TD-17 and Drum Rack

Discuss Live-ready controllers other than Push.
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Delongpredannon
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:04 pm

TD-17 and Drum Rack

Post by Delongpredannon » Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:43 am

I just switched jobs and now work nights, so I can't just record drums during the day, since my whole life is upside down. Luckily I have my Roland TD17's but I'd like to use the MIDI functionality to control some of the more realistic sounding samples I have picked up. I am trying to get my TD17 kit to work with Ableton's Drum Rack correctly but wanted to ask if there was a better way to do things? Some of the pads are not mapped correctly out of the gate, and the velocity seems to not be anywhere near what playing the vdrums in their standalone mode feels like. I would love to understand how drum rack works a little better but after loading a few premade drums from ableton.com it seems too ridiculously complicated to someone who learned how to do this on tape with microphones instead of wires with midi!

Is there a better solution by skipping Drum Rack and using Addictive Drums or Sober Drummer or whatever they're all calling themselves?

Greenapples2019
Posts: 283
Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 6:43 pm

Re: TD-17 and Drum Rack

Post by Greenapples2019 » Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:00 am

Hi, I feel your pain. I have a TD17 and tried to do the same as you and found that the TD17 and Drum rack just didn't want to be friends: there was irregular latency which made aligning/quantizing really time-consuming; difficulties mapping things like the hi-hat pedal and yes, inconsistency with velocities. In the end I opted for this workaround:
1. Load the samples I wanted into a custom kit in the TD17
2. Record audio from the TD17

I really wanted to go down the MIDI route and have had success with the TM6-PRO but I was just spending too much time trying to get the TD17 to play MIDIball. Maybe someone else has found a solution?

Delongpredannon
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:04 pm

Re: TD-17 and Drum Rack

Post by Delongpredannon » Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:40 pm

Greenapples2019 wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 8:00 am
Hi, I feel your pain. I have a TD17 and tried to do the same as you and found that the TD17 and Drum rack just didn't want to be friends: there was irregular latency which made aligning/quantizing really time-consuming; difficulties mapping things like the hi-hat pedal and yes, inconsistency with velocities. In the end I opted for this workaround:
1. Load the samples I wanted into a custom kit in the TD17
2. Record audio from the TD17

I really wanted to go down the MIDI route and have had success with the TM6-PRO but I was just spending too much time trying to get the TD17 to play MIDIball. Maybe someone else has found a solution?
Well, at least I am not the only person who can't figure it out. I fully assumed that it was either so easy that no one ever talks about it anywhere, or it is impossible. The one thing I haven't tried is record the drums and then convert the audio to midi. I can't imagine it sounding perfect but it could be close enough to get something weird to play with.

Thanks for the affirmation that I am at the very least not mentally insufficient to make music anymore!

Delongpredannon
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:04 pm

Re: TD-17 and Drum Rack

Post by Delongpredannon » Thu Jun 01, 2023 5:49 pm

hey @ableton is there any secret sauce to making this work? I hate the idea of recording electronic drums

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