triggering longer samples

Hi, recently I mentioned to the drummer in my band that using Mainstage might be good for our electronic drum parts. I don't have much experience with mainstage but I know logic.

So I helped him configure his midi pads with mainstage and ultrabeat. Everything is smooth.

But we also have some minute-long atmospheric samples to be triggered and we would like the drummer to be in control of those as well.

Since he has some pads left on his midi controller I would like to assign these samples to them. But it seems ultrabeat dosen't handle longer samples.

What would be the most efficient and simple method of doing this? I would like to keep the mainstage rig as clean as possible.

thanks so much.

Yes it is possible and pretty darn easy to do that!

but i have another suggestion first.

Use the EXS24 and load your atmospheric samples into that, I never use ultrabeat. I'm sure if i worked with it a bit i would use it but the EXS24 is just such a great simple sampler and does everything i want. And i would imagine for triggering electronic samples aswell as long atmospheric samples it might be easier for you than ultrabeat.

personally i think using a playback plug in for each atmospheric sample is just getting a bit silly and might end up putting a lot of strain on your cpu but i don't know how cpu intensive playback is....

to assign a drum pad to the start button of a playback plugin follow my wonderful artwork:

create the playback plugin

http://img.skitch.com/20091116-jd34ycpqicr9fb1fe1s2iwjrut.jpg

http://img.skitch.com/20091116-kdkb2t3dhx84m4n6t17j6f12ek.jpg

go to layout mode

http://img.skitch.com/20091116-t7a5gx6es8agpwyctkntq7e6tx.jpg

create a button (or a drum pad or whatever kind of thing you want from that list - except a knob or slider would be silly)

http://img.skitch.com/20091116-m14p9itx9bhmamydhs6xn6bcmn.jpg

click learn

http://img.skitch.com/20091116-qftpcrxk67wjjb3aprs15n2b2m.jpg

hit your drum pad that you want to assign.

back to edit mode, assign that button!

http://img.skitch.com/20091116-fx85taq61kc2i4yaiex6rgdce5.jpg

thats it!!!

thank so much for the reply. Your graphics are awesome!

I was also thinking that the esx might be the way to go.

What I can't figure out is;

I like my electronic drums in ultrabeat, and we've got those nicely triggered from the hardware drum pads, but how do I set up just one drum pad to trigger the esx and the others to trigger ultrabeat in the same performance?

Is it all just a matter of assigning things with the learn button?

thanks so much

edit:

I think I realize my problem is not so much in mainstage, it's in assigning my drummer's hardware pads to different software instruments. I've never dealt with this before because usually my hardware has been restricted to playing just one virtual instrument.

no problem. thanks!

what you need to do is create an ultrabeat channel strip and an exs24 channel strip on the same patch.

on your drum pads assign the note value (actually on the hardware, not in mainstage) of the 1 or 2 pads you want to trigger the exs24 with to something considerably higher or lower than where your ultrabeat pads are assigned.

Then all you have to do is split the layers so the low or high note values only trigger exs24.

obviously assign your samples to these low or high notes that you're splitting to.

i hope thats clear enough.

yes thanks again.

I think with your help I've got it know. Fantastic, thank you.

Except one little problem, and I'd like to ask you since I've got your attention, though it might be a little out of place in this mainstage forum, or maybe not.

One of the atmospheric samples that you have helped me load into the esx is a fairly long one, about a minute and half. The drummer triggers it, it's set to 1 shot, and then on cue the band comes in. He then needs to shut it off. It needs to be long because because there is some unscripted improv that happens, sometimes shorter sometimes longer.

I now know how to assign buttons etc in mainstage but I can't find a "note off" or similar. I found a master mute, but this is not useful because the drummer is playing on ultrabeat.

I also did some editing in the exs24 editor and I can get it to go off with the ol' high hat trick in groups, but it seems to be a kind of dirty workaround.

Maybe there is a more Mainstage-based way?

hmm...

i found this:

http://img.skitch.com/20091118-qjwrjciqhri52qbwpmnifn3rqk.jpg

if you had another pad that you could use to trigger a button assigned to this on the EXS then that should work (i haven't tried it so i don't know for sure)

Out of interest, what pads are you using?

The pads are down at the studio right now.

But I can tell you there's 8 pads. the box is white, and it's made by roland.

let you know later when I'm down there.