recording GNX4 drum presets into PTP
hey guys...Im trying to record the GNXs drum presets into a PTP project.I recorded a little drum phrase onto the CF card , than i opened up the card and dragged that file into track 4 of PTP...but theres no data in the stream...just a flat line and no play? I would love to be able to record some of these drum presets and be able to use them in songs and parts. even copy and pastes with mixes of my own stuff from drum creator. I know theres got to be away to do this...any help you can shoot my way is appreciated...once i get this ill be able to put some killer drum tracks together!
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im starting to dig in to them and do my own editing.i guess to fill you in where i at....i want to take these presets...edit them copy them put in my own fills mix them and create my whole drum pattern with all its parts and changes start to finish.....whew..and then lay it as a track in PTP...then in play back put down my bass...guitar etc...so i guess i want to have ready like 5 or 6 tracks...and keep the drums in a midi track? this probably sounds like what everyone is doing and some much more...but im figuring it out as i go
I kept my drum track in midi format until the final mixdown, which then I recorded the audio track. I spent more time on the drum track than all my other tracks combined, but at the time I was just learning how to program the drums like you. So I imagine if I did it again, it would go much faster. Copy and paste is your friend. You can quickly build a good drum track if you break up the song in sections and just copy and paste those sections to complete the song.
There are websites for drummers, and for programming midi drums. The main lesson I took from most of those websites is to remember that a real drummer is limited to 2 hands and 2 feet. So if you start building drum tracks that require 6 or 8 limbs, you get yourself into trouble.
Since it is so hard to record live drums in the home studio, I think it's great that we can program midi drum tracks and convert them to audio as required. As good as our live drummer is, we have never been able to capture his live performances with our modest recording gear and do him justice.
Best wishes on your project.
Years ago I used to frequent drumming web sites. I don't anymore. But if you spend some time on Google searching for terms related to drumming, you will probably have many hits. One good site usually leads to another, and another, etc....
These days, I use a software program called EZDrummer. I found it much better to compose drum tracks using EZDrummer. Not only is it so much easier, but the tracks sound better than what I was programming myself. It used to take hours to tweak a drum track by programming it myself. EZDrummer has built in variations of the beat and you can drag and drop the midi loops right into your DAW and you are done. EZDrummer has fills and hits, so you don't have to program them either. Best of all, EZDrummer has a \"humanize\" feature that works. I prefer the sound of a \"human\" drummer, where everything is not drum machine perfect. With the humanize feature turned on, hits vary in velocity (loudness) and the program will also push/pull drum hits so that they don't play perfect on the beat everytime. If you turn off the humanize feature, you can really hear, and feel, the drum machine beat perfectly looping. Sometimes that is what you want in certain music, just not the stuff I play. Anyway, I used to spend hours \"humanizing\" my drum tracks, and now in EZDrummer, I just click on the button and I'm done. I have been using EZDrummer for about 3 years now and have not looked back.
It's still good to know how to program drums, if you want the ultimate control over your drum track. For my purposes, using EZDrummer works better for me. After all, I'm a guitarist, not a drummer, and I don't want to spend hours working on drum tracks anymore. Take care.
gtaus my man; I have been searching for the way to get my EZDrummer MIDI files into the MIDI folder on my 2Gig Compact Memory card.
I dragged, dropped and I can see the file in Windows explorer AND on my GNX4. The drums will NOT sound however. I assume because the mapping is different.
If you would advise I have lots of EZD backing tracks ready to go. I wish to get the EZD JAZZ \"improvisations\" (24 measure loops) right into the GNX so I can \"perform loop\"
Thanks in advance gtaus!
The other thing that comes to mind, is that there are different types of midi tracks. Type 0 tracks which have all midi tracks \"compressed\" into one track, and Type 1 tracks which are multitrack midi files - each instrument gets its own separate midi track. The GNX4 only takes Type 0 midi files. Take a look at this short article in case you don't understand Type 0/Type 1 midi files http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/definition/Standard-MIDI-File.
Another option is to have the DAW \"render\" the midi track into an audio .wav file. Then you can transfer that to the GNX4. There was a time, back about 7 years, that I used Pro Tracks Plus with the GNX4 and I was able to transfer .wav files or .mid files back and forth without a problem. But I have since moved on to a 16 track recorder to record my band, so I have not used my GNX4 for recording in many years.
Bottom line, I know it was possible to import both midi tracks and .wav audio files into the GNX4. The GNX4 was really a machine way ahead of its time. If I were only doing solo projects at home, I probably would never have moved on to other options. But I joined a band, needed a larger recorder, and it has been years since I used my GNX4 for recording. That's about the best I can do for you now. Hope it helps. Take care.