Drum Editor workaround in DP8? [RESOLVED]

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FMiguelez
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Drum Editor workaround in DP8? [RESOLVED]

Post by FMiguelez »

Hi, guys.

I'm willing to take the time to label, in the drum editor, some very large latin percussion ensembles I'm currently heavily using, since I'm tired of seeing the little bars in the GE and guessing what each is.

I will patiently name each, but I remember there was a bug or a workaround during this workflow that I needed to do or avoid? And something about losing the sets if something was not done? Please refresh my memory.

I don't want to spend hours doing this, only to find out later that the Drum Editor is buggy in DP8, or my sets don't work properly...

How is it working for you, guys?
Last edited by FMiguelez on Mon May 11, 2015 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by bayswater »

I never figured out how to reliably reload a set of drum names created in one project into another. Sometimes I couldn't even get the names to re-appear in the project where they were created.

I doubt anything was fixed in V8. The GUI for the Drum Editor was not even updated to work properly with themes.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by Tritonemusic »

FM, I've never tried it, but I think there was a way to do it with Device Groups.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by FMiguelez »

Yeah, perhaps that´s part of the necessary workflow, the Devices thing. I don´t think I've ever used them, though...

It's just that my impression is like Bays', that the DE is a bit unreliable, and if things may not work even when recalling the same project, that doesn't sound too encouraging.

I'm under a tight deadline and I need to waste as little time as possible playing with things that may not be well implemented. On the other hand, I waste so much time clicking on little bars to remember what each is supposed to be. And, these, being large sets, with the manual and implementation with a WRONG middle C (sorry, middle C should always be C4, not C5 or C3), can become quite annoying and unintuitive.

I'm hoping someone has finally figured this out and tell us about a reliable way to use the drum sets.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by bayswater »

Tritonemusic wrote:FM, I've never tried it, but I think there was a way to do it with Device Groups.
Yes, using a device group is necessary. But it wasn't sufficient. FM you might save yourself a lot of grief by typing out your map on a big sticky.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by rentadrummer »

I'm using an older version of DP but I can confirm that Device Groups works and can be imported from one project to another. I don't do it that way very often, and instead I usually start with a template that includes a saved Device Group, and where I have an already labeled Drum Editor.

It's also necessary to save the kits once labeled, which is done via the pull down menu at the bottom of the DE window. That way if you add a new MIDI track, and not all of the instrument names are shown, you can select the kit you saved and all of the names should reappear.

You've probably searched, but there are some older posts that discuss saving kits and could help:
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 26&t=49419
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 26&t=49280

I set up my Drum Editor so long ago, and haven't had to make any changes, that I don't exactly remember everything I did to make it work.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by bayswater »

I'm tempted to have another run at this, and see if I can get a reliable reusable map. The Drum Editor could be really useful.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by FMiguelez »

Thank you , Ron.

I have just checked out those threads (I participated in one of them).

I will try it once following the instructions of the threads, with a small kit, and see if it works and if I like it. This seems to be the perfect moment for me to try the drum editor and decide if it will be my future friend or it will still get ignored completely.

I'll post my results after I do these tests.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by bayswater »

While you're at it, try this: Create a Drum Kit, and save it. Now load another Drum Kit, e.g. one of a defaults like GM MIDI. When I do this, the names I set up in the Drum Kit I created remain in place and are applied to the newly loaded Drum Kit.

This is either a bug, or I don't understand the relationship between Tracks, Device Group, Drum Kits, and Names. Presumably, if you go to a new Drum Kit, you would expect the relationship between the notes and the Drum Names to change? Instead it appears that the names apply to anything, as long as the Device Group is constant.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by dewdman42 »

I've tried to work with the drum kit names before and it seems like I got it working once, but later on I couldn't figure it out and names kept disappearing. Name a drum kit and can't figure out where the heck its stored.

Yea so create MIDI Device Group with a single device being a VI, seems to work ok, until I open a new project and can't find that saved MIDI Device Group anywhere to reuse all the saved stuff. how do you save the MIDI Device Group? That seems to be where drum kits are saved in some way, but beats me where that built in GM drum kit is stored, especially since its always there even when no MIDI Device Group is being used.

Bottom line, this "feature" is sketchy. I think it might work if you're using an actual external hardware MIDI device, which is probably where this legacy code was originally designed to handle. When using VI's and stuff like that, its quite confusing at best and downright infuriating.

The idea to save stuff into a template seems like a neccessary step, but I guess if you're not going to start with your template, then you'll be stuck with no way to reload MIDI device group definitions with previously defined drum kits.

MOTU is way behind the curve on this one....for sure...
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by bayswater »

dewdman42 wrote:Yea so create MIDI Device Group with a single device being a VI, seems to work ok, until I open a new project and can't find that saved MIDI Device Group anywhere to reuse all the saved stuff. how do you save the MIDI Device Group?
It gets saved with a project, so AFAIK it has to be loaded from that project if you want to use it in another project.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by dewdman42 »

right, just figured that out.. Good to know its possible. its definitely not designed well. MOTU is way behind the curve here, still using old stuff from the old days of hardware synths, and hasn't really updated it to make sense for VI's...IMHO.

Seems to me like the middev and midnam capabilities of OSX needs to be expanded to include general support for non-hardware devices. So that we can create middev and midnam files for any plugin we want, save drum kits there, etc..

MIDI Device Groups should really only be for the case where you need to group several MIDI devices into a "group", but the underlying definitions of devices, patches, drum kits, etc..is really part of a MIDI device. its just that DP doesn't consider VI's to be MIDI devices...so...they are let out in the cold. still its good to know this is at least kind of possible.

I wish we could just create middev and midnam files which wrap around VI's. I also wish we could wrap MIDI device wrappers around IAC and network MIDI...so that they appear in bundles and basically give us one consolidate view of all MIDI ins and outs, with common functionality such as able to send MMC, etc.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by bayswater »

dewdman42 wrote:MIDI Device Groups should really only be for the case where you need to group several MIDI devices into a "group"
Agree. The use of Device Groups for this purpose seems to be a bit of a kludge. All we need is a means to map notes to names, and a display that only shows the notes we're using in a drum set. It doesn't have to be related to a specific device or VI.
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by Tritonemusic »

FMiguelez wrote:This seems to be the perfect moment for me to try the drum editor and decide if it will be my future friend or it will still get ignored completely.
I hope you find a way to still use the DE, because I think it's one of the coolest things in DP. The way you can manipulate a drum roll, e.g., is amazing. Can't do those kinds of things in the MIDI Editor (unless you have enormous amounts of time to come up with similar results).
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Re: Do we still need the Drum Editor workaround in DP8?

Post by mikehalloran »

I am going to wait for DP 9 before I look at DE again. Just saying...
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