How to: Add velocity dependent mappings

[Deofol]

This example uses the Roland HD-1, but can very easily be adapted to any velocity based midi inputs.

The goal here is to provide a more dynamic playing experience though triggers that don't provide added benefits of cymbal chokes, snare/tom rim shots, and ride bell sounds. This is accomplished using Midi-Ox (a midi utility that can transform midi signals based on various criteria) and LoopBe1 (A midi virtual loopback driver). Both of which can be found FREE in the following links, and should be downloaded and installed prior to continuing.

http://www.midiox.com/
http://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html

After installing both of these programs, hook up your system as you would normally play.

Open Midi-Ox and choose "Options, Midi Devices". Select your normal midi interface as the input, and "LoopBe Internal" as the output (You just have to highlight them to make them active). Click OK

Next in your VST host, make sure you select LoopBe1 as your midi input

Next Select the "Midi Data Mapping Transforms" icon on the toolbar in Midi-Ox(Just hover over each one for the tool tip)

You will see something like this.



However, you will not have all the mappings I have in the image.

When you select "Insert" on the "Translation Map" window, you will be presented with the top screen. Here you define what note you want to apply the transform to (38 is snare for the HD-1, see your manual for the midi note numbers for your kit). Next you see the velocity start and velocity end to apply the transform to. The bottom section "Send output to:" is which note you want to transform the input into. In the case in the image, I am making the 127 velocity (100% for midi) trigger note 37 (which is mapped to rimshot in AD).

I've found this useful for many different things, for example if you were to take the cymbal crash, and set the velocity between 0-15, and the output to cymbal choke, in most cases grabbing the cymbal after striking will result in a small velocity, and mute the cymbal. Neat huh?

I will include links to my midi-ox transforms, and AD mappings for velocity settings for a normal 5 piece operation of a Roland HD-1. These mappings work best when setting your HD-1 to the lowest sensitivity (#1, see manual for instructions).

With these two mapping you should have:

* Open Snare, and Rimshot @ max velocity 127
* Highhat tip @ 0-69, HH Shaft @ 70-126, and HH Bell @ 127
* Open Tom (1,2,3), and tom rimshot @ max velocity 127
* Ride Choke @ 0-15, ride tip @ 16-79, Ride Shaft @ 80-126, and Ride Bell @ max velocity 127
* Cymbal choke at 0-15, normal cymbal above 15
* Kick, well. Its still just a kick

With that should be enough information for you to implement on your own setup, and customize the velocities and mappings to your preference. If you have questions, or something here doesn't seem clear, please let me know.

Here are the Mappings and transforms as promised.

Addictive Drums Mapping for Velocity Transforms (Save in your AD "User Maps" folder)

Midi-Ox transforms for Roland HD-1 (Load from the Midi-Ox "Transformation Map" window)

Enjoy!

[buzzgary]

Wow, nice work. I'm going to give this a try.

But--- seeing as how AD is making so much fanfare (and they deserve it) about supporting e-drums and their specific models (awesome!) -- this kind of thing should be native to AD and able to be toggled on/off when the HD-1 is selected, in upcoming versions.

Gary

[buzzgary]

This is great. Good work.

Some issues and corrections:

1. No note off events are sent for velocities mapped to another midi note value. This means all ride bells and rim shots end up looking like a straight line in piano roll that extends all the way to the end of the recording.
For this reason alone, XLN should put this kind of support into AD as I mentioned in my previous post.

2. Mapping just velocity 127 to another note value (eg rim shot) means that voice will never receive any dynamics, contributing to playing overly aggressive to get consistent 127s and losing dynamics. I edited the snare mapping to turn 120-127 into rim shots with better results.

3. For some reason the hi hat bell mapping results in silence. I noticed the mapping for the foot controller also results in silence. So I removed all events relating to Hi Hat.

4. Ride cymbal choke- although crash choke works well and is a stroke of genius, I never want a subtle ride hit to be interpreted as silence. Removed that choke mapping as well.

5. Reduced threshold for bell on ride and raised threshold for ride cymbal wash/shoulder mapping (whichever it is). The switch from gentle stick tip voice and shoulder voice is anything but subtle so I want to avoid errant shoulder sounds when I meant to play gentle.

I'll upload my remapping file if anyone is interested.

But YMMV on my settings so might be best to play with the original file yourself.

I found it annoying that midi-ox mapping screen corresponds to note values 0-127 instead of note names C2 etc. I couldn't correlate the raw midi monitor feed in midi-ox with the mapping function without googling a midi note number chart to reference.

Kudos for all your work and awesome documentation!

One thing I missed initially was the apply mapping (after OK pressed) checkbox in the mapping screen- upper right corner. If those of you who tried the whole scheme out noticed no change then you probably missed it too.

I typed this all on my iPhone so apologies if anything doesn't read properly.

Cheers,

Gary