Ableton Forum

Hi:

I got me a basic V-drum kit (the HD-1), and I'd like to use it to trigger sounds in any of several vst drum synths I have. This is tricky to do, especially with Microtonic.

The V-drums have their midi notes hard coded, fairly close to and general midi drum standard. In Live, the note names are:

kick C1
Snare D1
Tom1 C2
Tom2 A1
Tom3 G1
Crash C#2
Ride D#2
Hat_op A#1
Hat_cl F#1
Hat_ped G#1

Microtonic has its triggers hard coded as well (I will obviously only get 8 drums max to sound from one instance of Mictrotonic):

I C1 (Yay!)
II C#1
III D1
IV D#1
V E1
VI F1
VII F#1
VIII G1


So, out of the box I can trigger the kick and snare ok. Except that, if I hit Tom1, this will also trigger a kick - not what we want.

So my (first) question is:

How do I redirect the output of the Tom1 trigger (i.e. C2) to another pad in Microtonic? I can't see doing this with Ableton's "Pitch" plugin without disabling C1 as well.

Thanks for any ideas (I have searched the forum and the web, which helped me get this far, but no farther).

e.

epiphanius wrote:...Microtonic has its triggers hard coded as well...

Choosing to "Edit Midi Controllers/Keys", in the drop down menu in the Microtonic interface, does not actually change the midi assignments?

Hi-

It's the "Scale" plugin you need, not the pitch one. Should work fine.

Rob.

UncleAge:

Thanks! I didn't even think to look that far into Microtonic. This solves the issue with Microtonic, thanks so much.

Sadly, other VSTs are not as flexible: Waldorf Attack does not seem to offer this feature, so the problem still comes up (though not with Microtonic, I'm very glad to understand).

RobC:

The problem with the "Scale" plugin is that you have to make a rule that applies to all notes of a given name, ie any rule that applies to C1 (kick) would also affect C2 (tom1). I could use "Pitch" to block all notes lower than C2, but then I wouldn't have a kick. How would I use Scale and/or Pitch to change the note C2 without blocking C1?

I appreciate both replies, thanks.

e-

You have to fiddle around a bit, but it is worth it- the scale plugin lets you set the lowest note and the range. So you have one that does C1 up to, but not including, C2; and another one in series that does what you want with C2.

Rob.

If you have max for live, schwartzonator http://www.schwarzonator.com might help

I have posted a small tutorial quite a while ago. Please check this forum post: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=122640, third entry. There I explain using the combination of one MIDI Effects Rack combined with Pitch Effects for each of the drum notes you want to map. IMHO this is easier than using the Scale Effect. HTH, Martin

Trommelmeister:

Thanks - I will spend the next couple of hours going through that, it looks very helpful.

RobC:

I'm interested in learning how to use Scale to do what I want, but I had some trouble getting it to work as you describe. I will look into it, and reply again.

Thanks again for both replies,

e.

the midi effect rack/pitch devices seems the most general. I have a few midi racks that convert VDrums or Yamaha to Imap, and then Imap to GM+ (session drums) and SSD. They're all done that way; it's not too difficult, just time consuming.

Yup, thanks again to Trommelmeister for the original tutorial. I am much further along in understanding the midi rack, as well as being able to use Attack the way I would like to.

e.