Topic: Toontrack’s MIDI drum packs don’t trigger/map properly in Superior Drummer to my user-created drum map in Sonar X3

Toontrack’s MIDI drum packs don’t trigger/map properly in Superior Drummer to my user-created drum map in Sonar X3

Studio Corner

Posted April 30, 2015 at 10:47 #1903406

csnack
Participant

Hi everyone. I’m having an issue with Toontrack’s Superior Drummer MIDI mapping and the Toontrack MIDI drum pack loops. Basically, the Toontrack MIDI drum pack loops are not triggering properly with my user-defined/customized drum map in Sonar X3. Some of the drum sounds in the MIDI loops, like the kick drum and hi-hat may trigger fine, but the snare and other drum sounds in the loops are “unmapped” and not being heard/triggered when using my user-created drum map in Sonar X3. If I use the default Avatar NY Superior Drummer map that’s in Sonar X3 AND the default MIDI mapping in Superior Drummer THEN the loops will trigger properly, but as soon as I switch to my user-created drum map AND user-defined MIDI mapping in Superior Drummer (via the MIDI learn function), then the sounds from the MIDI drum pack do not trigger properly and some/most of the sounds in the loop end up “unmapped.”

Is there any way I can use my own customized drum map AND somehow have Toontracks MIDI drum loops trigger correctly to my drum map? I mean there must be a way, other than having to manually move the unmapped sounds to where I THINK they should have mapped.

In Sonar X3 I have created my own custom drum map so that in the Piano Roll view, when you change it to your user-created drum map in the Drum Map Manager you see a list of user-defined drum names. That’s common knowledge to any power-user. But I created a very specific drum map that places the drum sounds on specific keys on my M-Audio Oxygen 61 MIDI keyboard for easy playability. In order to do that, I had to remap the sounds using the MIDI learn function inside of Superior Drummer itself. It was a very delicate procedure dealing with Sonar’s Drum Map Manager AND the Superior Drummer MIDI learn function. This took some time and I had to use a Note Name-to-MIDI Note Number chart. And it works great both on my MIDI keyboard and in Sonar X3 where the drum names look very neat and organized in my user-created map in the Piano Roll view – – until I want to audition any of the MIDI drum loops from the Superior Drummer NY MIDI drum pack, THEN some of the sounds end up “unmapped.” Obviously there is a conflict between the way those MIDI drum pack loops were originally mapped by Toontrack and my user-created drum map.

Is there any way to fix that? I would love to be able to use my user-defined drum map AND have the MIDI from Toontrack’s drum packs be triggered properly by my map without having to manually move the unmapped sounds around. Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post, but perhaps this can help someone else out as well. Many thanks.
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Replied April 30, 2015 at 17:57 #1980206

Scott Eshleman
Participant

Have you defined keys for ALL of the articulations for each kit piece in your user-defined drum map?

with regards to “to be(ing) able to use my user-defined drum map AND have the MIDI from Toontrack’s drum packs be triggered properly by my map”,
I would think that one way to accomplish this is to add your custom drum mapping to the standard Toontrack drum mapping.
Obviously, any overlaps between the two mappings will be tricky.

Replied May 1, 2015 at 03:41 #1980211

csnack
Participant

Thanks for the reply gseshleman. I’m not sure what you mean by adding by custom drum mapping to Toontrack’s standard drum mapping. How is that done, or can I find that in the manual? And yes, I have defined keys for ALL of the articulations in the Avatar kit.

In any case…

I solved my own problem with a work-around. Here’s how I did it in case someone would search and find this helpful:

I use Superior Drummer 2.4.2 inside of Sonar X3e. My problem as already stated was that I had created a custom drum map in Sonar X3 that involved remapping the location of the drum sounds inside of Superior Drummer via SD’s “learn” function. I did this so that I could place the drum sounds on very specific keys on my MIDI keyboard just the way I like them for easy/ergonomic playability. (The default SD NY drum map in Sonar and the default mapping in SD have the sounds sparsely placed all over the place on my MIDI keyboard and on the drum map on the screen, which I found very disorganized and some of the sounds weren’t mapped on my keyboard at all). So the remapping in SD and custom drum map I made in Sonar worked just fine — until I wanted to audition and drag and drop some of the MIDI drum loops that comes with SD. Toontrack had mapped the sounds in those loops to their own specific locations that were not sympathetic to my user-created drum map and so while auditioning the loops I would typically only hear kick drum and maybe hi hat and the rest of the sounds were unmapped/unheard or the wrong sound got triggered, like a tom instead of snare etc.

The work-around was to use two instances of Superior Drummer; one for my user-created drum map and the other strictly for auditioning the loops – and in each instance I have a different mapping scheme; the SD instance just for auditioning has the “General MIDI” (or whatever its called) mapping preset selected so that the Toontrack MIDI loops can be auditioned and triggered correctly – and the second instance of SD has my customized mapping preset selected that works with my user-created drum map in Sonar X3e. After I audition a loop and drag/drop it to the MIDI track that corresponds with that specific instance of SD and I see/hear where the notes should be mapped, I then manually drag that MIDI data from the “audition track” to the MIDI track that has my user-created drum map on it. Then, I have to manually move some of the notes that ultimately end up “unmapped” to their correct locations in the Piano Roll/Drum Map view in Sonar. And while that’s somewhat a PITA to have to do, at least I am able to first audition the loops to see/hear where the individual drum sounds should be triggered before I manually move the loop to the other track with my user-created drum map on it where I then have to manually move some of the unmapped/wrongly mapped drum notes to the correct notes. I think this is the only way to be able to have both a user-created drum map for assigning notes to specific keys on a MIDI keyboard AND be able to audition loops from Toontrack’s MIDI packs and have them trigger correctly. If there is, in fact, another/better way then please let me know. Hope this helps someone.

Replied January 16, 2016 at 15:55 #1985611

Pixel
Participant

Hello,

I encounter the same issue. When I read your solution csnack, I think that finding a rope, right now, and hang myself would be easier.

Please someone tell me there is a way to “teach” the Grooves of superior 2, to execute their sounds with my user drums map.
I can’t imagine that superior drummer 2 can’t say to himself: “ok usually (by default) kick is in C1 but now it is in C0 so I do the maths, I do that to all my sounds and play the groove as it mean to be”!
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