Where are drum kit maps stored?

[lydian91]

I make a drum map and store it with the "Save Drum Kit" drop down. I can use these stored mappings with other projects, so they must be stored somewhere, right? If I wanted to send these mappings to a friend, where could I find those files in the Finder. I thought they might be in Username (or Macintosh HD)>Library>Application Support>MOTU, but I can't find them in either place.

If the saved drum kits aren't only stored with the project, shouldn't DP have to reference them from somewhere on the HD?

[buzzsmith]

2nd cup of coffee...top of my head...

Do a Mac Spotlight search for the drum kit file name.

Spotlight should list a lot of files with similar names including the one that you're looking for.

Single click on that file and at the bottom of the window you should be able to see the path.

(I'm gonna guess a sub-folder of the VI possibly named "User Presets".)

Hope this helps!

Buzzy

[lydian91]

I tried that too, along with some extensive searching in the finder...no success. Any ideas?

[bayswater]

The Drum Editor is a challenge isn't it? It was always pretty opaque, and now the manual chapter hadn't been updated for some time (e.g. the description of the mini menu does not correspond what's in DP , so that just makes it more difficult to figure out. It's a shame because this editor is pretty powerful, but making your setups generally available is not well explained for the world of VIs.

I may be wrong, but I don't think DP stores drum maps in a specific folder or preference. Instead, the setup has to be associated with a patch as shown in the so-named column in the Track Overview. The names are then stored in the patch file as you edit them in the Drum Editor window. These patches are the old hardware MIDI patch lists and are stored in Library:Audio:MIDI Devices:MOTU: as .midnam files.

There doesn't seem to be a straightforward method of creating these files from scratch and making sure they end up on the above folder. You might be able to find one that looks close, copy and rename it, and then use the Drum Editor to edit it. Then send the midnam file to your collaborators, and they ought to be able to associated it with a MIDI file in the TO window, at which point, the drum names should show up in the Drum Editor.

Caveat: I haven't done this for a few years, and when I did I was working with a DM-5, so I can't be sure I have it all right.

[bayswater]

This has been bugging me for years, so I tried to come up with a work around so you can create a drum kit with the drum names mapped to drum notes, and then actually use that map again in a different project, and, more importantly, get the drum names to show up. The problem is the names are not stored in the drum kit created in the drum editor. All the kit has is the list of notes used. Pretty useless.

I think this is easy if you are using a hardware drum machine. You just bring up the midnam file for the drums in the TO. It already has preset drum names and you can edit them in the drum editor. It gets more difficult with a VI.

1. In a new project, create a MIDI Device Group that contains whatever you are using. One MIDI channel on one VI is all you need. I created a MIDI channel, and set the destination to Mach Five, and loaded the Mach Five Star drums. Selected Mach Five, channel one, to define a MIDI Device Group I called Star Drums.

2. Create a MIDI track and set it's destination to Star Drums. Write a load of notes into into this track to cover the range of available notes in the drum set, or at least those you want to name.

3. Go to the Drum Editor and edit the drum names. Save the kit in the Drum Editor.

4. Save a project that has this one sequence in it.

So far, it all standard stuff. Now for the workaround part:

5. Create a new project. Use the load command to import the MIDI Device Group from the previous project into this new project.

6. Create a MIDI track, and set it's destination to the imported MIDI Device Group. Draw in some notes.

7. Go to the Drum Editor, and select the saved drum kit. The drum names you save will come up instead of the note names.

In your case, you will have to send the original project with the MIDI Device Group to your collaborators. What's interesting is the project does not actually need a VI tracks containing the drum sounds to get the drum names to show up -- all you need is the MIDI Device Group.

[FMiguelez]

Thank you for that very detailed post, Bayswater.

With that, I have all the info I need to try the Drum Editor and give it a serious look (the names issue had made me lose interest in this editor). Not anymore

[lydian91]

Just got a reply from MOTU tech support. As I feared, the drum kits are stored in the preferences (i.e. Username>Library>Preferences>com.motu.DigitalPerformer>Preferences). I tested this to confirm.

I guess this method will only work well if you want to back things up for yourself. I've been using the Device Groups method, but the process (with VI's at least) of selecting "Patch 1" and loading the kit from the dropdown menu has been much faster.

Either method will work fine for now, but a lot of the projects I do involve percussion libraries with very detailed mappings. Because I would have so many mapped instruments, I'm hesitant about having to keep them all in one file. If it for some reason became corrupted, that would be a lot of work lost.

[bayswater]

Just got a reply from MOTU tech support. As I feared, the drum kits are stored in the preferences (i.e. Username>Library>Preferences>com.motu.DigitalPerformer>Preferences). I tested this to confirm.

I don't think all the elements of the drum kits are stored there. If you edit a set of names, save the drum kit, close the project, and start a new project, when you load the drum kit in the new project, the note list is there, but not the custom names, unless they were in a midnam file, or a MIDI Device Map, which is saved with the project. I best there might be pointers to files in the preferences, but not the drum names themselves.

[Prime Mover]

Wait... hold the phone... is it possible to create drum kits without Device Groups? I thought that was the only way DP could store drum elements. This has been one of my big and only gripes with DP, so if there's another way, PLEASE elaborate, because I've read the chapter up and down and it only talks about device groups. I was told at one point that drum kit maps were stored along with the device group in the project, so this is news to me that you can create externally loadable drum maps at all!

This $&%@s gotta change, crossing my fingers that MOTU does an overhaul on the drum editor for DP9.

[bayswater]

If you have an external drum machine with a midnam file, the note names are stored there. Otherwise you need a Device Group. A Device Group is a pretty simple 10 second task though. I've set up one for each of the main drum kits I use.