Controlling SampleTank from e-drums

[DarkStar]

In that case, please contact IK Multimedia Support, here:
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/contact-support/mi/
for some one to one help. And, to help others who run into a similar problem, please let us know how it gets resolved.

[bminnix]

Hey there, I'm having this same issue with my Alesis Nitro. Did you ever get an answer?

All other software sees it and can use the notes, but Sampletank3 seems to recognize that a note is being played(lights up when drum tapped) but no sound is played.

This is the same characteristic whether played as a plugin in my DAW, or standalone.

If my keyboard is being used, when a key is pressed it lights up the virtual keyboard in Sampletank3, but when using the drum set, this doesn't happen at all.

I've also used a midi monitor to confirm what notes the edrums are sending.

[bminnix]

I've gone through a few different setups this evening while waiting on a response from support, and I've gotten it to work a little bit, but not quite the way I want/expected.

I have not been able to get it to work at all in Standalone mode, but using my DAW (Ableton 9.7.7), I have made some progress using the PADS and MULTI method described above. Even though the set outputs to my computer on MIDI Channel 10, Ableton receives it and re-sends on Channel 1 to the Sampletank VST, so that is where all the ST3 "Parts" go.

Also, on the same area where you set the note, at the bottom, I had to set the Mode to "One Shot". This gave an unexpected result however, when I strike a pad, unless I wait on the sample timer to run out completely (which may be quite some time after the sample seems to end), then every strike until I do wait on the timer to run out, is set at the same velocity/volume.

Not sure what it could be. The Ableton "Drum Rack" with different samples doesn't behave this way, and the MK2-Power Drum Kit doesn't either. Oh well, I guess this is what I'll be discussing with them for the support ticket. Glad that I've gotten it to make sound though, now to just make it right!

[bminnix]

I heard back from IK support today and have been working with one of their techs.

One thing we've found so far, is that if when using this is a plug-in in Ableton, if I record the midi notes, and extend them, ST3 recognizes the notes and will play the beat.

I haven't figured out how to extend the notes automatically while playing, send extended notes from my drums, or have ST3 not care what the length is yet (in other words, no workaround/resolution yet) but will update if there is one.

[bminnix]

Okay, so while I haven't been able to get this to work in the Standalone mode, I did figure out how to get it to play notes using ST3 as a plug-in in Live without using the PADS as previously mentioned.

Basically for Live, there is a "MIDI Effects", "Note Length" effect called "16th Notes.adv" that you can put on your MIDI track. That's it, that's all I needed to do. Now whether ST3 is applied on the same track, a different track and routed to it, or whatever, I can play and hear/record what I'm playing via the ST3 plugin.

I believe there are other ways to do this in other DAW's, but I had not seen this instruction anywhere...

[bminnix]

In order to map specific note to specific drum, I ended up having to use PADS again. With the new note length, everything works fine on hold mode.

Had a couple drums that weren't mapped to pads. Having to transpose those, but seems to work now.

[bminnix]

Alright, so after finishing up working with the IK Multimedia tech/team (Thanks Jason!), we've determined the issue for this is that ST3 does not trigger notes that are too short, and the way the drums we're using send the notes are extremely short in length.

The only way to resolve, is to either:
1. Find a way to have your drum's module send a longer note (16th's work fine)
2. Use your DAW or something to modify the incoming MIDI before being processed by ST3


Have this working pretty flawlessly in Live now, but since I don't have a different HW/SW MIDI converter, it will not work in Standalone.

[DarkStar]

I'm glad that you got it sorted out. it's a bit worrying that ST3 standalone does not currently work with a commercial e-drums kit. As far as I know, several send "short" notes.

I'm curious - do you know how short is too short? And did Support consider it to be a bug?

[bminnix]

This wasn't really elaborated on, I can't tell how long the notes are in the unmodified midi, but the cymbal strikes appeared to be much longer than a 16th, but didn't do it either. Only after applying the "16ths" midi effect did it work.

Here's the quote:
"It the note length is really short ST3 doesn't like to trigger it and it sounds like this is what is happening in the SA version"

[DarkStar]

I have just tried a Alt Rock Cymbal with MIDI notes of various lengths from 10 ticks upwards (a 16th is 240 ticks). Here is the resulting recorded audio:



As you can see every one of the MIDI notes plays out a full cymbal sound (subject to the note length affecting the Sustained audio). So short notes look OK to me.

Can you, perhaps, upload a short problem MIDI file somewhere safe and let us know exactly which ST3 drum kit / piece to use to show the problem?

[bminnix]

Here is the one I sent to support.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vmvu98e0fmjs1 ... 3.mid?dl=0

Using this midi with a drum rack in Live works fine, the output audio results in exactly what I'd expect. This is the same with ST3 as a plug-in if I put Live's "16th Notes" effect on the midi track, but without that, it doesn't work.

I also just tried blowing up the scale on the midi track to see if I could get an idea of how long the actual midi length notes are, but no matter how far in I zoomed, the notes still stayed at the smallest possible size. This was even at the 1/16384 scale, and the one past it where the lines disappear and it no longer shows the scale.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this, as far as I know (still a noob on these drums) there is no way to adjust the length of the sent note using the drum module. I've poured through the manual. But... I didn't realize until yesterday I could modify the actual note sent either, which is why I continue to RTFM.

EDIT: Forgot to include that I've primarily been using the "Billy Cobham Kit". In the case of this midi, it was all on the same channel in PLAY mode, (not PAD), just playing the assigned notes for the drum being played, so some of it might not line up right. Also, it was just a super quick "just need something" beat, so disregard the crappiness :p

[DarkStar]

Thank you for the file (although Dropbox and NoScript had a bit of a tussle!).

The notes in the MIDI file are all zero-length and I can confirm that ST3 plug-in detects them (the MIDI channel lights up) but does not trigger any sound. If I change the length to 0.0.01 (10 ticks) then they do play.



The ignoring of zero-length notes may be a design decision in ST3 -that would be worth reconsideration by IK Multimedia. It doesn't look like you can set the note length on the KAT ktmp1 e-drums kit - you could raise the problem with them too.

[garrettendi]

Sorry to chime in so late. I also had the exact same problem with my Alesis Forge kit.

I would say any issue with zero length notes is down to you guys to fix, as the same notes run fine in literally every other standalone and plug in drum library I've tried.

I've tested this on MT Power Drum Kit both in a DAW and in Savihost, as well as the bundled drum kits in Harrison Mixbus.

I have yet to test it in Native's Kontakt 6 Player though.

[bminnix]

Well, we now have multiple confirmations on our issue and the workarounds. Thanks for that DarkStar.

As far as a resolution goes, I think IK taking the reign on this would be the right way. The reason I say that is that if at least 2 kits from Alesis, and a kit from KAT all send zero-length notes, it would seem to be much easier for ST3 to be tweaked on IK's side, vs having every manufacturer of a drum module update their firmware. Not to mention, I'm not even sure if this module supports firmware updates.

Plus as garrettendi says, no other plug-in/standalone software that I've found so far has an issue with this. I've tried multiple, also including MT Power Drums, Addictive Drums 2, all (okay, a lot) of Live's samples in the Drum Rack instrument, and just using them for general triggering tests.

If IK intends on not using zero-length notes because it works for some users, some way to enable/disable that in the UI would be nice. At least I can still use Live to get what I'm looking for out of this software and it's not difficult to do. If I were more restricted to the standalone I'd be out of luck though. I also can't believe this isn't a more well known thing, I'd have thought using e-drums on ST3 samples for kits etc would be a fairly common use case scenario in design considerations.

[DarkStar]

Please Reply to your Support Ticket with this new information and a link to this thread.