Roland TD 11 midi notes mapping

[monks]

Hi, I noticed in my TD 11 KV that Roland seems to map the midi notes an octave higher than what seems typical elsewhere. I have Ableton and all of the drum racks are mapped an octave lower. I also read about midi mapping in a blog which gave the midi notes for kick, snare etc as one octave lower than what Roland had set them in the kit. Am I correct in saying this? I'm asking because it would make life easier if I just changed the midi notes in the drum kit to match existing drum mapping in Ableton and elsewhere.

[hairmetal-81]

Welcome to the forum, monks!



Definitively do the re-mapping inside the TD-11! - ....Else, you will have a whole lot of work before you, doing the mapping in each and every Ableton-rack/VST-plugin /other possible sound-source, that you're intent to use!

From a quick glance through the TD-11s owner's manual, I couldn't find any specific chart on how exactly the TD-11s MIDI-note-numbers are assigned, or IF they're assigned differently to the normal GM-Standard!



Usually, the drum-sounds are mapped by the 'General MIDI' (GM) standard, in the following way:

• (36) C1 - Bass Drum
• (37) C#1 - Rimshot
• (38) D1 - Snare Drum
• (41) F1 - Low Tom 2
• (42) F#1 - Closed Hi-hat
• (43) G1 - Low Tom 1
• (44) G#1 - Pedal Hi-hat
• (45) A1 - Mid Tom 2
• (46) A#1 - Open Hi-hat
• (47) B1 - Mid Tom 1
• (48) C2 - High Tom 2
• (49) C#2 - Crash Cymbal 1
• (50) D2 - High Tom 1
• (51) D#2 - Ride Cymbal 1
• (53) F2 - Ride Bell
• (55) G2 - Splash Cymbal
• (56) G#2 - Cowbell
• (57) A2 - Crash Cymbal 2

...If the TD-11 indeed differs from this, IMO that would be not to the TD-11s favour!




HTH

[Cheddies]

I will plug mine in later today and tell you the standard map for the td11

[monks]

Thanks guys, I wrote to Roland about this- not because of the mapping, although I don't think it's a good choice of notes, but because I think I have a small bug in my Roland software since the snare rim is showing an asterisk, indicating the note is being used by another drum. It isn't. I'm not sure if that will create a problem in the Ableton yet, but if it does I'll have to shift it to another note. The tech support said they would contact Roland Japan about it.
Yes I figured there was a standard way of mapping drums since I found the same mapping in two unrelated places. The Roland is an octave out. I'm using the latest firmware so that's not the problem. I seem to remember Yamaha has done some non-standard things regards midi in the past, so this wouldn't be the first time I've seen differences in implementation.
I wrote all of the notes down in the back of the manual before I changed them.

head/rim

Kick 36/C2
Snare 38/D2 40/E2
xstk 37/C#2
Tom1 48/C3 50/D3 //equates to HighTom2 in GM map
Tom2 45/A2 47/B2 //MidTom1
Tom3 43/G2 58/A#3 //LowTom1
HH Op 46/A#2 26/D1
Cl 42/F#2 22/A#0
Pdl 44/G#2
Crsh1 49/C#3 55/G3
crsh2 57/A3 52/E3
Ride 51/D#3 59/B3
Bell 53/F3

The GM map will be useful because I don't think a simple octave shift in the mapping will be good- I think a lot of them are though.//looking at it more cloesly it is pretty much an octave out. There are just some additional notes in the Roland because of the rim shots and cross sticks.

The rim shot 37 in the GM map is presumably the snare rim shot. I've not had chance yet to check any of the drum racks. I'll probably use the Ableton studio drums racks assignments for the extra notes.

//just noticed that the midi notes are the same but the musical notes are not. They've got the musical notes incorrect. They're saying 36 = C2 instead of C1. Maybe they programmed in the displayed notes incorrectly or they mapped them incorrectly as well. I've not tried it yet but the error seems worse than I first thought.

/// I've just tested the TD 11 with a drum rack in Ableton 9. The TD kick drum is firing C0 in the rack. Since I've set my TD an octave lower from C2 to C1, you can see that the internal mapping in the TD is correct. I think it's just the display of the musical note equivalents in the midi editor that are incorrect. All I need to do is reset them back up an octave, and then assign the extra stuff. I've mailed Roland about it.

monks

[hairmetal-81]

Well, as you have noticed, the MIDI note-numbers are pretty much the same, only the note-names are different.
This could probably be due to another way of counting used (...you'd think one would start with 'C0' at you lowest octave, maybe the counting happened on something shorter than an 88-key keyboard) (?)

Have you actually hooked up the TD-11 to something like Ableton, to see, if the sounds are off, not only in theory?


Paper doesn't blush, you know.....





HTH

[BarT]

//just noticed that the midi notes are the same but the musical notes are not. They've got the musical notes incorrect. They're saying 36 = C2 instead of C1. Maybe they programmed in the displayed notes incorrectly or they mapped them incorrectly as well. I've not tried it yet but the error seems worse than I first thought.

That's the "octave out" which you already observed. But it's not really an error as such, just the lack of a definitive universal standard. It all depends what your definition of Octave Zero is:

Note numbers do not correspond
http://www.vdrums.com/forum/forum/ad...not-correspond

Bruce

[monks]

I told Roland that I was only really reporting the bug which was the asterisk still showing on a note which wasn't duplicated. That was a bug. This other stuff was just out of interest. The bug may have occured because by lowering everything by an octave some notes were taken below the range of C0. I don't know. The other stuff, was just out of interest, -as you say is not really a biggie on reflection because of a lack of a definitive standard. But you'd think an 88 note keyboard was the definitive concert standard, or at least useful enough to use. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to use a different reference point for C0 or whatever imo. Who knows.
I hooked it up to Ableton anyway and the note mappings agree with GM and the drum racks I've tested. The other notes such as xsticks are non standard so need manual mapping. Looking forward to some virtual rack awesomeness!

Thanks for the link Bart, that explains it!

monks

[hairmetal-81]

As long as you go by the note-numbers, nothing can go wrong. 36 was always a BD, never saw it being 26 or 46!


The note-names confusion could steam from the fact that (on a 61-note keyboard, 5 octaves) the lowest note (two octaves below middle-C) is regarded as being C0.

If you now extend the keyboard-range to 88 keys (7 octaves), you'll have 3 octaves below middle-C. Note-number 36 would now turn into C2, while still in the same spot as C-0 on a 61-note keyboard. That's why the lowest full octave becomes C (minus 1), and the three lowest notes A (minus 2), A# (minus 2) and B (minus 2).



If this all is too confusing:
The lowest C on a 61-note keyboard (C0) is always note-number 36 - a bassdrum sound!



Phew!

[monks]

Roland have it right anyway according to the midi spec. Ableton are doing it differently. Very confusing. Middle C is middle of the bass and treble clefs, not in the middle of a keyboard.

monks