Rayzoon Technologies LLC

notringo · Jam Meister Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 91

I see that quite a few people here use Superior 2 and Jamstix.
Can you give me a brief lesson on how they work together? Do you have to somehow load Superior into Jamstix, or is it just the kits that get loaded? It's a bit confusing for me, so before I buy it, I just want to have an idea of how it works. If it's too complicated I'll probably pass, because most of my time is spent trying to lay down tracks with limited skills.

Thanks for any help,

Paul

Ralph [RZ] · Site Admin Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332

The easiest way to use Superior 2 with Jamstix is as follows:

Load the 'Superior 2' kit from the DFHS folder in the Jamstix kit window. That's it. It will do all the work for you, load S2 into JS, initialize the kit, set the correct key mappings.

If you want to change the S2 kit, you can do that via the 'Edit' button in the JS2 kit window and you can save the edited kit as a new JS2 mapping.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

notringo · Jam Meister Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 91

Thanks Ralph; I may just take the plunge.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

The one thing that is a little wierd is when you don't want to host Superior inside Jamstix. I can't because I am using the mac work around.

Most often what *I* need to do is load a jamstix kit with jamstix sounds, but I want to be able to load a different set of midi output notes and CC assignments for Superior2, while leaving the jamstix playback sounds also intact and doing everything they are supposed to.

I have been messing around and i'm not confident I have this right, but Ralph if you can please confirm.

Basically first I load whatever Jamstix drum and percussion kits I want. Then I load The Superior2 kit with the "Keys only" button engaged. I'm not completely confident that is actually doing what its supposed to though. For one thing, if some of the drumkit pieces were disabled in the Jamstix kit, the midi out is not brought in from the superior2 map. What it SHOULD do in that case is set that kit piece to "no subhost" and set the midi output to the appropriate thing for that piece that is not being used by the jamstix kit, but might be used by Superior.

Furthermore, the drummer models should make sure to use that piece if they can!

Am I making any sense? I'm essentially wanting to be able to have a hybrid of Jamstix and Superior2 in one kit.

The other thing I'm not sure about is whether Jamstix's brain is doing any hard coded stuff differently when it knows the kit is Superior2 vs jamstix kit. I have heard about about CC4 being used for the hi hats, some other software use CC1, etc.. What does jamstix use? What will happen in the above scenario when I have first loaded a jamstix kit and then loaded keys only of superior2?

Is jamstix any smarter when using something like Superior2 in terms of taking advantage of the additional levels of hihat control, for example, that are available, over and above what is in jamstix?

Ralph [RZ] · Site Admin Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332

Your setup should work since JS2 always outputs hihat data via CC4 so it's up to the receiving module to translate that into whatever it can offer soundwise.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

How can I make sure that when I load the Superior2 KEYS ONLY....that ALL kit sounds will be enable for midi output even if Jamstix is not using some of them?

It would also be cool if there was a SOUNDS ONLY option so that I can load a different Jamstix kit in later without losing the midi outs I have.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

Ralph,

Let me try to explain better what I mean. If I say, for example, load in the Jamstix kit "SnarePak - Classic Rock DP1 DP2", it is supposed to contain the following kit pieces:

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

The way I'm understanding Superior2 to work, all HH hits are to be sent to the articulation called "hatsTrig", which in the Avatar kit is F#-1. Then CC4 controls the openness.

So first thing, when I tried to open the "Suprerior2" kit in jamstix with KEYS ONLY, that mapping did not load in. Something different and wrong was there. I really think that feature is broken. Maybe I'm missing something though. Maybe the included Superior2 mapping is not using the CC4 feature correctly?

Side note:

Superior2 actually has 3 separate triggers it can use in conjunction with CC4. "Normal", "Tip" and "bell". I varied it up a bit so that the different HH hits in jamstix(closed, 25%, 50%, 75%, open) go to F#-1, G-1 or G#-1 (hatsTrig, hatsTipTrig, hatsBellTrig). That variation, combined with the CC4 being generated by Jamstix provided a very live feeling hi hat.

I think it could be better though with a bit more thought put into how to use those three separate triggers. Obviously, a jamstix player model would be best. In the meantime, I might try to see if I can use SuperMidiScripter, as a chained effect after Jamstix, to randomize in some kind of semi-random pattern, which of the three triggers to use. Probably the easiest would be to just prefer normal and then occasionally hit the bell or tip randomly, preferring the tip when its more open...something like that. If I can even do that in SuperMidiScripter.

Along the same lines I would like to try to introduce some bit of randomness to the CC16 controller for positional snare hits. That one is easier to program in after the fact, something that generally prefers around the middle but wiggles around a bit and occasionally moves near the sides of the pad. Probably with time I will learn how to draw in some nice curves after that fact that eliminates machine gun effect.

Ralph [RZ] · Site Admin Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332

I can't really duplicate what you are saying. Here is what I do:

- load Jamstix and S2 into host separately
- load a JS kit into JS2
- load S2 kit with 'Keys Only'
- route JS2 MIDI out to S2 MIDI in

That works for me. Open hat is open hat in S2 and not a crash for me.

Btw, we will expand support for S2 and similar libraries in Jamstix 3, including hihat variations (tip, shank etc.)
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

sorry Ralph, I don't know what you're doing, but it doesn't work correctly here. What about the hi hat mapping I mentioned?

Anyway, never mind I will just build my own map from scratch, but I'm just trying to inform you that what you have provided doesn't work right.

cheers

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

Two seperate issues. First is as follows:

I load in the SnarePak kit, DP1 DP2. It has hi hat assignments as follows, note its not using 25% or 75% open hats:

I load Superior2 KEYS ONLY. Note that it has loaded in new mappings(which are not correct), but it did not load all of the HH mappings, it only loaded the ones that were previously being used by the small Jamstix kit. It did not load the superior2 mappings for 25% and 75%:

It ought to load those empty ones with "no subhost" instead of "no sound" and then include the midi out mapping for superior2
(AND jamstix needs to make sure to use those in between layers as well for midi out even if the smaller JS kit is not using them)

Like this:

Second problem, the mappings aren't correct. From page 35 of the Superior2 manual I get the following:

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

ps - the setup I tried to elude to earlier that I set it up was using normal, tip and bell (F#-1, G-1, G#-1), spread across those 5 levels of openness, like this:

That had the effect of somewhat randomly choosing where the hi hat strike would be, according to whatever CC4 happens to be. Truthfully that is not accurate for what a player would do, but it definitely made it feel a bit more live between that variation, and the fact that CC4 was making things more or less open, on top of the fact that Jamstix itself is using different velocities for each hit on top of that.

Dewdman42 · Grand Master Jam Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 326

In addition, while creating my own Superior2-Avatar keymap, I found the following ones in the Superior2 kit included with JS to be incorrect:

Tom2-right
Tom3-right
Tom4-right
Tom5-right
China3

cheers

Ralph [RZ] · Site Admin Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332

Thanks, we'll update the S2 mapping.

Concerning the hat notes: if the subhost has CC4=1 in the js2.ini assigned then JS will not use the notes assigned to HH in the kit but always send the closed hat note with the proper CC4. We still carry the other notes in the kit so that a user could choose to disable CC4 and then JS would use the notes.
_________________
Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com