Roland SPDS custom MIDI sampler set-up

[504slacker]

I'm looking to use a Roland SPDS drum pad to trigger MIDI into a sampler in Ableton Live. Right now, we use Reaktor inside of Ableton Live.

Our ex-bass player built the sampler unit in Reaktor that is custom designed for our setup with the SPDS. The only problem is that due to the way he built the sampler, we are reaching our maximum number of patches and need to expand. Instead of reworking the Reaktor sampler (which is complicated and a little over my head as I'm not very familiar with Reaktor), we were wondering what our options are in Ableton Live 8.

Right now it's something like this:
-SPDS via MIDI into Reaktor (as a VST instrument in Ableton)

We use multiple patches of various samples that we make ourselves. So the SPDS has 10 pads (one is triggered by a pedal). There are 1-3 patches of 10 samples each per song in our set, so if you do the math, we need quite a bit of sampling space for all of this. We need stereo capabilities and the ability to map the patch change buttons on the SPDS to change entire patches of samples on the fly, as our drummer often changes patches mid-song. Does anyone have any suggestions as far as Ableton Samplers or some kind of method that we can use to replace the Reaktor sampler? I'm trying to keep things as streamlined as possible so it doesn't get too complicated. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a bunch

[R_Lovelock]

There are 1-3 patches of 10 samples each per song in our set, so if you do the math, we need quite a bit of sampling space for all of this. We need stereo capabilities and the ability to map the patch change buttons on the SPDS to change entire patches

HELP!!!!!

Hi there. I've recently bought an spd-s to work with ableton live 8. I have a similar situation to you. In our live set I need to be able to trigger 14 different samples (one per song) containing click tracks, B.V's and some other bits and bobs. I have set up 14 patches, one for each song, and my aim is to use the same pad (pad 9) to start the track in each patch. (Saves me remembering which pad does what. Only problem is I can't get the patch function on the spds to work, do I need to alter the note that the spds send to ableton (currently a Gsharp 3)for each patch?

Is wat i'm trying to do hopelessly complicated?

Any suggestions for another method!? I could really do with some help on this one!
Even if you don't think you know the answer, if you know someone that might, or have found similar posts on here that may help, please give me a shout! thanks!

Many thanks

Richard 'titch' Lovelock
richard_lovelock@hotmail.co.uk

[504slacker]

HELP!!!!!

Hi there. I've recently bought an spd-s to work with ableton live 8. I have a similar situation to you. In our live set I need to be able to trigger 14 different samples (one per song) containing click tracks, B.V's and some other bits and bobs. I have set up 14 patches, one for each song, and my aim is to use the same pad (pad 9) to start the track in each patch. (Saves me remembering which pad does what. Only problem is I can't get the patch function on the spds to work, do I need to alter the note that the spds send to ableton (currently a Gsharp 3)for each patch?

Is wat i'm trying to do hopelessly complicated?

Any suggestions for another method!? I could really do with some help on this one!
Even if you don't think you know the answer, if you know someone that might, or have found similar posts on here that may help, please give me a shout! thanks!

Many thanks

Richard 'titch' Lovelock
richard_lovelock@hotmail.co.uk

Hi Richard,

We ended up sort of sidestepping that problem by just going with the sampler that our friend had built in reaktor already. We did, however, use the ableton sampler with another midi controller. We basically took an ableton drum rack and loaded samples onto that. You could theoretically use this with the SPDS, the only thing you'd have to do is figure out how to map the MIDI on the patch select buttons on the SPDS to change the octaves on the drum rack, in order to select different groups of samples. I also saw some video tutorials recommending the use of chain selector/key selector to give you more flexibility in the number of samples you can use. This link might help: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=155894

Let me know if you figure it out if you don't mind. Eventually, I'd like to switch our stuff over to that format to streamline things a bit. Good luck!

[outershpongolia]

We originally bought the SPD-s to add some electronic sounds to our acoustic drum set..

So I set up 4 drum racks - with about 16-32 sounds each ( for now ) - the first 8 SPD-s pads trigger sounds and the last pad will launch clips so you could essentially play back pre-recorded loops or record your own on-the-fly..

Patch 1 on the SPD-s is the first 8 pads and Patch 2 is the last 8 - these are the 16 notes that correspond to the "box" in drum racks so I figured a Remote Script would be our best bet - so we can essentially drag this "box" anywhere and be able to trigger all 128 samples across 4 drum racks - more than enough space to grow.

Then we've also got 2,4,8,16,32 bar risers,sweeps,builds,etc that my drummer can launch with the pads, these are just audio clips - so 4 bars before a transition he can start some sort of swoosh riser clip that comes in on the last bar for some extra flavor.

It's also fun to set up dummy clips in the drum racks that are like 2,4, or 8 bars long with the pitch bend slowly descending or ascending - this way you can trigger off the dummy clip in quantize to the rest of the music and do pitched snare rolls on the pads - so dummy clip automation is really fun because you can have things happening quantized to the music and not have to worry about controlling it - this is great for my drummer because obviously his hands are full..

sorry for the rant but I could post the liveset for you guys if you're interested, cheers!

EDIT: forgot to mention that we also use an APC40 to control this live set, so switching between drum racks, launching dummy clips, adding delay, reverb, or any other effects is really easy - playing drums while using controllers is hard, but it's doable, ask EOTO.

If only Live's sync would be tighter we could get away with some more involved stuff but for now it works fine as far as sync'd delays and launching quick percussive loops

[504slacker]

I could post the liveset for you guys if you're interested, cheers!

That would be awesome! I'd like to see it in action. It's quite a lot to visualize just by reading your post. Thanks for the help!

[504slacker]

Also, I don't know if you guys saw this yet, but it's pretty useful for complex automation and it's free. It's called Clyphx. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCFFIVCculI

[outershpongolia]

http://www.mediafire.com/?lhybbo54mn8g4om

[504slacker]

forgot to mention that we also use an APC40 to control this live set, so switching between drum racks, launching dummy clips, adding delay, reverb, or any other effects is really easy - playing drums while using controllers is hard, but it's doable, ask EOTO.

So you guys don't use the patch change buttons on the SPDS to switch between drums racks, you use the APC to do that? Just checking. We're trying to figure out a way to do everything remotely from the SPDS. We also wouldn't necessarily launch clips, we'd just use the drums racks to trigger the sounds. Just need to figure out how to switch between the drums racks. I'm sure there's an easy way. Youtube isn't really helping.

Also outersphongolia, someone commented on our bands' website about some of our tunes. They recommended we listen to sphongle, and I recognized the name of one of their tunes as your username. Just curious if that was you.

[outershpongolia]

forgot to mention that we also use an APC40 to control this live set, so switching between drum racks, launching dummy clips, adding delay, reverb, or any other effects is really easy - playing drums while using controllers is hard, but it's doable, ask EOTO.

So you guys don't use the patch change buttons on the SPDS to switch between drums racks, you use the APC to do that? Just checking. We're trying to figure out a way to do everything remotely from the SPDS. We also wouldn't necessarily launch clips, we'd just use the drums racks to trigger the sounds. Just need to figure out how to switch between the drums racks. I'm sure there's an easy way. Youtube isn't really helping.

Also outersphongolia, someone commented on our bands' website about some of our tunes. They recommended we listen to sphongle, and I recognized the name of one of their tunes as your username. Just curious if that was you.

No, I listen to shpongle so I just made that my username - we only use 2 patches on the Roland, the first one is 8 notes, and the next one is 8 notes - these 16 notes represent the 16 pads in the drumracks when you go to make a User Remote Script - so basically we can use 2 patches to access any note in the drumrack since you can drag the little box around - BUT we don't actually need this because we use the APC40 to select which drumrack is armed, etc, etc

[504slacker]

No, I listen to shpongle so I just made that my username - we only use 2 patches on the Roland, the first one is 8 notes, and the next one is 8 notes - these 16 notes represent the 16 pads in the drumracks when you go to make a User Remote Script - so basically we can use 2 patches to access any note in the drumrack since you can drag the little box around - BUT we don't actually need this because we use the APC40 to select which drumrack is armed, etc, etc

What a wierd coincidence. I'd never heard of shpongle before, except twice in one day. Thanks for the help. Our setup is a little bit different, but I think what you had will help us out. Much appreciated!