DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

[Lazarus1140]

Actually, the challenge is them against me.

I have a basic version of Toontrack EZ Drummer and have it recognized as a VST (probably the wrong lingo) in Reaper, but I can't figure out how to get a drum pattern on a track.

My lack of knowledge of all things MIDI is MAXI.

Can anyone familiar with Reaper explain to me in something resembling plain English how to lay down a drum track in Reaper?

Your cooperation and patience will be rewarded by the superpowers of recording in the digital domain.

 

[CTN]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

haha

Select the track that you loaded EZ Drummer on, then make a time selection, then go to Insert -> MIDI Item.

once it's inserted, double click the item, and it'll open up a piano roll/midi sequencer and you can program stuff if you want.

Alternatively, if you want to use the EZ drummer loops, if I remember right, open the VST interface, navigate to the loops, and drag/drop into the track. (Pretty sure you don't need to do the insert MIDI item thing if you're going this route, although I haven't used EZ drummer in aeons so my memory is a bit rusty.

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Sweet. Thank you. I'll try those methods!

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

dangit

 

[CTN]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

lol what'd you do?

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Nothing friuitful. I'm killing the pain with a porkchop and a beer. I'll try again Friday. I would be content to just record one of the groves that comes with EZ Drummer and I don't know how to make it happen. I'm out of time and energy tonight. It has been a long week at work already. Thanks again for your help. I'll try to track my steps next time and maybe it will start to make sense.

I really don't need (at this point) to put in a drum part hit by hit.

 

[CTN]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

If I can find some time tomorrow I'll make a little screen capture video of myself loading up some drum beats + programming some beats. Hopefully that'll help you out.

It's actually pretty simple once you know how to do it.

 

[DankStar]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Usually when I get stuck, I watch some egghead's walkthrough video on YouTube. After a few, the answer comes clear.

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Awesome. That would be great.

In the long run that will be much better than my playing an EZ drummer groove through my monitors and then recording with a mic>interface>Reaper.

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Usually when I get stuck, I watch some egghead's walkthrough video on YouTube. After a few, the answer comes clear.

That's what I do for car and motorcycle repairs, too ... but usually when it comes to recording software or programming a keyboard I can't find demos dumbed down to my level.

 

[CTN]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Here you go buddy.



Excuse the one-sided audio, I had a mic sitting next to me so I could get my voice and the drums in the same file. Stupid screen capture software wouldn't let me take the sound from my outgoing stereo mix so I couldn't get the sound directly like that.

 

[DankStar]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

souper cool CTN!

 

[Spudman]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

In Cubase you can just set a track to the VST (EZ Drummer) then when EZ Drummer opens and you audition the pattern that you want, you can then drag and drop the 1 measure bar right into the track. Select then duplicate over and over to fill the track.

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

I'll work on it Friday or Saturday. Today was 15-1/2 hours work. Thanks to all.

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Good stuff CTN

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Here you go buddy.



Excuse the one-sided audio, I had a mic sitting next to me so I could get my voice and the drums in the same file. Stupid screen capture software wouldn't let me take the sound from my outgoing stereo mix so I couldn't get the sound directly like that.

Man, that looks great .... thank you! I can't wait to try it out.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

EZ drummer also comes with a bunch of grooves you can just drag into the MIDI track...try that first to make sure you got things setup properly. And make sure the MIDI tracks output is set to EZdrummer

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Yeah, I played with it for a few minutes this morning before leaving for work. It is very simple to drop the EZ Drummer groove into an open track. Tonight I'll try converting over to the screen that will allow me to manipulate it.

 

[Lazarus1140]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

With CTN's guidance I was able to load an EZ Drummer groove into a track and then open up the piano scroll. I downloaded just a few measures and then drug those out to the approximate length of the song. I was surprised that when I added a high-hat hit, for example, Reaper repeated that entry at every instance. I was trying to modify the groove to fit the drumming part I have in mind for the song and my method didn't work. I thought modifying an existing groove would be a shortcut to recording the drum part, but today I will try to build a part from scratch.

 

[CTN]

Re: DAW vs Drum VST Challenge

Yeah I've tried that as well...sometimes you just have to scrap the whole "modify until it works" philosophy and start from scratch.