[Greybelly]

So now it has been 5 years and still no action taken on this issue.

I have just bought Superior Drummer 3 and I immediately ran into this problem on my first project.

I am a Pro Tools user.  In Pro Tool you can set the song start to any bar/measure you like.

For example -7, -2, 0, 1 or 13 if you wanted to.

However in Superior Drummer 3 it is internally hard coded to bar 1.

So that means I have to change my Pro Tools work flow to accommodate Superior Drummer 3.  NOT GOOD!

So what are the use cases for this problem?  I’ll start with my own.

I personally set the start of the song to bar 0.  At bar 0 the song has not started.  The song length is 0.  When I did mathematics 0 was a good place to start.  When I look at the end of the song and it’s bar 192, I know the length of the entire song is 192 bars long.

When I put a 2 bar count-in in front of the song, it starts at bar -2.  That clearly indicates that there are 2 bars before the song starts at bar 0.

However with Superior Drummer 3 I don’t have access to add drum beats to any part of the song before bar 1.

So, no count-in provided by Superior Drummer 3 and no first bar of the song provided by Superior Drummer 3 is possible.

Within Superior Drummer 3 there is a setting on the General tab called “First Bar” described as “Set what the first bar should be called in song tracks and the Tracker.”  The options are “Bar 0” and “Bar 1”.  Unfortunately this is of no help in this situation.  Superior Drummer 3 will still only start on bar 1 of Pro Tools, whether it is labeled “Bar 0” or “Bar 1” within Superior Drummer 3.

From @Henrik Question: “If I set the starting bar to -2 in Logic Pro X, Superior Drummer 3 will still be in sync, it’s just that the 2 first bars aren’t visible. Is it like that in your DAW?”
Answer: The Superior Drummer 3, Song Track window only shows drum beats from bar 1, whether that is labelled 0 or 1. When you get Superior Drummer 3 to Follow Host and start Pro Tools playing, you see the play cursor in the Song Track window come from left of the screen and when it hits bar 1 it will start playing drum beats as expected from Superior Drummer 3. You can’t see any bars before bar 1 and you can not edit or enter beats before bar 1. The song however keeps playing and is in sync in  Pro Tools.

From @Henrik Question: “Do you need to have the 2 bars (-2 and -1) visible in Superior Drummer 3 to accomplish your task?
Answer: Yes. Users will possible need even more bars visible. A user setting could capture how many bars are required. So ask the user ‘How many bars are required before the start bar?’. This also implies that the number of the start bar should also be a user setting. ‘The song starts on bar ??? of the song in the DAW.’

From @Henrik Question: “E.g. you will record something there, and/or you do need it in the stand alone?”
Answer: Yes and Yes. Typically a 2 bar count-in with cow-bell or whatever. But a drummers fancy drum fill might be considered before the start of the song and may go for who-knows how many bars.

To conclude, if a musician, engineer, producer . . whatever, considers several or lots of bars as a count-in, lead-in, preamble, mood setter . . whatever, you should not stifle their workflow and creativity. It’s a computer. It supposed to serve humans. It can be programmed. There is no question about that. Make it so!

[Author]

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