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mm_drums Junior Jammer

Joined: 21 Apr 2017 Posts: 6
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 2:26 am Post subject: Mapping to BFD kits |
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Finally bought Jamstix during the holiday sale, despite telling myself not to buy any more plugins lol. I'm pleased with my purchase, but I have a question.
I have custom kits in BFD3, some with extra cymbals or toms, others with percussion or even a second kick drum. Also, I think some of these have custom key maps.
I've tried loading the MIDI output to BFD3, which gets many of the kit pieces correct, but some kit pieces are missing and others load in Jamstix with no sound because they don't exist in the BFD kit.
What's the easiest way to get these kits mapped to Jamstix?
Is there an easy way to do this, or is the only way to map them by hand? Thanks! |
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Azimuth Moderator & Beta Team

Joined: 19 Nov 2010 Posts: 2131
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Ralph [RZ] Site Admin

Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 9:35 am Post subject: |
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You could also just edit the kit in the Jamstix kit editor and save it as a custom kit. You would add/remove kit pieces as needed and set the MIDI key of the pieces/articulations as needed. Let me know if you need more help on that. _________________ Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com |
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mm_drums Junior Jammer

Joined: 21 Apr 2017 Posts: 6
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:53 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for the help!
I was able to get the kit mapped by hand. The only thing is there are some articulations in BFD that aren't in Jamstix. For example, the cymbals have multiple hits, like bell and center, and Jamstix only has one per cymbal.
What should I do about these articulations? Should I add additional cymbals to the Jamstix kit to accommodate the extra articulations or will this mess with the Jamstix engine? Or would it be best to just ignore them and edit the midi later on if I want more variation? |
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pro_fusion Junior Jammer

Joined: 14 Jan 2017 Posts: 14
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2019 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| mm_drums wrote: |
What should I do about these articulations? Should I add additional cymbals to the Jamstix kit to accommodate the extra articulations or will this mess with the Jamstix engine? Or would it be best to just ignore them and edit the midi later on if I want more variation? |
You'll have to do the latter. The Jamstix engine might not be able to account for all the articulations in some sample sets, so adding additional instruments for those articulations won't sound right from a feel perspective.
For what it's worth, I almost always edit kits in JS4 rather than in the VSTi that I'm using. I have several saved kits in JS4 for various kits I use in both BFD3 and SSD4.
One thing I inevitably do is get rid of the "off-center" tom articulation in JS4 by setting it to the same MIDI note as the center hit. For some reason, those off-center hits never work right with either BFD3 or SSD4. |
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operandx Jam Meister

Joined: 27 Jan 2006 Posts: 58
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:28 am Post subject: |
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| I too am interested in BFD3 kits. Is there any chance of sharing those BFD kit files pro_fusion? |
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gmon72 Grand Master Jam

Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 207
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Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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this thread inspired me to make a BFD Platinum Samples Evil Drums Kit.
happy to share it.
Doing this brought up a few questions mainly around work flow and one about drum sticks!
1) I have pretty much used mappings instead of custom kits with the thought being that I can create a song and change out VSTis and just change the mapping. If one changes a kit to another kit with different drums and/or articulations will the brain adjust at all to this or does will parts not play if the newly loaded kit has less pieces/articulations.
a) any thoughts on custom kits vs. MIDI mapping methods?
2) I started out with the MIDI template kit and went through and adjusted for the Platinum Samples Kits. A few things I observed -
a) Using Cubase 10 and BFD3 and starting from scratch, the MIDI notes were 2 octaves lower than what I set in JS. I found an older thread that suggested turning on Yamaha pitch convention and that indeed made the notes right, but will this have an impact on other kits/mappings?
b) The Platinum Samples Evil Drums kits/presets don't have drum sticks to do the count in. I noticed that I cannot remove that kitpiece/articulation from the kit and see that the during the intro that the brain was trying to play the sticks as a count in. Should I map that to the rimshot or side stick (or will that mess up the rimshot or side stick)? I can test more tonight but I don't know the implications of doing that.
3) Is going through the Kit GUI and assigning each articulation via the select note, assign button the only way to create the kits? Any shortcuts or other ways to make kits a bit faster (moreso useful to crazy people who have way too many drum VSTis )
I have to say every time I dig a little deeper into JS, it is such a fun experience. Awesome plugin all the way around. |
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pro_fusion Junior Jammer

Joined: 14 Jan 2017 Posts: 14
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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| operandx wrote: | | I too am interested in BFD3 kits. Is there any chance of sharing those BFD kit files pro_fusion? |
I'm not sure how to do that, but it's really just as simple as bringing up your favorite kit in BFD3, your favorite kit in JS4, and then going through drum by drum and see what is being triggered when you hit a JS4 drum. Both JS4 and BFD3 can display what MIDI note is being triggered, so you can get a good idea of the correspondence.
The biggest problem is that JS4 has a different system of note numbers, so that a "C#0" in the VSTi might be listed as "C#2" in JS4. You have to get used to the difference.
The new mapping presets in JS4 are actually pretty good. I mostly just have to edit toms, cymbals, and the double kick.
What I had to do on my recent EP: I programmed everything in the the new "everything" kit in JS4 that has a zillion toms and cymbals, while the preset kits in BFD3 (from which I edited a custom one of my own) have only three toms and a handful of cymbals. What I had to do was map all the cymbals and toms in JS4 down to a corresponding instrument in BFD3.
The JS4 everything kit has five toms, so it was a matter of assigning the two highest toms and the two floor toms to a single tom in BFD3. Dealing with the various crashes, splashes and china cymbals in JS4 took a lot more work and note reassignements. I sort of think JS4 is overkill in that department, even if it looks cool in the graphic.
Having fewer toms and cymbals being activated didn't really bother me, since the quality of the JS performances makes it all sound great.
I will note that the SSD4 templates in JS4 seem to match up better than the BFD3 ones. |
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gmon72 Grand Master Jam

Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 207
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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Pro fusion ... FYI when I just created a BFD kit, I removed the unused drum and cymbal pieces from the JS4 kit to match the BFD kit. Then you don't need to assign multiple kit pieces to the same BFD kit piece. |
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Ralph [RZ] Site Admin

Joined: 02 Jan 2008 Posts: 13332
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Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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| gmon72 wrote: | this thread inspired me to make a BFD Platinum Samples Evil Drums Kit.
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When you're done with that, and you feel like sharing, send it to me and we can distribute it via the manager. The file will have you credited as the author though we don't have attribution via the GUI at this time. _________________ Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com |
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