DTab and drum machines

[Geese]

Hello,
I'm not a drummer, but was very interested in knowing if anyone has successfully used Dtab as input to a Drum Machine.

I'm a guitarist, and I don't like programming my Alesis SR16 drum machine. Using Dtab was like a dream come true. I would even be willing to purchase a different drum machine (and Dtab), if I knew it would accept input from Dtab.

I'm very new to the MIDI world, so any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark Blanco
markblanco@hotmail.com

[kevin]

Geese:


 It's hard to say (and i wrote it).  If windows knows the midi device is pluged into your system and thus the device appears in the MIDI device selection window.  You should be able to select it as an output device.

But DTAB only supports general midi, so you can't patch sounds (well not that i'm aware of).  I'm not all that familiar with midi myself, to go deeper with it.  Although I'd love too..

There are some other members here that are very familiar with MIDI. Perhaps we can get "Empty" to share some insight

[empty]

Hi Geese.

Yeah it's possible. Should even be possible with the SR16.
What you need is:
Your SR16
DTAB
A MIDI interface (except for testing purposes DON'T use an adapter for your soundcard joystick port. Most soundcards have massive midi buffering problems)
and a MIDI cable.

In DTAB go to Settings and chose your MIDI interface as the output port. I'm not sure if the SR16 has an in-built GM compatible drumkit but I know that you can assign each midi note to a pad.

BTW: You can try this with the DTAB demo version.

Oh, and don't hesitate to ask if there's something unclear.

[Geese]

Ok, I got DTab to work with my Alesis SR16....sort of.  First, I picked up a USB Midi cable to avoid any sound card buffer issues. I set the SR16 to accept Midi Drum Notes and hooked the cable up. I then set DTab to output to the USB Midi. However, it wouldn't play all the voices. For instance, It would play the snare, one of the toms, and the crash, but it would't play the other 2 toms or even the bass drum.

My thought is that whatever midi 'note' DTab is sending for the bass drum (and other missing sounds), is not recognized by the SR16. The SR16, luckily, can be re-programmed to tell it which sounds to play based on what notes it receives (like empty had mentioned).

Is there any way anyone could post a list of the MIDI note numbers that DTab is sending for the various drum sounds?


As an aside, (and actually a much better alternative to the SR16) I got a hold of a cool little MIDI PC driver called "MIDI YOKE" at:

http://www.midiox.com/index.htm

It lets you drive the MIDI output of one program to the input of another, internally in the PC without the need for actual cables. (Again, I'm a MIDI newbie, so I don't know if this sort of thing is pretty common - but it seemed really cool to me).

Anyways, using the driver, I was able to drive the DTab output directly to Cakewalk Express, and record it as a channel. This is exactly what I was looking for, because now I can even record a Bass (guitar) line along with the DTab controlled drums, to provide a excellent 'backing band' for me to play my electric guitar and sing with.

DTab is worth every penny (and much more) that is being charged for it. I'm buying via paypal right after I post this.

Thanks...

Mark "Geese" Blanco
markblanco@hotmail.com

[kevin]

Geese:

Thanks for the heads up about "Midi Yoke"  that's certainly some useful info that others users would like to know also.

We in the near future I should be able to get to export to a GM midi file.  S that shuold make it even easier.

I'll have to dig through the source and pull out the Sound values for the Bass/Toms. I've no idea why they don't play on your drum machine.

Anyway, Welcome to the forums. It's amazing to me just what people use Dtab for.. Maybe one day drummers will use it too :)

[empty]

Hey Geese

I've attached the GM Percussion Keymap. Hope it helps.