Drum Controller Recommendations?

[jonnybutter]

Sorry it took me a minute to get what you were talking about, Russ. Yes indeed, on AD and others there are many MIDI notes per state of some instruments, like Hi hat. Definitely makes it more fun to play on a conventional keyboard.

I got the Control Pad today and put it thorough its paces for about an hour. In most applications, it is outstanding. It does not interface perfectly with every VI - I have Stormdrum3, and that requires more fiddling than the drumset VIs I have. Also have LADD from audiobro, and that also requires more fiddling than I had time to do yet - there are some velocity/sensitivity mismatches that I hope I can resolve. If I can't so resolve, the Control Pad will still very very useful to me for some drum parts and percussion parts - I do play parts in individually, btw, most of the time. Will try to play the whole set at once when I get kick and hi hat pedals.

Bottom line - control pad: big thumbs up. Easy to set up and program. Haven't opened the manual yet, so that's a good sign!

[Len911]

Hmm.
Why would the controller pads function differently from the keys on a keyboard? Generally, the round robin stuff is handled by the VI. One MIDI *note* triggers many samples. I guess we shall see though. Will let you know how it works out!

Yes, most drum VSTi stuff does the round-robin thing, but that is not the ONLY thing they do.

Let's take the HH for example... there are many different ways to hit a high hat. Many different open/closed positions. Many different places to hit it... on the edge, on the bell... etc.

Taking Addictive drums for instance (since that's what I'm familiar with)... there are a handful-and-a-half of MIDI notes (in the non-GM [GM=General MIDI]setup) that are dedicated just to the High Hat in all they ways it can be played... and each of those notes will round-robin different strikes on that note. If you were going to use the best Drum VSTs to their fullest potential, you would assign EVERY pad on your MIDI controller to just play High Hat in one pass... then go back and assign it for playing all the Snare articulations on the next pass.... etc...

Even Round-Robin stuff lacks the expressiveness of real drums... It all boils down to what level of "realism" you are shooting for. Triggering round-robin samples with the same MIDI note would be extremely noticeable in a jazz number, but not noticed so much in some sort of electronic rock song.

Russell

IMAP also has more articulations than GM standard drum map.

Ocean Way Drums were once THE drum sample set, and now there are forum titles like, "why no love for Ocean Way?". Not enough round robins or velocity layers are a couple of the reasons given. It's odd that was never noticed in any of the "hundreds" or thousands of prior glowing reviews?? There's a program I usually listen to every week that has "Chill Out" Santana and John Lee Hooker as a theme song. There's a machine gun drum fill that sounds so drum machine and fake, and I keep wondering why they used a drum machine, when in fact if you go to Youtube, they have 2 live drummers?? That's wierd,lol!!

https://youtu.be/cTjYQKtO2dc?t=45s
https://youtu.be/cTjYQKtO2dc?t=3m35s

[Russell Landwehr]

Very Cool, Jon.

requires more fiddling than I had time to do yet - there are some velocity/sensitivity mismatches that I hope I can resolve.

Look to the "velocity curve" stuff... That's where those problems are usually resolved properly.

[Russell Landwehr]

There's a program I usually listen to every week that has "Chill Out" Santana and John Lee Hooker as a theme song. There's a machine gun drum fill that sounds so drum machine and fake, and I keep wondering why they used a drum machine, when in fact if you go to Youtube, they have 2 live drummers?? That's wierd,lol!!

https://youtu.be/cTjYQKtO2dc?t=45s
https://youtu.be/cTjYQKtO2dc?t=3m35s

I think that second timbale fill you posted sounds even more MIDI than the first. Very interesting. Reminds me of a return I got for a "synthetic" harmonica that was actually a real "hooter" (melodica).

[Len911]

Yes Russell I vaguely remember that one,lol! Actually those samples sound better than the podcasts I download about every week.

[mojobone]

Triggering round-robin samples with the same MIDI note would be extremely noticeable in a jazz number, but not noticed so much in some sort of electronic rock song.
Russell

Um, no. Maybe if all the MIDI velocities triggered the same note, but even then, it could be alleviated by round robin; most people are satisfied with about four notes per velocity layer.

I'll agree you're never gonna get as nuanced or dynamic a performance as you can with actual drums, but keep in mind you can restrict Addictive's dynamic range and apply the MIDI spec's 0-127 dynamic range to a smaller proportion of Addictive's samples and of course you also have AD's velocity response curves to play with, you can choose to have more variation at the small end of the dynamic range and still have it ramp up very quickly as opposed to a straight linear response.

I love my Controlpad, BTW; dead simple, no-brainer to program!

[Len911]

...I'll agree you're never gonna get as nuanced or dynamic a performance as you can with actual drums

Before I can actually agree, I'd have to have not only an example of something you couldn't do with midi and sampled drums, but also a confirmation that a listener would notice the missing nuance and dynamicism (a word?) that the drummer intended.

A few examples that come to mind; if you needed a round robin that your samples didn't give you, you could increase or decrease the velocity to another layer sample and turn the gain up or down. you could move a note a few ticks forward or back, you could use a transient modulator and work on the transient of the audio portion of the note. So many ways to effect both the midi and audio, really what can't you do? Miss the drum and hit the mic??

I'm sure there is something, but what?

[jonnybutter]

So many ways to effect both the midi and audio, really what can't you do? Miss the drum and hit the mic??

I think what you can miss is the live, 'phenomenal' (please don't make me say 'phenomenoological') quality of music. The timing is always going to be different with a live physical thing and stick/hands/mallet. MIDI can be seriously inaccurate timing-wise as you know, so I surmise that what's different is the subtleties of the continual temporal refinement ('playing off yourself') in a tighter, and relatively constant timing environment. Add to that the greater range of subtle ways to physically vary a timbre, and it can add up to a big difference, IMHO.

I know it's not going to happen probably, but my secret dream is the advent of a new protocol to replace the original MIDI, something not-serial and/or higher bandwidth. I find that what I have always not liked about the MIDI-based studio (i.e. the studio I've been in since the late 80s!) is the lack of momentum created by timing-performances with more personality and life. You have to spend so much time editing to get something close to that! And if you're composing at the computer, the music isn't quite 'phenomenal' a lot of the time, because the timing is off, even when MIDI delays are supposedly compensated for and tracks are 'printed'. And of course once you print, you are semi-stuck with that tempo.

It's a truism that any live track(s) mixed in with MIDI ones always bring a track to life. Depending on the part - e.g. slammin' kick-snare kick-snare - of course you can get samples to sound indistinguishable from live drums (among others). And I have to say, I got a Control Pad on ebay and just love it. Super easy to program, as MJB said above, and works pretty well. My perc tracks definitely sound much better with this thing. But I hate MIDI delay and always will. Remember, it's not just a matter of a simple, constant delay; I think the delay changes depending on what else is going on, and it certainly feels like it changes as you play. So each performance, and the cumulative performance, comes out different.

Anyway, I hope someday there is a new MIDI protocol. The promise of a modern protocol and samples is almost instant realization of an orchestrated piece of music. You can kinda do that pretty well now, but timing can really be a problem. In just about every Taxi brief, it says tracks that 'sound MIDI won't work'. "Sounding midi' is not an exact term - it doesn't mean only one thing. But I think the *main* thing it means is timing issues - where notes sound either stiff or random - or both! Yikes.

[mojobone]

You have to remember that MIDI is a serial interface, and it's possible to choke some devices with too many notes. A device doesn't listen to all channels at once waiting to hear a note and trigger a sample; it scans, starting with zero or one, I forget which. If you want the tightest possible MIDI timing, turn off all other channels in your track (so that your sequencer only scans one channel per track) and put your drums on MIDI channel 1 instead of the default 10.Give the drums an entire track to themselves and their own MIDI cable. (this is why I bought an interface with four MIDI ports)

In really big orchestral ensemble mockups this doesn't matter quite as much as with your four-piece funk combo because large-group human timing isn't much better than MIDI's. And BTW, I hear they're working on a revision to the MIDI spec already to fix these very problems.

[jonnybutter]

Yes, I was hoping a new spec wouldn't be serial. That is great news if there is indeed a rev to MIDI!

In really big orchestral ensemble mockups this doesn't matter quite as much as with your four-piece funk combo because large-group human timing isn't much better than MIDI's. And BTW, I hear they're working on a revision to the MIDI spec already to fix these very problems.

For me, it matters almost as much, although I know what you're saying- each instrument isn't quite as critical. I have spent ungodly amounts of time editing bounces of orch. mockup tracks because they just weren't really acceptable otherwise. The problem is randomness, not sloppy playing. Sloppy playing can have its charms, but the more randomness that gets introduced the more dukey it sounds to me. Some VIs seem to be worse than others for this.

Hope I live to see the new MIDI spec!