roland td-17 drum kit

pilgrim · 01-14-2019, 11:59 AM

I'm new to reaper and midi recording. I've watched the videos on record your band and new midi song. I'm having trouble getting my drums (Roland td-17) heard. reaper recognizes my kit and I've actually got a track with my drums as midi inputs, but can't hear anything. I have other instruments and I hear them but not the drums. Any suggestions?

ivansc · 01-14-2019, 05:16 PM

Hi and welcome to the forums. My best guess is that you havent been recording anything but the actual MIDI from your drums, rather than the audio.
Basically you have two choices - either run the audio out(s) from your kit into whatever you are using for an audio/MIDI interface so you can direct;y record your Kit sounds into a track in reaper, or if you have any drum vsti plugins, put them on the track where you are recording MIDI at present and pipe the MIDI into the virtual instrument.

I am off to bed right now but either someone in a different timezone will step in or I`ll catch up with you tomorrow.
If you DONT have a drum VSTi and want to try that way, download and install the free MTPowerDrums 2, which is now free and pretty decent.
And in the meantime if you didnt already, download the free User Guide and check out the free video tutorials, all at reaper.fm

Have fun!

Philbo King · 01-15-2019, 09:17 AM

I have a Roland kit too.

I record audio and midi. The midi serves as a backup in case the drum kit mix ends up not working with the mix. (I can tweak individual drum levels and send the midi back to the kit to get a new audio take, if need be.)

You need to also output the midi back to the kit (or send it to a VSTi drum synth) to get audio.

Coachz · 01-15-2019, 11:23 AM

You can also split midi to separate tracks like if you just want kick and snare midi on one track.

https://stash.reaper.fm/v/8318/MB_VDrums_1.2.zip

pilgrim · 01-18-2019, 07:50 AM

Thanks for replies. I would definitely want to have a different drum on each track. In the mean time, I've got BFD ECO as a VSTi plugin. I'll goof around with it and see if I can make any noise. This is a strange new world to me. I'm just wandering around like a blind dog in a meat house

Coachz · 01-18-2019, 09:06 AM

You can have a different drum on each channel in the midi data or you can have a drum on each channel in the audio data. To do it with the audio, data set the VSTi plugin to multi-channel output and then map the mixer output on the drum VSTi to each audio track. For drums on each midi channel use that V drum plugin and just map which midi notes allowed to record on each track

pilgrim · 01-20-2019, 11:45 AM

Success! My Drum kit is now my midi controller (right?) and I have drum sounds on a track (thru VSTi BFD ECO). New issues...1) some of my sounds don't correspond with the kit. I've got a drum from my hi-hat and a cowbell from a drum. How do I assign the sound to the kit? 2) latency - Thru my headphones, the sound of my kit is about half a second behind the actual strike of the head. Where is that taken care of?

ivansc · 01-20-2019, 03:34 PM

Time to hit the User Guide and tutorial vids so you can learn about note maps!

I know there is one in the stash for at least most of SD2 but not sure about SD3.

Good news is that in SD3 the notemaps are already there and you can actually change them to suit yourself, including making them fit as close as possible to standard GM/GS/XG note numbers.

Bad news is that most of the SD3 kits I own need far more note assignments than GM etc allows, so you are back to custom note maps being the easiest way to do it.

Pretty much the same with any drum rompler. btw.