User manual

519
The MIDI editors
Working with drum maps
In the following example, we have modified the drum map so that the Bass Drum
sound has different pitch, I-note, and O-note values.
I-notes (input notes)
When you play a note on your MIDI instrument, the program looks for this note number
among the I-notes in the drum map. If you play the note A1, the program finds that this
is the I-note of the Bass Drum sound.
This is where the first transformation happens: the note gets a new note number
according to the Pitch setting for the drum sound. In our case, the note is transformed
to a C1 note, because that is the pitch of the Bass Drum sound. If you record the note,
it is recorded as a C1 note.
For example, you may want to place some drum sounds near each other on the
keyboard so that they can be easily played together, move sounds so that the most
important sounds can be played from a short keyboard, play a sound from a black key
instead of a white, and so on. If you never play your drum parts from a MIDI controller
(but draw them in the editor) you need not care about the I-note setting.
O-notes (output notes)
The next step is the output. This is what happens when you play back the recorded
note, or when the note you play is sent back out to a MIDI instrument in realtime (MIDI
Thru):
The program checks the drum map and finds the drum sound with the pitch of the
note. In our case, this is a C1 note and the drum sound is the Bass Drum. Before the
note is sent to the MIDI output, the second transformation takes place: the note
number is changed to that of the O-note for the sound. In our example, the note sent
to the MIDI instrument is a B0 note.
The O-note settings let you set things up so that the “Bass Drum” sound really plays
a bass drum. If you are using a MIDI instrument in which the bass drum sound is on
the C2 key, you set the O-note for the Bass Drum sound to C2. When you switch to
another instrument (in which the bass drum is on C1) you want the Bass Drum O-note
set to C1. Once you have set up drum maps for all your MIDI instruments, you do not
need to care about this anymore – you just select another drum map when you want
to use another MIDI instrument for drum sounds.
The Channel and Output settings
You can set separate MIDI channels and/or MIDI outputs for each sound in a drum
map. The following rules apply:
• When a drum map is selected for a track, the MIDI channel settings in the drum
map override the MIDI channel setting for the track.
In other words, the MIDI channel setting you make in the track list or Inspector for
the track is normally disregarded. If you want a drum sound to use the channel of
the track, set it to channel “Any” in the drum map.
• If the MIDI output is set to “default” for a sound in a drum map, the sound uses the
MIDI output selected for the track.
Selecting any other option allows you to direct the sound to a specific MIDI output.
By making specific MIDI channel and output settings for all sounds in a drum map, you
can direct your drum tracks directly to another MIDI instrument simply by selecting
another drum map – you do not need to make any channel or output changes for the
actual track.