I have been looking into triggering software such as Superior Drummer (drumkit from hell) for a while now. The thing is, I really have no idea where to begin! I will be buying an Alesis Dm10 Pro Kit in a few weeks and I already imagine I won’t like the sounds on the drum brain so I’m definitely going to want to use software like Toontrack offers. What do I need in the way of soundcards for this to work with super low latency? Also, do I need I recording program like Ableton or Cubase? Or can I just use Superior Drummer 2.0? I will undoubtedly have more questions but this should get me started!
For lowest latency triggering, you need a good quality soundcard with ASIO drivers. There are many quality soundcards available in all price ranges. Just make sure it has ASIO drivers.
You do need a host to run S2. If you plan on wanting to record your drumming, you need something like Cubase/ProTools/Reaper/etc. If not, you can use Toontrack’s own host, Solo, to run S2. Check the product page and click the ‘Compatibility’ tab to see the supported hosts.
So is something like Drumkit from hell essentially a plugin for a program like superior drummer? Or is it standalone? And I guess Toontrack Solo being supported is just a given.
Well thanks for everything Scott, I think I’ll be buying reaper along with EZ Drummer and Drumkit From Hell. I will most likely have more questions in the future so keep this post in mind!
Another quick question. Ideally, I will be using my laptop to record everything and I was wondering if you knew of any external soundcards that would work well for this type of thing.
Another quick question. Ideally, I will be using my laptop to record everything and I was wondering if you knew of any external soundcards that would work well for this type of thing.
You would probably want to look at either a USB sound card or a PCMCIA. PCMCIA is mostly used by RME nowadays, but it allows for connection of a Multiface/Digiface box. Probably more than you’d need though.
I can’t recommend any USB audio interfaces in particular as I don’t have any first hand experience with them, but there are offerings from PreSonus, M-Audio, MOTU, RME, Steinberg, and many others.
If you’re going to use S2 for sounds, you need those samples to be heard coming out of your computer with low latency (ASIO drivers). You plug in the DM 10 and select it as the MIDI input device but then your audio soundcard needs to trigger the S2 samples with the lowest latency as possible (time between hitting drum pad and hearing S2 drum sound).
A 3Gz machine, optimized, (see Tuning an Audio PC produced by Mix Magazine) with a PCI or PCIe should give you about 2millisecs latency on the audio out side. Then the host software and the trigger module add their own latency as does transporting the Midi data from the drum brain to the host. You’ll always feel a lag, even with my TD-3 with the headphones plugged directly I always feel a lag. For recording, I just cue my ears to the noise coming from the pad itself knowing the the Midi will eventually get there. And beleive me, once it gets there it’s glorious. I love SD2. So:
For best results:
1. Get the fastest Drum Module you can afford.
2. Optimize the drum module’s Scan Time and Retrigger Cancel Window to your playing style (playing softer can help)
3. Get the fastest Midi connection you can get. (Standard Midi is very slow, USB 2 is faster but watch out for jitter).
4. Get the fastest audio card you can afford. (I believe PCMCIA is faster than USB2 but not sure)
5. Optimize your computer. I have a separate partition just for music.
6. Don’t expect it to feel like a real drum. Most percussionists will sense a 4-6millisec latency easily. Especially when playing cowbells, cascara, timbales.
hey there,
I am posting here because this thread seems like it was similar to what I’m curious to know about.
I am a Garageband user and I was curious to know if the drumming from EZdrummer can be transferred to Garageband ?
If so, do I need anything else in order to combine these two apps ?
Can I create my own drum rolls, fills, etc ?
thank you.
PS I didn’t know how to start a topic that is why I wrote this here.
@mariusmusicus said:
A 3Gz machine, optimized, (see Tuning an Audio PC produced by Mix Magazine) with a PCI or PCIe should give you about 2millisecs latency on the audio out side. Then the host software and the trigger module add their own latency as does transporting the Midi data from the drum brain to the host. You’ll always feel a lag, even with my TD-3 with the headphones plugged directly I always feel a lag. For recording, I just cue my ears to the noise coming from the pad itself knowing the the Midi will eventually get there. And beleive me, once it gets there it’s glorious. I love SD2. So:
For best results:
1. Get the fastest Drum Module you can afford.
2. Optimize the drum module’s Scan Time and Retrigger Cancel Window to your playing style (playing softer can help)
3. Get the fastest Midi connection you can get. (Standard Midi is very slow, USB 2 is faster but watch out for jitter).
4. Get the fastest audio card you can afford. (I believe PCMCIA is faster than USB2 but not sure)
5. Optimize your computer. I have a separate partition just for music.
6. Don’t expect it to feel like a real drum. Most percussionists will sense a 4-6millisec latency easily. Especially when playing cowbells, cascara, timbales.
Marius
Hi Marius,
I’m new to this and running EZDrummer into an alesis crimson. It sounds unreal but cannot achieve anywhere near the volume that the crimson module does on its own. Then when I add drumless tracks from youtube to play along to I lose even more volume.
Would this be as simple as buying a sound card? Could you recommend on if this is the case?
FYI I’m using the PC headphone jack with a splitter going to headphones and an iphone playing you tube. Then just USB to MIDI (same as printer cable) connecting PC to drum module.
Is there anyway to get the extra headphone jack back so can run 2 headphones at once (so friends can be amazed at my playalong skills)
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