4 midi tracks to ONE Audio Instrument?

I've searched through this forum, and found similar threads, but I still don't understand how to:

send the midi notes of 4 tracks to ONE specific Audio Instrument, and still have independent control of volume and pan of each track. As an example, If I have notes for kick drum, snare, tom L and tom R (on 4 separate tracks) and want to use just ONE instance of an EXS24 plugin's drum kit, can someone really spell out step by step what I need to do?

 

THANKS in advance!

 

Ron

Ron, the easiest way would be to adjust the level of your samples in the EXS24's edit window. Either adjust the level of the sample itself, or the level of the groups....

Hi Dave thanks for writing back. My main question, though, is how do I set up the tracks and one Audio instrument, so I can have several midi tracks all using just one instance of an Audio Instrument? My individual tracks have notes each pertaining to one specific drum from a drum kit.

I'm trying to avoid having 8 instances of EXS24 to handle one drum kit, but I would like to keep each individual track for each individual drum from the kit.

 

Ron

hi

the pan and volume are global, and will affect the whole instrument, not just the snare say

maybe you need to look at a multichannel exs instrument, basically you must set up each sound to output to a different aux channel.then you can pan etc individually

its in the manual, but its a bit fiddly.

nigel

ps if u cant do it, post back , and David or pH will sort u out hehe

Well nothing prevents you from creating as many Arrange Tracks that are assigned to the same environment object, in your case an Audio Instrument object with an EXS24 inserted.

 

Select your EXS24 track in Arrange and press Control + Return as many times as needed. You can then give them different Track Names (Snare, Kick, Hat....) by Command Clicking the name of the track.

 

Then, instead of inserting the EXS24 through the hierarchical menu saying "stereo", go down to "multichannel" and insert it that way. You can then send each sound to a different output and access those outputs through Aux Tracks. Each of those Aux tracks can have different level/pan and plug-in settings. (you'll find the EXS24 outputs available as inputs on the Aux tracks once you have inserted the EXS24 as a multichannel instrument).

 

Let us know how it goes.

David, that is the clearest explanation! I've been searching for that all week! THANKS VERY MUCH!!!

I'm trying it out right now, and I have two more questions:

1. If I set the Aux channels to mono, the EXS outputs that I can choose from in the AUX's consist of a nice long list of single outs from EXS24. But within EXS24, the first few output choices are set pairs. Is there a way to make all the out selections single/mono; giving more possible drums/outs from EXS24? In other words to be able to choose just "3" or "4" instead of "3-4"

2. After setting all of this up, I notice that in the Arrange window, I am not able to give the resulting AUX tracks any Track Automation; is there any way around that?

 

thanks,

Ron

...I still don't understand how to send the midi notes of 4 tracks to ONE specific Audio Instrument...

 

Just out of curiosity; what's the advantage to be gained from this setup as opposed to assigning them to separate audio instruments?

....Just out of curiosity; what's the advantage to be gained from this setup as opposed to assigning them to separate audio instruments?

 

1. You have a TRACK per kit instrument, which actually means you can edit

drum parts without needing to go to a clinic to have your brain cleared

out every two months.

 

2. With a multi-out instrument like EXS24 or Linplug's RMIV, you get a fader

per kit instrument.

 

It's the only way, really ..................

 

Stay cool, guys.

 

8)

OK, I see. I failed to notice that we were only talking drum kits here; despite the fact that it should have been blindingly obvious to me.

 

I use iDrum which is quite a good way (it seems to me) to control volume and pan independently without having a screen full of nothing but drums. This leads me to a (possibly slightly off-topic) question:

 

I keep being told that my kick is not prominent enough even when it's at top volume. Increasing its volume therefore means reducing that of all the other tracks (and I don't mean just the drums). Is there a way of doing this so that all can be reduced simultaneously, respecting their fine hand-tuned (hem-hem) comparative strengths?

 

I know how to do one track at a time with option-click but...

xenos, have you tried assigning a group to each track except the kick? volume changes in one track will affect all the other tracks in the group equally.

xenos, have you tried assigning a group to each track except the kick?

 

I confess I don't know who to do that and, having moved house recently, my manual disks are in a cardboard box somewhere alongside my wife's popsocks.

 

Er, and the dog ate my homework.

 

I'd like to know though.

i'll give it a shot, but i don't have any sort of reference in front of me so i'm going from memory:

 

group settings are accessible through the channel strip. there's a bar just above the fader in your channel strip that usually reads "off." if you click (maybe right click? can't remember) a menu will pop up that should read something like:

 

off

group 1

group 2

group 3

 

and so on...

 

the first instrument you assign to group 1 should open a pop-up menu that allows you to adjust which parameters group settings affect. "pan" and "volume" are checked by default.

 

once you've assigned all the instruments you wish to group 1 all tracks will be affected by pan and volume changes to one track in the group (unless you uncheck "pan")

 

hope that helps

...... my manual disks are in a cardboard box somewhere alongside my wife's popsocks........

 

Oh, noble Parisian-by-adoption, thou lack'st the one basic ingredient

for thy kickdrum to belt through thy mix: The venerable and ancient

craft of compression.

 

1. Kick on separate track and channel - ALWAYS - no excuses will be accepted.

 

2. Use a decent compressor as insert in that channel.

 

3. Somewhere between 3:1 and 6:1 ratio depending on what your doing.

 

4. Threshold at around -16 to -20 and stick in some makeup gain if you need it.

 

5. Attack set low, but not ridiculously so, say about 1-2mS.

 

6. Release set to around 80-100mS for most kick samples (certainly for all

the ones in the EXS ).

 

And away ye go: A kickdrum that people can hear.

 

Keep up with the Prozac as well, though .......................

 

Tanks & Panto - you're a couple of darlings; I think you've both given me some really useful tools just as I'm about to head for the hills where the internet connection is risible. So if you don't hear from me much over the next month you can picture me poring over the iBook in a hammock, tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth in concentration.

 

Happy summer and thanks again!

..... picture me poring over the iBook in a hammock, tongue poking out of the corner of my mouth......

 

What a truly disgusting thought .........................

 

Enjoy your break, Marc.