Can V-Drums be used to trigger MIDI sounds in Cakewalk SONAR?

[EvenAce]

Hi guys and gals, I'm very new to E-Drumming but have played traditional drums for quite a few years. As a sound engineering student I'm very concerned with protecting my hearing, and as I can't stand the sound of my real drums with hearing protection on, and that fact that I'm more into Electronic music now, I've decided to go down the V-Drums route. That is, after I sell my Premier SIGNIA kit.

I use Cakewalk SONAR, and having a Soundblaster live card means I can use MIDI triggered SOUNDFONTS which can be any sound I want, from sampled drum hits off records, to my own wierd concoctions. I've got absolutely no idea what kind of MIDI connections the V-Drums have, I only remember having a bash at a Drum Trade show a few years ago, and I wasn't really into MIDI sequencing at the time.

Just wondering if it is possible to use the V-Drums as MIDI triggers? I'd like to build up my own SOUNDFONTS in Cakewalk, and providing I've assigned each sound to the correct pad controller, play my own drum sounds through Cakewalk. I currently use a MIDI controller keyboard, but as a drummer it would be liberating to acctually use my hands and feet to play the sounds instead of tapping fingers on a crappy controller keyboard...

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give me, I haven't sold my real drums yet, but I will if I can do all this stuff with Cakewalk (or any other sequencer for that matter such as Logic Audio)

Cheers!

[Snills]

Yes you can do this...
There are many crappy SF's out there for drums, and you have to play with the velocity to get them to feel realistic on your kit. But, there are some excellent Sound Fonts as well.
http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml/...=Clearmountain
http://www.sonicimplants.com/freesoundfonts.htm

Some are free, but the better ones aren't. I hear that Gigasample has some great drums as well, and they can be converted to SF's. I'm a SBLive user like you and have played around with building ddrum soundfonts http://home.attbi.com/~wblack03/

As far as setup goes, just unplug the cable from your keyboards Midi-OUT connector and plug it into your TD10's Midi-OUT. I beleive default TD10 settings should work, if not check the manual for Global midi settings. Then use the Vienna Soundfont editor to edit your SF and re-assign any note numbers that aren't assigned correctly. There's a feature in Vienna where you can select a sound and hit a pad to automatically asign the sound to the pads note number. Very handy.

What I really want to get into is creating Kits in "Propellerheads Reason" and layering them with V kits or soundfonts.

Good Luck
Bill

[EvenAce]

Thanks for such a quick reply Bill!

I've been toying with this idea for quite some time, I just needed to know if it could be done and you've pretty much cleared that up for me. When I do get everything we'll be able to swap soundfonts eeh!

As far as getting a set of V-Drums, what would you recommend. Are there any particular models (perhaps later versions??) which are are better buy? And what kind of kit configurations can you buy (ie 5 piece, etc) I don't even know what the model numbers are. If you have any information about them I'd greatly appreciate it if you could e-mail it to me? All I know is that by selling my real drums, I should have enough $$$ to get myself either a new or secondhand set of V-Drums. I've seen them going secondhand for around AU$2500, not sure how much they are new over here though...

Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it!


Baring in mind that I'm from Australia!