Sonar Drum Maps - How and Why - Tutorial Inside

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

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.

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.

Good job!

Thank you.

20x7

nice job

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

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

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.

Very useful
thanks

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

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.

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.

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

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...

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.