Managing Drum Note Lists

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Managing Drum Note Lists

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Most MIDI devices, including General MIDI devices, have one or more drum kits. A drum kit provides a set of various percussion instrument sounds.

General MIDI devices include a standard drum kit for drum sounds that are played on MIDI channel 10. The pseudo pitch of a General MIDI drum note determines its instrument sound. For example, middle-C (MIDI pitch 60) produces a "High Bongo" sound, and C# (pitch 61) produces a "Low Bongo" sound.

Many MIDI devices offer multiple drum kits. Each drum kit is associated with a unqiue combination of a MIDI bank and patch (program). For example, the Yamaha Tyrostm keyboard has a bank (CTRL 0 = 127, CTRL 32 = 0) with several different drum kits. Each drum kit is assigned a different MIDI patch (program) number. For example, patch 17 is the "Rock Kit" and patch 28 is the "Dance Kit". In the Rock Kit, pitch 38 is "Snare Rock", and pitch 40 is "Snare Rock Tight". In the Dance Kit, pitch 38 is "Snare Clap" and pitch 40 is "Snare Dry". The Yamaha Tyros has hundreds of drum sounds assigned to different pitches for different MIDI programs on this particular drum bank (CTRL 0 = 127, CTRL 32 = 0).

With a General MIDI device, you must assign the drum staff to channel 10. For other devices with drum kits, you can usually assign any MIDI channel.

When you add a new drum staff for a non-General MIDI device using the Staff Setup command, you will need to specify its bank and program, as illustrated here:

DrumTrackSetupExample

The rest of this topic explains how you can configure your MIDI device with drum note names. In the above example, "Snare Dry" is the drum note name for pitch 40 for MIDI program 28 on the Yamaha Tyros Drums bank. If you do not configure your MIDI device with drum note names, then you will be able to refer only to pitch and program numbers, which are difficult to remember, since any given device might have hundreds of different drum sounds.

The easiest way to configure your MIDI device with note names is to import a MIDI Device Description (.mdd) or Cakewalk Instruction Definition (.ins) file for the device. For instructions, see Importing from a MIDI Device Description (.mdd) File and Importing from a Cakewalk Instrument Description (.ins) File. Only if you cannot find and import the note names should you spend the effort to manually enter them.

Before we describe the procedure for adding drum notes, we will describe how you can review the list of drum notes that already exist for a device. This will give you a better idea of where you are headed before you start preparing a new drum note list.

prcarrowTo review currently configured drum note lists for a device:

1.Choose the MIDI Device Configuration command in the Setup menu.

-- OR --

Type for Quick Device Configuration.

Musician will display the MIDI Device Configuration Window, such as illustrated below.

DrumNoteSelectTyrosDevice

2.Double-click the name of the device for which you wish to review the drum note list(s).

Musician will display the Device Properties dialog box, as illustrated here:

DrumNoteSelectTyrosBank

3.In the Banks list, select a bank that has a "d' after the bank selection number. The "d" indicates that the bank contains drum kits.

In the above selection, the Yamaha Tyros Drums kit indicates a "d" after the bank selection values (CTRL 0 = 127, CTRL 32 = 0).

4.Click the Edit Drum Notes button

Musician will display the Drum Notes dialog, which shows the names of all of the drum note pitches defined for the particular MIDI program (patch) on the specified MIDI bank:

DrumNoteDlgExplained

5.Select the Patch (MIDI program) for a drum kit whose drum note names you wish to review, as illustrated above.
6.Optionally, click the Show Playback Pitches or Show Recording Pitches to view the drum note pitches graphically in a simulated score for which each distinct drum note is played once as a quarter note. The concept of recording pitches is explained later in this topic.

Continuing with the above example, this is what the score looks like when you choose the Show Playback Pitches option for the Yamaha Tyros Dance Kit:

DrumNoteShowDrumPitchesScore

prcarrowTo specify the drum note names for a device:

Note that you will need to refer to the user's manual, or perhaps the front panel, of your MIDI keyboard or sound module, to determine the MIDI bank, patches (program numbers) and drum note pitches for the various drum kits available for playback on that device.

1.Choose the MIDI Device Configuration command in the Setup menu.

-- OR --

Type "qdc" for Quick Device Configration.

Musician will display the MIDI Device Configuration Window.

2.Double-click the name of the device for which you wish to specify the drum note names.

Musician will display the Device Properties dialog box.

3.In the Device Properties dialog box, select the MIDI bank that provides the drum kit(s). (If the MIDI bank is not listed, then add it, as described in Assigning a Bank to a MIDI Device.)
4.Click the Edit Drum Notes button.

Musician will display the Drum Notes dialog, as illustrated in step #4 in the previous procedure.

5.In the Drum Notes dialog, select the Patch (MIDI program) that selects a drum kit among those available for the bank of the device. (If the patch (MIDI program) is not listed, then add it, as described in Assigning Patch Names for a MIDI Device or Bank.)
6.In the Drum Notes dialog, click an existing drum note. The new drum note will appear above the selected drum note, as illustrated below:

DrumNoteBeforeAddingNewOne

The drum notes do not need to be listed in the same order as their pitches. You can organize the drum notes in any order that will make the most sense to you when you later assign drum notes to song staves. You can also change the order of the drum notes in the list at any time, using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

7.Click the Add Drum Note button.

Musician will insert a new row in the Drum Notes list. Initially, the name of the drum note will be empty. Also, the Playback Pitch and Recording Pitch will probably not be the value you want.

DrumNoteAfterNewNoteEmptyRow

8.In the new row of the Drum Notes list, enter the name, Playback Pitch, and Recording Pitch of the new drum note, as illustrated below:

DrumNoteAfterAdd
Often the manufacturer of MIDI equipment establishes standard drum kits that are shared among several models of MIDI keyboards and sound modules. Also, sometimes different drum kits for the same device have drum notes with different sounds, but the same names. In these cases, you can save effort in entering drum note names by copying a list from another device, bank, or patch (MIDI program).

prcarrowTo copy a list of drum notes from one device, bank, or patch to another:

1.Follow steps #1 through #5 in the above procedure for selecting the device, bank, and patch of a drum kit.
2.In the Drum Notes dialog, click the Copy From Other Patch button.

The title of the dialog box will change from "Drum Notes" to "Copy Drum Notes from Another Device/Bank/Patch".

3.In this new dialog box, select the device, bank, and patch from which you wish to copy the entire list of drum notes. You can preview the list of drum notes before you commit to copying them.
4.Click the Copy From Other Patch button a second time.