Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[dysfunction]

Hi! I've just bought JS2XL + Metal Pak. I have Ezdrummer set up with several instances, from the core Pop/Rock, DFH, and Vintage Rock kits. I have one midi track that controls all of these, the midi track for the main instance of the DFH kit; I just set that track to use the DFH expansion drum map, then modified that drum map so it routes the snare to Pop/Rock, the crashes to Vintage Rock, and the rides and chinas to a second instance of DFH (for mixing purposes). There's no way to subhost this setup, so all I want to do is have Jamstix send out midi to the main midi track without loading any internal sounds, but I want Jamstix to use a DFH kit drum map. I remember when I tried the demo of JS1 a while back, there were drum maps available for all the Ezdrummer expansions, but all I see now is a drum map for the EZD core library. How do I load just an EZD DFH expansion drum map in jamstix without loading a subhosted dll or any internal sounds?

[Ralph [RZ]]

[Amberience]

Cool idea!
_________________
www.myspace.com/tacomanarrowsbridgedisaster

[chaztrip]

So are you doing this to capture the best sounds from all EZdrummer packs? Like the crash sucks in DFH but its better in Vintage? if so this is a cool idea.

[dysfunction]

Ok, sounds good, only thing is I'm not used to where the all the different hits are on the piano roll in notes, I'm used to loading up a drum map in Sonar so it shows each note as a number 1-128, and I was just wondering if there were any JS2 drum maps specifically for the DFH kit.

So yeah, I like all the sounds in the DFH kit, but I really love the Rogers snare in the Pop/Rock kit and the Paiste fast crashes in Vintage Rock. I've been using Ezdrummer for a while, and it is WAY more customizable than most people think. A word of caution though, you have to be careful about what pieces you mix- all the expansions were recorded in different studios with different-sounding rooms. Fortunately Vintage Rock was recorded in a very dry room, so I just put some reverb on its crashes to match the DFH room, and of course a lot of people put extra reverb on snare so it didn't much matter that the Pop/Rock kit was recorded in a much more ambient room than DFH.

I'm already loving Jamstix though! In all honesty, I'm not terribly impressed with its sounds, especially not in relation to Ezdrummer, but then I never expected to be- I knew Jamstix 1 had no velocity layers from trying the demo, and the samples didn't sound much improved from the JS2 audio demos. I didn't buy it for the drums, I bought it for the drummers. My setup with Ezdrummer sounds gorgeous, fortunately, and with Jamstix's brilliant 'brain' driving it I'm sure I'll have drum tracks better than ever in no time. For anyone else considering going this route, I'll post some demos soon.

[chaztrip]

Yes please do.... this sound very cool!!

[dysfunction]

Hey, one more question- Jamstix has exactly the right number of slots for almost all the pieces I have in my setup. Four crashes- I have four crashes in EZD. Same with my 3 splashes, 3 chinas, and 5 toms. Only thing missing is JS only has one ride slot- and DFH has 3 of those, all with different sounds, all of which I prefer the sound of depending on what sort of groove I'm doing. I suppose I could map unused slots to the other two rides, but then JS's brain wouldn't use whatever pieces those slots are supposed to be for like a ride. I did get all my pieces mapped otherwise, though it threw me for a loop before I figured out that all the note names are two octaves lower than in Sonar's piano roll.

edit: Ok, one MORE question. Actually, it's more of a feature request, since I don't think JS can do this as of yet. Would it be possible to implement reverse drag & drop, as in dragging a midi clip from host into JS, or better yet dragging a clip from Ezdrummer or Ezplayer Free into JS? That would be much quicker than having to figure out where a midi is actually located from EZD's slightly esoteric naming conventions. Would that be easier to do if EZD is subhosted?

[Ralph [RZ]]

JS2 only supports one ride at this time (and for the forseeable future) but MIDI drag&drop from host to JS2 is on the to-do list.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[dysfunction]

Ok, that's great.

I made some demos comparing the Metal Pak sounds and my EZD setup, just using the prog rock example song, and each one with Danny and Mike.

JS2 Danny
JS2 Mike

DFH Danny
DFH Mike

I think I'll have to teach Jamstix how to use EZD's hihats, but I'm really impressed.

[dysfunction]

Another q- is Jamstix correctly sending CC4 data to Ezdrummer (not subhosted)? If I have Jamstix set to output HH closed, 25, open, etc., to the notes for the corresponding sounds in Ezdrummer, does CC4 matter? Or would it only matter for a v-drum set where the hihat pedal is sending CC4 data to Jamstix?

[Ralph [RZ]]

Jamstix 2.1.4 sends CC4 data only when a module is subhosted and registered for CC4 use in jamstix2.ini.

The next update will change this so CC4 is sent to MIDI output as well.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[dysfunction]

Cool Sorry to bug you guys with all those questions in a row.

[Del Pedro]

[ProfRhino]

Could it be everybody's talking about different metals ?
While I personally don't like the DFH expansion at all I can see it being perfect for certain metallic styles with lots of low strung guitars, simply because the rather thin drums leave more room for the guitars' bass riffs.
Keep in mind the EzDrummer sounds are more or less ready to use for certain specific styles, while Jamstix follows a different philosophy.
The sounds are mildly pre-produced (standard processing most engineers would apply anyway regardless of style) but still leave a lot of "meat" for individual tweaking.
So the comparison is a bit like comparing oranges and apple pie imho.
To me the Metal Pak's sounds are just another very useful, great sounding drumkit (congrats to the creators ) while it's up to us to mix it for metal, country or even Ukrainian bathtub skiffle.
More or less like a real kit ...
Would be interesting to compare the same examples with Jamstix suitably processed in a similar way by somebody loving those styles.
Ymmv,
Rhino

[ProfRhino]