Midi vs. Audio Recording Tutorial - TD12 vDrums Brain Sounds vs. Superior Drummer 2

[kingg0d]

i could really use your help. i bought a MIDI cable for my Roland TD-3 drumkit to record my drums with MIDI. i also have Ableton live, but i really don't know where to start... when i plugin my device (it has the correct drivers) Live can see it but when i 'Arm' the drum track it doesn't give any response. can you please help me out here? thanks!

[dreaminginnoother]

I have a td-4, and i am trying to use AD sounds in midi because they sound better than the roland sets on my module. The issue I have though, is comping tracks in midi is a pain in the ass. Is that not true for ableton, or are you just so good you don't need to comp tracks?

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@dreaminginnoother

heyhey, unfortunately i dont knwo whether this is better or not in ableton. this track here i recorded simply by listening to the guitar track on headphones and playing along it, it was a quick number as i lacked time back then, unfortunately, because i love the track. it was one of the last songs of my former band, thebrokenfaithinsaints, there is a live version on yt, if you like to hear a comparism to that, just type thebrokenfaithinsaints + untitled!

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@dreaminginnoother

though i know from composing music in ableton that it has some good features concerning time, metrics and stuff. go and try the trial. it's def. worth it!

[Mumblee]

I have the excact same setup but I can only get a midi signal, I cant get an audio response using one, or both lines in. Any ideas?

[EEZAL]

yeah i  duuug theeaat .... ha ha

[motzingw]

Great stuff. The only explanation that worked for me. Thank you!

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@motzingw

Thx a lot, dude. Back these days I was looking for something like that because I newly owned a TD12 and a comp, but had no clue about anything like this at all. I had quite a hard time getting my nose into that stuff but finally , if this can help other people, I am really glad. Greetz from Santiago de Chile.

[m600blu]

very well done very informative thanks.

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@m600blu

Thx a lot, I am glad I could help. It's not easy find such things on the internet, that's why I came up with this. Greetz from Berlin! Micha

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@Russ88765

Hey Russ! Well, there might be an official DEMO, please refer to google and look up the Toontrack website. If there is no DEMO I suggest buying EZDrummer for a first try and test SD at a local store. Before buying you should try BFD2, too. It might meet your sound expectations a little more than SD does, I don't know but would actually suggest comparing both. Greetz from Berlin!

[rabbb78]

I thought the TD-12 sounded quite good until i heard the SD2 sounds. I have to get SD2 now. What was the TD-12 snare sample and settings you used on this video? Thanks Great drumming by the way!.

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@rabbb78

Hi there, first of all, thx for the compliments and I am glad you dig that. I actually used the EZ Drummer Expansion ROCK/ POP. What you have to know is that all the EZ Drummer Expasions CAN be combined with Superior Drummer as well.

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@rabbb78

It's funny you mention the snare, because only for the snare I created an X-Drum inside SD, which means I routed the original ROCK/ POP snare to a snare sample which is part of another SD expansin kit. In this case it is namely a Ludwig piccolo snare out of the Allaire Expansion (available only for SD, not EZD).

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@rabbb78

If you own SD please msg me and I will send you the mixing preset I did for the song (if you like to). Problem might be that I routed the busses into seperate Ableton tracks and edited them by Ableton plugs just like room, compression and so on. Nevertheless it is a quite pure and at least I think rough mix just because I like bands like Helmet or other early nineties NY Stuff. There's also parallel compression (also called BROOKLYN compression on it). If you like this sound here,...

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@rabbb78

...you should google parallel compression and learn how to mix it, quite easy, if i can do that, you can do that, too. i am a technical idiot!

greetz from berlin! micha

[rabbb78]

Ah i see. so the snare sound isn't actually being generated by the TD-12 drum brain. Ok. Shame, that's just the sound i'm looking for really. That sort of Helmet / early Silverchair sound. Ideally, i want the Tomas Haake (from Meshuggah) snare sound. Unfortunatly i don't have any sample software or any means of recording yet. I know nothing about linking the TD-12 to a PC. I merely have a custom kit on TD-12 of sounds that i like. Looking forward to learning all this stuff in the future though.

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@rabbb78

I know exactly what you mean. I started the same way, half a year ago. Biut I promise you, it's easy as hell. Choose a sequencer (Ableton 8 is great!), buy an external sound device and a MIDI cable...start experimenting. I am in the holy search for the grail, too :-). I am looking for the betty snare sound (Helmet). Well, I am somewhat close now but...it's not sharpen enough...I'll surely get it some day, I know. If you need help in the future...I get back here many times a week!

[rabbb78]

@MrMichaelSchwark

Ha ha. Can't believe you said Betty. That's the very album i own. The only Helmet album. Just had to put in on. Lol. Thanks for offering to help out in the future. Wilma's Rainbow..... class song!!

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@rabbb78

Well, yeah, hell, Wilma is a great track, buuuuuuuuut you should def. give Strap it On and Meantime a chance. One of their most underrated albums is the very album after which they split (waht a shame) - it's called Aftertaste and it defines a new standard of rock drumming! greeeeeetz!

[musicmaniac1965]

thanks for this verry usefull video.

now i can finaly hear the difference between recording from the brain, and using superior drummer. you are right tough, as the superior drummer sounds feels more "into the song", as the drumbrain sounds feels less "one" with the song sound wise. (hope that made sense :-P)

as soon as my skills improve, i will get me a better drumkit (aiming for the roland td9) and dive deeper into how to use it with the pc, and then this video surely come in handy.

[JiTiAr35]

very cool, man. Can you tell me you computer specs and how much latency with that Tascam? thanks

[MrMichaelSchwark]

Heyhey, thx, man, it's been worth it, cool! The Tascam drivers allow to switch between lowest, normal and highest latency. After setting it to lowest, I feel def. no latency while playing. It's just like playing the Roland sounds straight out of the brain.

The computer specs are: PhenomII Quadcore 4x3.2GH with an ASUS M4A motherboard, 4GB DDR3 Ram, no graphic card, a quite cheap Galaxy sound card (as I am don't really need it anyways).

[MrMichaelSchwark]

@MrMichaelSchwark

Ableton Live 8 itself can lower the latency with an integrated MIDi latency function, quite cool in my eyes. If you have further questions, just let me know!