple.

Yes, it should be in its own topic. typically folks won't look in here to answer you - they'll assume it's just a bump.

i followed all the directions listed but i am getting an error that says "there is a problem patching the effect"...what's that about ??

I have seen the video tutorial and read another, about how to split each drum off into its own audio track, but I haven't been able to find Run Cal. I have Sonar 6.

I think alot of these tutorials that are on the Cakewalk website and in the book are simply copied and pasted from older versions and simply do not apply to the current version. Read page 110 of the Sonar 6 User's guide to see what I mean, nothing in that tutorial works in Sonar 6.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Joe

Cakewalk’s 'Split Notes to Track' function will move each drum (snare, kick, cymbals, hats, toms, etc) to it's own track to allow for more sophisticated recording, processing and mixing if you don't have muliple output software or hardware.

Note: Technically, each MIDI note number is moved to it's own track. So if a groove has snares on MIDI note numbers 38 and 40, each will be placed onto a separate track.

1. Select the MIDI clips(s) to process. Only one source track is processed at a time so combine all clips onto the same track if necessary.
2. Go to the Process menu and select Run CAL (Ctrl + F1)
3. Select the file, 'Split Notes to Tracks.cal' and press the Open button.
4. Choose these next settings carefully!
a) source track (the clip(s) to be processed )
b) destination track (this will overwrite any existing data in the selected destination track so choose an empty or non-existent track!) Cakewalk will automatically create all the necessary destination tracks.
c) destination channel (select 10 for drums)d) destination port (your desired MIDI hardware interface port; usually port number 1, the default)

Hi, newbie here, trying this tutorial.... i cant even get past this first part and was wondering someone could help

"Go to the midi track and maximize it, this is done be clicking the little box icon on the track itself. Now set your midi track fx to session drummer, in the track view you will see a long thin box that says fx in the left side and has two faint arrows in the right hand side"

i get the FX box but there are no little arrows in the right side, it says NONE sort of greyed out

"right click in the fx box in the track, and a pop up will say midi effects, slide the cursor to that, and another box will open called cakewalk effects, slide to that and a bigger box will open from that click on session drummer. Session drummer will open. "

unfortunately I get to the cakewalk effects sub-menu and session drummer isnt listed.. other things are, such as arpeggio chord analyzer echo delay etc.. but no session drummer. I did load the session drummer program, and have messed around with it a little bit before, me and friend of mine were playing around with it.

But it does not load where it supposed to here in this tutorial. Can anybody suggest why it doesnt show up properly? Do I have to manually load session drummer before i start a new project? Is there a start up setting I've missed? thanks

Rod

Rod - I think you're using SHS6, correct? Is it SHS6 or SHS6XL? This tutorial was written specifically for MC2/MC PRO, IIRC. And specifically for Session Drummer (I). if you have SHS6 (NON-XL) then you don't have Session Drummer I OR Session Drummer 2. If you have SHS6XL, then you have SD2 and it is different from SD1.

IF you have SHS6XL and SD2, then use the INSERT>SOFTSYNTHS>VSTPLUGINS>SESSION DRUMMER 2 - or something similar.

thanks, that made sense. yes i do have SHSXL and session drummer 2. and the only way i could get any drums to ever was insert softsyth etc

however i'm still not clear on the process. I got my midi drum track. then when i select insert softsyth sessions drummer etc, it puts it on a NEW track. How do i tell the session drummer to find the midi data in another track and use that?

when you insert the softsynth, a window should pop up asking you several questions - with checkboxes. make sure you UNCHECK "MIDI SOURCE TRACK"

then go to the properties of your MIDI track and set the OUTPUT to Session Drummer 2

hey that worked! very helpful! thanks!

one of my pads didnt make any sound but its probably voiced to fire the wrong note and the session drummer is expecting a different note so i'll have to find a way to fix that

but that helped, thanks!

Rod