MIDI drum assignment

elbarbari

Hi,

I have been struggling with my Simmon drum machine and iPad air. I connect my Simmon drums to my iPad through midi and want to use my iPad as a sound module for the Simmon drums machine.

All apps that I tried so far failed to give me exactly what I want. GarageBand has preset sounds and doesn't allow me to change the sounds on my Simmons.

Drums XD also is not working and failing to assign sounds correctly even when using a keyboard. What is the best way of doing this, I can't buy all the midi apps on the App Store. But I heard of midi bridge does it allow me to assign midi notes to my drum pads?

Please advise.

Thank you.

CalCutta

The best suggestion made for your issue was in the related thread. DM1 (you can load your own samples and assign them to whatever MIDI note you want), and possibly MIDI Bridge if you need to force messages/communication through (that happens from time to time).

funjunkie27

I haven't had any problems driving DrumsXD with midi. Do you know what notes are assigned to each drum within the Simmon? If so, do you know how to enable midi and assign the notes to each drum within DrumsXD? You'll also need to make sure the midi channels match in XD and the Simmon.

elbarbari

Thanks funjunkie,

I don't know about channels. But here is what I do.

If I connect my midi keyboard to GarageBand or music studio, every key I press on my keyboard will produce a sound coming from my iPad.

Connecting my keyboard is successful 100%.

Now I connect my Simmon drum machine to GarageBand, some pads produce sounds and some don't, but I think GarageBand is not designed to map midi notes. So I bought Drums XD.

I try to map a drum pad on the Simmons drum machine to a midi note on the iPad.
1- I select the drum unit I want in drum xd
2- I tap the learn button
3- I hit a pad on the Simmons I get a response of something like (zone 0 G45)
4- I tap the button zone 0
5- I hit the pad again on the Simmons and nothing happens.

Here I stop and think that the mapping wasn't correct either by simmon or drums xd.

So I connect my good working midi keyboard to see if I can map a key on my keyboard to a drum sound in drum xd just to check if the process works.

1- I select a drum sound on drums xd
2- I tap learn on iPad.
3- I hit a key on my keyboard
4- I get a response. Zone 0
5- I tap zone 0 to finish.
6- I press the same key on my keyboard, and no sound is coming.

At this point I think both midi devices are not taking correctly with drums xd.

Therefore I tried mapping manually.
1- I run music studio
2- I hit a drum pad on Simmons drum machine
3- I get a sound from music studio with the key highlighted. So I know which midi note that pad is now
4- I open drums xd
5- select the drum unit.
6- tap (midi in) for zone 0 or zone 1 and select the corresponding note which I found from music studio. Like B3.
7- I hit the pad on the Simmons drum machine and nothing happens.

What is wrong? Is it drums xd or both my midi devices? Or the process is wrong?

I appreciate everybody help.

Thank you.

elbarbari

Is there another drum machine app to try that can map midi notes?

Thanks

yowza

There is a free app called MIDI Monitor (I think) that should be able to tell you what the Simmons is sending when you play a drum pad. There might be other apps that will tell this too.
I think you need to figure out what is getting sent from the Simmons before you do anything else. Will the Simmons let you change which midi notes it's sending?

elbarbari

Yowza, thanks, I will try the free app. no the Simmons can't change notes. I

funjunkie27

I'm not sure why you tap the zone 0 button after the process. If you've made the assignment through Learn or manually, you should see the assigned note in the zone (most units only have one zone, but the hi-hat and others can have two.). Once you see the note, just tap outside the window and the unit will close and keep the assignment. I suspect you tapping in the zone area again resets the value.

elbarbari

Funjunjie,

Which one do you tap if you have zone 0 and zone 1? How would the pad know which sound to play?!

Anyways, I did what you said, after getting the zone message I just tapped outside and exit to the drums set, and got no sound.

When you say I should see the assigned note in the zone, do you mean right in the drum unit where it actually say the name? Because I don't see a note there!
The only place I see a note is just below the the pop up zone button!
Do you have a picture?

Thank you.

funjunkie27

You need to do both zones for the pads that require it. As I said, most are single zone, but the hi-hat, and possibly others, require two. In the case of a hi-hat, one zone represents an open hi-hat and the other is for the closed hi-hat. In the case of a two zone pad, there will be a different midi note assigned to each. Here's some pics of what I'm describing. One shows the overall midi config for the app. The other is pad specific.

elbarbari

Ok, thank you again for the pictures and for your help. I am very upset and frustrated with this.

i made my settings look identical to your picture but again no success.

i noticed however that midi not on the iPad never changes per the key i press on my midi keyboard of drum.

if i manually change zone 1 for a drum unit to say C4, then when i tap learn, and press any key on my keyboard it reflects C4, no matter which key on my keyboard i press !!

therefore, i am very confused of what should happen here because i thought that the key i press on my keyboard should show up as a true note on the iPad not vice versa, and that the learn process would link that key on the keyboard or the drums to drums xd sounds.
apparently that is not happening.

what am i missing?

is there a bug in this program? how can i contact them? their forum is down and they never reply to my emails.

thank you

funjunkie27

I'm trying this with a Qunexus controller and see that the Learn function isn't working as I expected. When I press a key on the keyboard, I see the note appear in the lower right...not in the zone area. That isn't a problem though, since once I close the pad and reopen it, the zone reflects the newly learned note. The problem is that it wasn't the note I pressed on the controller. In fact, I can try pressing several different notes and it always learns the same note. Maybe that is the next available note. I didn't test that.

To keep things simpler though, I recommend avoiding the learn function, and just assign the notes manually. Do you know what notes the Simmons outputs on each pad? If not, it should be specified in the users manual. If you don't have that, you will need a midi monitor app, as @yowsa indicated. Let's stick to one pad for now...the snare. Once you've determined which pad on the Simmons is the snare, and the midi note assigned to it, go to DrumsXD and choose the pad that produces the snare sound. Open the edit window and manually select the matching midi note, then tap outside the edit window to close it. You can reopen it to verify the assignment stuck. Try playing the pad on the Simmons. If you don't get a sound at that point, your midi channels might not be matched. If you chose Omni on the XD app, it will listen for midi data across all 16 midi channels. That's an easy solution, if you don't have any other midi apps or devices in the mix. If you do have other midi apps/devices though, setting the XD to Omni will cause the drums to trigger on all note on messages that match to the pads' assigned notes. In that case, you need to disable Omni on the XD and set a specific channel. Drums are generally assigned to midi channel 10.

elbarbari

Thank you very much. At least I know now there is a bug in the app that the learn doent work.

I might have tried what you mentioned and assign manually. I will let you know later today when I go home. However, did you try the manual procedure on your controller? And did it work for 2 or three keys?

Thank you.

funjunkie27

Again, I don't know that that is a bug, since XD might default to the next available note.

I was able to do the manual assignments with no problem across several different midi notes.

elbarbari

Ok, finally I got it to work manually. Even midi monitor wasn't giving the right midi note. It was 1 octave off. So anyways I tried the note staring with octave 0 and up until I found it.

Thank you very much for your pacience and help.

elbarbari

Something I notice with drums XD though. There is a small latency or lag when you bit the drum and hear the sound.

Although it is very small, it is just enough to ruine the drum experience.

I don't get this latency if playing on the kebyoard! Is this normal? I didn't feel it with GarageBand. Is there something in the setting to improve latency?

Do you notice it on your side using your drum
Machine?

Thank you

[Deleted User]

If DrumsXD played via MIDI from a keyboard doesn't result in lag, it's unlikely to be DrumsXD that is causing it when you play from your Simmons.

funjunkie27

How is the Simmons connected to your iPad?

elbarbari

There is only one way to connect the SDXpress through USB. I am thinking this should be equivalent to midi if not better!

I use a long usb cable, but I also tried a shorter one.

Any recommendation ?

Thanks.

funjunkie27

Are you running DrumsXD through AudioBus? If so, what is the AB buffer size? Change it to 256, if it is 512. If you aren't using AB, try reseting your Simmons to the factory default.

Paulinko

You can use Midibridge to change the mapping of midi notes coming from a midi drum set or pads.

Here's the Stream Byter code to convert Yamaha DTXPLORER input into the DrumJam app kits via channel 10 using Midibridge. I entered the code into the output box for iRig midi and connected that to midibridge in and then connected midibridge out to drumjam in.

Enter rewrite rules here

Press 'Install Rules' when done

remap for dtxplorer to DrumJam

plays on channel 10 in DrumJam

N9 1F = XX 26 # snare
N9 2E = XX 2A # hihat
N9 21 = XX 24 # kick

You can do similar remapping for other drum machines and apps so that when you hit the drum pads, you get the corresponding sound on the iPad it's connected to via CCK, iRig midi or other midi connection.

elbarbari

hello again,

i just received the Alesis DM7X session drum kit as an upgrade hoping the latency issue goes away with the better drums.

unfortunately, i still have latency with Drums XD and the new drums set.

this is now confusing, Alesis told me to try connecting to a computer.

does anyone have an issue with latency using DrumsXD. or does any one have another drum module recommendation than DrumsXD?

thank you.

elbarbari

ok, finally, i found what is going on.

basically DrumsXD sucks. I tried three different apps using the their drums module with great success.

First garageband drums has no latency. Music studio is great, and FunBox has no latency. Sadely, DrumsXD has this ugly bug, and whoever makes it has no support.

if anyone knowsbof any other drum machine module please let me know.

thanks all.

dogacantaskinsu

Hey, I just got a thoman mps 250 drum kit. when i connected kit to garageband i could not get crash sound from it. I can see that garageband gets the input however i can not get the sound. Similar thing happens in EZdrummer, this time snare and kick get mixed, they both act like snare. Do you guys have any idea about it? Or does anyone know a software to help me to map the pads to the correct instrument??

BiancaNeve

It's worth noting that while midi defines middle c as note 60. It doesn't define what this should be called so different software can use different numbers. So middle C may be C3 or C4 or C5
For Music Studio C1 is the midi note 24 making middle C C4 (if my maths is right)

grinderman

Hello,I've got the same issue of dogcantaskinsu , with mps 250 drum kit . I tried everything but still not working,the drum is recognized by Macosx yosemite ,but I only achieved make it sound once a few seconds with EZdrummer and suddenly it crash and stops sounding .Anyone have a solution ? any magic driver or advice? .Thanks a lot

Flowvanskaat

Hello,
i have the same Problem like dogacantaskinsu with my mps250. No Crash Sounds while everything else seems to run fine. All Midi Notations from playing the edrum appearing in Garageband, but on crash Note (might be G2), theres no Sound on the Key (should be A2) in MacOsX but also in IOS Garageband no Crash. What is the best Workaround? MidiPipe? Its a bit hard to configure. Is there a possibility to Change the drums midi Output channels permanently? Is LogicX the better choice for Midi Routing or midi drum recording? Thanks a lot. Flow

funjunkie27

IF it is triggering with G2, you should be able to use Midibridge to remap A2 to G2.

Flowvanskaat

Yeah it should. But until now I'm not getting it...) I'm just not shure how to Build up These Pipes. Perhaps you can help me. Midi In (usb drum)-> Key Mapper (g2-31 to a2-33)->Midi Out (usbdrum or midiPipe Out, nothing works for now) I'm getting all signals despite the crash. is key mapper the right to move the signal a full tone up? Background or close MidiBridge while playing? Thanks a lot

funjunkie27

It's working fine for me (see pic.). MidiBridge needs to be running, but it can be in the background.

Flowvanskaat

OK, woks for me with the iPad too. But i still need a workaround with OSX and midiPIPE. Don't know how to setup midi pipe to root the 33 to 35 to get a rash trigger in garageband