Problems when editing MIDI track in the context of a Cubase project

[Simone Frau]

I am trying to integrate SD3 in a preexisting project I have in Cubase, and I imported the MIDI track in SD3 for editing.
The editor is really cool and has some awesome advantages, but I also found some peculiarities which I don’t know if they can be considered bugs, or peculiarities, or simply things I don’t know how to address. Namely:
– the tempo track does not sync with Cubase’s; meaning, playing the song SD3 follows the bpm changes, but it won’t see the time signature changes. Is is not supposed to do that? Should one import the tempo track? (and if so, how? Still, inconvenient if you’re still in the process of writing)
– in editing the playing style, I found no way to disable the “power hand”, with the result that sometimes it triggers random undesired hits :S
– if I select a loop area on the editor, it loops but the cursor keeps going on the main project, so that if after a while it reaches a different bpm it start going at a different speed
Do you have any recommendations to avoid these problems?
Thanks!

Topic

[Henrik]

@Laimon said:
– the tempo track does not sync with Cubase’s; meaning, playing the song SD3 follows the bpm changes, but it won’t see the time signature changes. Is is not supposed to do that? Should one import the tempo track? (and if so, how? Still, inconvenient if you’re still in the process of writing)

Yes, you need to import the tempo map that you have created in your DAW. Superior Drummer 3 can’t know about the DAW’s changes in tempo otherwise. It will still sound correct if you don’t import the tempo map and play from the host, with Follow Host enabled – but if you want to play from SD3:s time line, you’ll need the tempo map.

@Laimon said:
– in editing the playing style, I found no way to disable the “power hand”, with the result that sometimes it triggers random undesired hits :S

The Power Hand doesn’t add any hits to your MIDI groove, it analyses the groove and puts the Power Hand sign on the instrument that seems to have the prominent, leading playing. So even if you could remove the power hand sign, it wouldn’t change how the groove sounds! However, it makes it a lot easier for you to try other instruments as Power Hand, by dragging the sign…

@Laimon said:
– if I select a loop area on the editor, it loops but the cursor keeps going on the main project, so that if after a while it reaches a different bpm it start going at a different speed

If you want to loop an area, and sync that loop both in your DAW and in SD3 – you need to put the loop in the DAW – not in SD3! The DAW won’t “respect” the loop area in SD3 and follow that, but SD3 will follow the loop area of the DAW 🙂

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[Simone Frau]

@Henrik said:
Yes, you need to import the tempo map that you have created in your DAW. Superior Drummer 3 can’t know about the DAW’s changes in tempo otherwise. It will still sound correct if you don’t import the tempo map and play from the host, with Follow Host enabled – but if you want to play from SD3:s time line, you’ll need the tempo map.

Alright, as I thought. But how does one import the tempo track? Wouldn’t it be possible to automatically keep it in sync with Cubase?

@Henrik said:
The Power Hand doesn’t add any hits to your MIDI groove, it analyses the groove and puts the Power Hand sign on the instrument that seems to have the prominent, leading playing. So even if you could remove the power hand sign, it wouldn’t change how the groove sounds! However, it makes it a lot easier for you to try other instruments as Power Hand, by dragging the sign…

Ok, then now I think it must have been my mistake, I probably modified the parameters so that it was adding hits.

@Henrik said:
If you want to loop an area, and sync that loop both in your DAW and in SD3 – you need to put the loop in the DAW – not in SD3! The DAW won’t “respect” the loop area in SD3 and follow that, but SD3 will follow the loop area of the DAW 🙂  

Noted 😉

[Henrik]

@Laimon said:
Wouldn’t it be possible to automatically keep it in sync with Cubase?

No, SD3 can’t get Cubase’s tempo map automatically – you’ll need to import it into Superior Drummer 3 when you make changes to it.
In the Track menu, select “Import Tempo from MIDI file…” and select the MIDI file that you have exported from Cubase, containing the tempo map.

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[Author]

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