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Roland Drum Machine - Song Patterns


logicstu-jdc

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Hello Fellow Logicians:

 

I have a ton of songs I've written with my Roland Boss 660 drum machine, and I don't want to reinvent the wheel through logic. How can I divide/assign logic studio to trigger the pads through the Roland? :?:

 

I'm sure someone's been down this path before. I don't want to re-write the songs under Logic.

 

Thanks!

(New Keyboard Logician at JDC)

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Hi David,

 

Yes, I'd like to trigger/assign the drum pads on the roland to trigger logic --and vice versa. I'm fairly new to Logic Studio (just bought it) but I'm a former DP user.

I used to run the length of the songs into DP, then split them according to their midi note numbers to trigger the sounds.

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I think I understand. I use a Boss DR-880 as drum controller. Every pad on the drum computer sends a certain NoteOn/NoteOff message through MIDI to Logic. In Logic you can see what message that is. Assign that message to whatever drum sound you want to trigger and you can use the drum computer as controller for the drums. My drum computer manages Superior Drummer that way.
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I believe I've found a tip on how to split my drum machine tracks. Of course you lay down the entire song track and save. Second highlight the track, select the "midi" button, select "split midi event notes" ...at this point the tracks are correctly divided in order to individually control kick, snare, hi-hats (open and closed) and etc. :D

 

There's another sep involved with this after the splitting has occurred and it requires "bouncing the tracks in place."

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I'm not sure what you're asking. Or I misinterpreted the original question to begin with. So let me try to explain my workregime. :lol:

 

Once upon a long time ago I bought Superior Drummer and The Metal Foundry. You can "drum" on it either by pushing keys on your keyboard or use a MIDI drum controller like Korg's Nanopad or so. I still had a Boss DR-880, so in SD I created a drum kit resembling the various pads on the DR-880 (double kick., snare, four toms, etc.) Selected the various kitpieces and checked the MIDI note associated with it. If not correct, changed them to what the note was that being transmitted upon banging that particular pad, and in the end save it as my preset.

 

In Logic I insert an Instrument track and set the Instrument to SD, load my kit, and record the rhythm by banging pads. As I am a completely crappy drummer afterwards I still have to move things around to get it on the beat if I need it way tighter than I can manage, but in essence the drumtrack is done and I move on to other parts of the song.

 

I know that there are loops in both SD and the Metal Foundry but I don't use them.

 

Hope this helps.

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My apologies Viv if I wasn't clear with my question also. What I normally do is write my drum tracks with the Boss 660 and create the entire song with the pads on the machine. Afterwards I simply run a completed song through my midi interface into the sequencer (in this case Logic), and record/track the midi info.

Last night I finally figured out how to take the drum tracks (midi drum info) and split the notes, so that I can have control over the individual drum parts.

 

So we're pretty much speaking of the same thing, we just have different methods in which we track drums. SD sounds like a great tool, it's just that the Boss 660 drum machine gives me flexibility to almost humanize the feel of the drums. And the things that attracted me to Logic most, had more to do with how flexible the I could make the dynamics of the drums sound. The flex time caught my attention.

 

You sound like an original writer like myself and like to give your songs the right structure instead of using loops. Loops are great for short stuff or for the non-musician, but the way my songs are lyrically it's hard to write behind loops especially when there are so many twists and turns dynamically in my songs.

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Hi logicstu-jdc.

 

There is no hurry of course, and taking this game one step at a time is the way to go...

And if you are experiencing success musically there is no reason to argue with it (success that is).. :)

 

The pads on your controller can also play UltraBeat, the EXS DrumKits, and third party Softwares like Superior Drummer. This provides similar but expanded creative freedom to what you experience now. We can map and re-map sounds to particular keys or pads to suite our hand, particular styles, or simply to explore. Couple that with Channel Strip, Routing, and Track Automation goodness and there is lot to look forward to.

 

For me, I like loops as suggestions. I'll rehearse them for ideas, or to help me out of the "blank page inert state". I like to play along to them and expand my performance abilities. Or sometimes I'll extract just the Kick and Snare and play along to that, adding my own ornamentation.... etc. etc.

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Wow, thanks Nublu...

 

I was going through the parameters under logic and ran across Ultrabeat...very cool! That would really be nice to use the Drum machine to trigger Ultrabeat, I'll try that tonight. I'm not great with using my keyboards' keys to create the beats, I'm pretty lousy at it.

Great tips, thanks -I'll try using the loop patterns and excluding the high-end extras in order to keep the kick and snare shots...sounds like a pretty sweet approach.

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I'm very familiar with the benefits of tracking Viv, unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having a real drummer these days. Years ago when studios were more confined that was the only way to go, so separate tracking for all the individual drum components was always priority due to dynamics and so forth. I miss those days, but I love how nowadays programs like logic put the studio right in my home without all the physical complexities needed. :)
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