How to get SD3 "follow host" to start at beat 1 of a groove

[Bill Babcock]

Hi folks. This has been bugging me since SD2 and I’ve not found a solution and so figured I’d just ask.

First: Logic 10.4.2, OSX 10.13.6

Superior Drummer 3 plug-in version 3.1.0 (build 19775) [64-bit AU]

I have a proj I’m writing and I’ve got a guitar track which I want to just get some drums up against it for further writing.

So I am in the grooves view and have a groove selected. I have the “Follow Host” button enabled. Yet, if the guitar part doesn’t start on measure 1 in the DAW, any groove I select to listen to starts someplace in the middle of the groove and never seems to catch back up on measure 1.

For example, if in my DAW the region start at measure 57, and I take the groove and drag it to the track editor in SD3, and place it at measure 57 there, and then hit play while the DAWs playhead is at measure 57, the groove in SD3 starts playing on measure 59.

The only way I’ve ever got them to sync together is if I move the regions I am trying to find a groove for to start at measure 1 in the DAW.

This is cumbersome, and in a track with many time and tempo changes, is just a nightmare what with sliding all that stuff around.

This particular piece has many time sig changes: 5/4, 3/4, 4/4, 9/4 (which happens to be the section I’m working on).

 

So, what am I doing wrong, or NOT doing right?

– bill

Topic

[Bill Babcock]

As a follow on, if I use the song track editor and enter in all the time sig changes, I can align the grooves if I drag them to the song track so I suppose that’s a work around.

[Henrik Ekblom]

Bill Babcock wrote:

As a follow on, if I use the song track editor and enter in all the time sig changes, I can align the grooves if I drag them to the song track so I suppose that’s a work around.

To get SD3’s timeline to match the timeline of your DAW, if it has time signature changes, you must add those time signature changes to SD3 too, so that’s correct. Sd3 has to know where the time signature changes are to be able to draw the songtrack, and all the bars, correctly!

Henrik Ekblom - User Experience Designer
Toontrack

[Bill Babcock]

I agree that in that situation this makes sense – but what about a simple 4/4 song all the way through?

So in the screenshot crop I have attached, you can see a simple setup. bpm 120, playhead set to measure 10 (which has a marker on it as well for easy reference).

I’ve selected a groove that is 8 measures in length.

I used the grab program’s times capture to get this. You can see from Logic’s playhead position that this is just about to measure 12 when the snap was taken. (I don’t know why the song track measure marker is still at 10 – that is likely a poor interaction with grab because it matches the measure marker in logic and is not the problem).

 

Now, look at the selected grooves progress indicator: you can see that it is almost at half way – e.g.: almost on measure 4  of the 8 measure groove. That places it 2 measures ahead of the DAW.

Now, if I start on measure 9 vs 10, it lines up properly. In other words, if the measure in the DAW falls on a logical multiple of the number of measures in the groove (e.g.: we start on measure one – the next start of an 8 measure block is measure 9), it works. If it does not, then it’s always offset and incorrect.

 

So there’s definitely something wrong there.

[John]

Hi Bill,

 

you are using v 3.1.0, the current version is 3.1.2. Please update SD3.

 

BR,

John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

1

Thanked by: Henrik Ekblom

[lapasoa]

In the lower side of the UI you find “host” tab. Simple.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.3
Operating system: Windows 10

[eliot]

Hi Bill,

Did you ever figure this out? I have the same problem when testing out grooves in the groove window–they start playing somewhere in the middle of the groove.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Eli

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.4
Operating system: macOS Big Sur (11)

[Thunder]

I’m having the same problem. What I found interesting is that in EZ Drummer 2 it reacts differently than in Superior Drummer 3. In EZ Drummer 2 the groove plays all the way through but does start on the first beat of the groove when previewing through a DAW.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.2.3
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

[Mark Finlay]

I’m having this exact problem with superior drummer 3 too. Did anyone manage to fix it?

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.3.6
Operating system: macOS Ventura (13)

[Author]

Replies