Triggering a Drum VSTi

[Amberience]

I have Addictive Drums, Jamstix2, and EZDrummer with the DFH addon.

Would a cheap electronic kit be good enough to play these with? I'm not sure what their midi resolutions would be like and how well they would function with a VSTi.

I'm almost assuming that the provided sound module would suck ass, this seems to be the general consensus for kits around £200. But I'm wondering if replacing that with a VSTi would give me a decent kit to play with.

[downfader]

Hey matey, never noticed this.

The thing I wonder is this... latency? You should be able to play said vsti's with a trigger or midipad set up, but you might find that latency makes them play a split second after you hit.

You could ofcourse get around this by using the crappy sounds monitored along with your soundcard into a cheap little mixer and then paste the midi into your chosen VSTi's track..?

[Amberience]

Hey Downy,

Well, I've got an ASIO soundcard, so I can get low latencies - I can play guitar through my PC without a hitch, so drums should be possible too.

What I'm wondering is whether something like one of these ION kits would be expressive enough to work well with a drum vsti. I mean, the built in sounds probably suck, granted. But if I can provide my own sounds, would a sub-£200 kit be a viable option?

I just don't know if I want to buy one and go to all the hassle of trying it out to find out that the pads aren't sensitive enough or expressive enough.

[downfader]

Hmm I did see this and think of you:

http://www.dv247.com/invt/46927/

50 quid more and you could get a DM Basic Kit and they're pretty expressive for the money.

[Amberience]

http://www.dv247.com/invt/32254/

You mean that?

Hmmm.. this gets interesting. I got around £230 for xmas, and I could squeeze out the rest, but as long as I thought it would be worth it.

Bear in mind I'm only really a beginner drummer, nothing of the sort that I want to be anyway. But the ability to record my own drum tracks would be cool. Anyone else chime in and tell me more about these kits?

[downfader]

The feel of the cheaper pads is similar to the octopads and hand sonics you get - the benefit being its easier to hit a larger space. Had a go in Soundcontrol today on a few little bits. Obviously its nothing like real drums (not that I've ever had a proper go) but with a bit of adjustment and practise its still a good tool.

Ideally I would say you'd need to try these all out before you buy and you might be just as comfortable recording one little bit at a time and comping via a single pad.

[danabnormal]

Not a recommendation, a note of avoidance.

Got a Yamaha DD-65 for Christmas. Onboard sounds crappy, but I don't care about that as I wanted to use it as a MIDI controller. 7 pads plus hat and bass peddle, so all looks good. Plugged it all together, one big big problem.

The hihat pedal cannot be used to alternate closed/open hihats when used with MIDI.

If using onboard sounds, pressing the pedal and hitting the hat pad creates a closed hat sound. Hitting the hat pad with peddle un-pressed does open sound. This doesn't happen when being used with MIDI (hat pad + peddle doesn't send a different MIDI signal).

So just a word of warning there. Its a great shame because I like the feel of the device, the pads are responsive and its a nice little machine. All let down with a blatant 'design' flaw.

Hope that helps!

[danabnormal]

If you're looking to use Addictive Drums you'll need to use a different drum map - I've got a file of this at home and will upload it this evening for you. If its of use I can take some screenshots of setting this up in Cubase SX 3 if needed.

[DeviousESimian]

If using onboard sounds, pressing the pedal and hitting the hat pad creates a closed hat sound. Hitting the hat pad with peddle un-pressed does open sound. This doesn't happen when being used with MIDI (hat pad + peddle doesn't send a different MIDI signal).

So just a word of warning there. Its a great shame because I like the feel of the device, the pads are responsive and its a nice little machine. All let down with a blatant 'design' flaw.

Hope that helps!

Could be that the pedal sends a MIDI CC message - that'd give more flexibility when using an external sampler.

[danabnormal]

Could be that the pedal sends a MIDI CC message - that'd give more flexibility when using an external sampler.

TBH my knowledge of under the hood MIDI is very rudimentery, so you may be right.

Theres lots about this issue on the interweb - lots of talk about the brain not sending the required instructions, which I think is the problem as I can't even remap the signal once it reaches the pooter.