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pumpkinking
Participant
Topics Started: 7
Replies Created: 96
Has Thanked: 18
Been Thanked: 37
pumpkinkingI don’t know about “one map for all” since there can be a lot of variability between SDXs that makes that difficult, but maybe being able to set a default midi map for each SDX room.
pumpkinkingAs Jord points out, the default Decades midi map has Floortom 2 center mapped to midi note 41/F1 out-of-the-box. However, maybe you are in a non-default configuration for some reason. If you have an unmapped note and you want to map it, follow these instructions: select the kit piece in the layout, go to the “MIDI Mapping” box on the right and select the articulation you want to map, click on the “3 line” icon that appears to the right of the articulation when you mouse over it, and pick an option for assigning it (Add, Learn or Add suggested). If your midi map is already full, then you’ll potentially be changing an existing mapped note, and if so just make sure it is one you’re not using or are OK doing without.
I do hope that a future version of SD will make this particular workflow a little less click-intensive and maybe exploit the MIDI map available from the Help menu by making it interactive.
That said – I spend the time to get these dialed in for a given kit and then save the project and move on.
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Thanked by: Tom ConnerpumpkinkingThis will depend on your workflow. I’m an e-drummer with occasional recording (but not heavy production) and the processor usage is fairly low, regardless of whether SD3 is stand-alone or in a DAW. I’ve watched the activity monitor while playing as aggressively as I can, and the workload fit within a single core. What limits me (and why I’m looking at M4 minis) is memory capacity. I routinely bump up against my current 16GB memory limit. Some SDXs can have large memory footprints (eg 10GB for a Legacy preset, although most are 3-5GB), and if you use multiple SD3 tracks in your DAW, you can really eat into the machine memory capacity.
If you are mainly producing and often use more processor-intensive tasks like bouncing, then the core config might matter more for you. I’d suggest this decision is one of speed not limitation (in contrast to the memory limitation mentioned above). More cores will mean faster bounces, but I have no specific data on how much impact they’d have other than the standard processor benchmarks that are becoming available for the M4.
In short: with my M1 mini base processor config, I’ve never had a case (as an e-drummer) where I thought the cores were holding me back or causing issues. Memory limits do impact my workflow, though.
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Thanked by: adiaz7531pumpkinkingIf I were playing a real hihat, and I wanted the “crisp” sound of a “closed tip” articulation (hitting the bow of the closed hihat with the tip of a drumstick, which is normally low in volume) but I wanted as much volume as I could get, I would probably push hard on the hihat pedal and hit the edge of the hihat. Guessing that translates to “tight edge” at max velocity but really I’d have to listen to the samples on the kit in question to see if that is how they intended that articulation. Also different hihat cymbals can respond to that with various amounts of “washiness” (how big they are, are they the same size, flatness of the cymbal edge, etc).
pumpkinkingCheck out the bottom three presents (see image). These load a full range of timpani notes.
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Thanked by: drumjack52pumpkinkingI’m using a merge of two Alesis kits (Surge and Crimson II) and they work fairly well, although I opted to buy two eDrumIn modules instead of the Alesis modules for easier control of the midi assignments and support for multi-zone (which is not great on the Alesis snare, but better than not). Also it let me connect additional cymbals from Lemon.
That said, now that I have experience with the quality of Lemon cymbals, I’m wondering if a complete Lemon kit would be a good low-priced alternative as well.
pumpkinkingCheck out the post I made below a while ago and see if it helps. I have gotten this working with two separate pedals (using the ED10 modules) passing separate CC notes for the two hi-hats. The challenge seemed to be to find enough available midi assignments for all of the articulations I wanted to represent on the two hi-hats.
https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/using-a-second-hi-hat-with-superior-drummer-3/
pumpkinkingWhile we’re on the topic, some libraries have preset categories (Hitmaker is the only one I have seen). I do like this approach as it can really help me navigate libraries with multiple kits that each have variations. However, once you select the preset, the category does not show up in the preset name area. See the attached for an example – in this case I have selected the Hitmaker preset “New World – Basic”, but the preset bar ends up only showing “Basic” which is the name of one other sub-preset.
Again – don’t get rid of the categories (in fact use them more), but put the full name of the preset in the window once selected.
pumpkinkingI’ve successfully used 2 hi hat triggers (with a single pedal and also each with their own pedal), but I did this with both triggers and pedals going through ED10s. There might be some trigger/pedal interaction within the module that is important for a hi hat, not sure. Maybe try routing both hi hat triggers through the ED10.
Also carefully watch the midi notes/channels as they come in to SD3 from the triggers/modules and correlate them to the midi note assignments in the hi hat instruments.
Here is the forum post describing how I made it work:
https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/using-a-second-hi-hat-with-superior-drummer-3/
pumpkinkingFields is my go-to for general playing. Hitmaker works very well for Collins/Genesis and Copeland/Police covers. For Hansa I like the marble room acrylic for 80s sound, and only occasionally play the other rooms (Meistershaal has a lot of depth and responds well to changing the mic balance). The Legacy amber kit sounds quite amazing, and while the other kits have a tight sound for 70s rock covers, I don’t find myself playing them for fun very much.
Everybody has their preferences but these are the ones I gravitate to.
pumpkinkingI am using a Mac Mini M1 with 16GB of RAM and I’ve managed to use some of the larger presets in SD3 with Logic without issue (one of the biggest in use is a Legacy just over 10GB). I make sure there are no other applications running other than Logic, and also my track count is small. I’m not doing song production, only drum kit recording, so the memory usage of Logic is pretty much all SD3.
I’d say look at what other processes are taking up memory, and if they are applications you started, then stop them. There will be some system processes that you cannot stop, but they’re normally small in terms of active memory usage. Also restarting to Mac can help clean up memory usage if the system has been running for a while.
A Mac Studio with 32GB or a mini M2 pro with 32 GB would I’m sure solve your problem, and while they are great machines at a good price point, they are not free. I’ve been on the fence about an upgrade…
pumpkinkingNot sure if this is your issue, but I had a similar symptom a few weeks back. Turned out that my hi-hat was sending alternating low CC values 1 and 2 every few seconds all the time (the top hat cymbal clutch was too low and it was never fully opening, so sitting at 1&2 instead of 0). When I played live and recorded, all was fine (you’d not notice a CC value of 2 instead of 0). But on playback, midi from the kit overrides what is in the recording, so the recorded hihat CC was being replaced by the 1&2 values that the kit was sending while I was playing back the recording.
I found this by catching movement in the midi monitor in the corner of my eye after maybe 10-15 minutes of pointless frustration staring at the grid editor CC panel.
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Thanked by: JohnC808pumpkinkingI have a setup for this that uses a foot switch note bank changer in my eDrumin modules (cycles through sending all the ekit midi notes with one of 4 different midi channels: 8, 9, 10 or 11) and then setup Logic with four SD3 tracks, each with a midi channel filter set to one of the four selected with the eDrumin note banks.
So I can seamlessly cycle through 4 different configured SD3 instances while actively playing with just toggling the foot switch. Works very well.
requires the ability to change midi channel at the module, though, so might not work for all setups. But maybe some DAW configuration could do something similar.
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Thanked by: marcelo_pe and BRMpercpumpkinkingOK I finally figured out the problem. I had moved my splash to the same mount as the tom so it’s cross triggering. Seems like no matter how I adjust the threshold in edrum, it still triggers the tom. So I either need to acquire ‘yet another’ stand to separate it Or I need to figure out how to dampen the stand so that hits on the splash don’t vibrate the stand and trigger the tom. I took the boom with the splash off the stand and hit it and it did not trigger the tom at all. If I just even slightly tap the top of the stand/mount where the splash boom attaches, it triggers the 42 note which is the tom. Any suggestions on how to make this work so I don’t have to spend money yet again on a stand?
- This post was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by bpjacobsen.
A couple of things to consider…
I believe you have two eDrumin modules, make sure they are connected in series so the crosstalk cancelation works for all triggers even spread across modules. I have two ED10s in series and I get no crosstalk (although I can see cross hits in the raw trigger data for sure).
In your video, when you hit the splash cymbal, it seemed like it did not move. You might loosen the cymbal so that it can rebound from the stick. If the cymbal is completely rigid, it will transfer more of the vibration down the stand.
And lastly, make sure that all of your triggers are connected only by their mounting, and none of them are resting against or touching the frame or another trigger. I did have an issue where tom pads were touching each other (it can be hard to pack a bunch of triggers together on a rack without them touching), and I was getting a little crosstalk between the two triggers that were touching. When you have a single mount point for a trigger, the vibration leaked into the rack is less than it is when you have multiple contact points.
oh yea – one last thing: I have a double cymbal stand that is separate from the tom rack and I have it firmly attached to the rack with Velcro but I did make sure to avoid metal-on-metal by inserting some wraps of Velcro between the rack and the stand. I found that metal-on-metal was a good way to get crosstalk.
Hope this helps and good luck!
pumpkinkingHave you confirmed that you have no mapping set for these midi notes? You can open the midi map, hit each trigger and watch the midi log to see what the incoming value is and how it is being mapped. I believe midi notes that are modified by mapping show up as green.
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