Recording midi drums

[R74]

I would like to be able to record separate midi drums to separate audio tracks, kick, snare, etc. all in one pass. I know you can set a plugin to record to an audio track but it's only a stereo master track. It won't allow output routing from the plugin. I use a work around by soloing each drum in the mixer section of the plugin then recording that to an audio track. Which is not a big deal, but it is time consuming. If you could route each kit piece to its own separate audio track and record them all at once would save a lot of time on rendering midi to audio. Maybe this could be in a future update, hopefully.

[cactus-head]

Hello,

It's actually not too hard to separate out MIDI drums to individual tracks. I use a tool called Notemapper in which I assign MIDI drums to specific channels then route those channels to individual tracks. I put together a quick video on the process at the bottom.

The general premise is:

1. Create any number of presets of mapped MIDI drums in Notemapper.
2. Create a track that receives MIDI input or has a MIDI drum clip on it. Add Notemapper as an instrument on this track and choose the appropriate preset you created in number 1. Click the radio button to make Notemapper the source other tracks can record from.
3. Create several MIDI tracks with the source being the Notemapper Plugin from your main drum track. Each track should have a different MIDI channel and you can use a drum instrument of your choice.
4. Arm and record to the individual tracks while the main track is set for playback only.

Once everything is setup, you can save all of the tracks and Notemapper as a Mixcraft template so the next time you want to use it, just load the template.

https://youtu.be/Qy1hrdFawSk

Hopefully the video is not too clunky - it's basically one take without any real editing but I think it gets the idea across.

[Passionpasi]

Here are various midi recording ways:
https://youtu.be/jjhwAZc16Fg?si=f04tcxmZ-lUGIYCe

[CactusMusicBC]

If what you want is to have multiple output from the VST instrument, first the instrument needs to support that. Example Addictive drums supports multiple outputs.
Each daw is different but generally you need to choose the multiple output option while inserting the instrument.

In Mixcraft this is found in the dialogue after you choose the VST See red line. click the conf

Screenshot (286).png (67.48 KiB) Viewed 11364 times

Then in the mixer view look for the tiny plus sign in the lower right of the channel strip, this will open all the mixer channels.

Screenshot (287).png (131.66 KiB) Viewed 11364 times

There's no need to actually record audio tracks as these channel stripps are now audio outputs and you can add effects and mix just like as if they were recorded from a real drum kit.
And you don't need to use all 16 tracks. You could create sub groups for toms etc.
In the GUI for addictive drums at the bottom of each instrument strip you have to then assign each to it's track.

Screenshot (289).png (243.67 KiB) Viewed 11356 times

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

That was actually on my to-do list for 2025....to actually get my head around this. I'm hoping I can do something similar with Opus Orchestrator and Novo?

[CactusMusicBC]

The majority of VSTi's are only stereo outputs. Very few have multiple out options. But Seems most VST drum kits do.
When I first saw this question it got my curiosity and I could not find any way to do this. So I googled the question and found an old forum post where Greg Was showing the insert instrument screen and that tiny little box that is pretty easy to miss.

Every time I think that Mixcraft can't do something I end up finding out that it most certainly can. I learn this stuff by digging up old forum posts. We are lucky to have a staff member like Greg answering questions. Most Daw's forums are the blind leading the deaf. The Manual doesn't always have some of this in a way you can easily find it. But Google digs it up from here.
If it only had a smart tool it would blow Sonar and Cubase out of the water!

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

Am I missing something here?? I've setup the individual outs as instructed. When playing the drum tracks, the separate outs are monitored accordingly. However, when I record, the MIDI notes aren't being recorded. The track is just empty? Is there another step involved. I'm using the CR-78 Multi-Out VST.

[CactusMusicBC]

The midi input is different. You can use just one midi source to feed the instrument. That will be the VST instruments track or you can change the output of any instrument track to go to the VST track or even output to hardware.

Generally you insert the VST instrument and select the multi outputs.
Then you record to the main instrument track in the normal way.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

CR-78 doesn't output MIDI, it's outputting audio. You can click on the Drag-Export bar to drag and drop MIDI into Mixcraft (and you can even drag and drop from CR-78 onto your Windows desktop to create a .mid file).

To separate out the parts, you could drag-export the MIDI from CR-78, then right-click on the the drum parts to select the notes and paste them into new clips.

Greg

Selecting a row of notes in the piano roll.

selectnotespianorolldrumsMX10.png (24.2 KiB) Viewed 10936 times

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

Is that the same with all drum VSTs or is there one that can record directly into Mixcraft?

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Good question. I don't know know which drum plugins might output MIDI. EZDrummer doesn't seem to, but it does allow you to drag and drop.

Greg

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

Yeah, I have EZDrummer 3 too. Will have to research further.

Thanks.

[cactus-head]

For EZdrummer, looking at the manual there is a settings page and a General Tab. There is a MIDI Out checkbox that can only be used in the plugin (not the stand alone).

This seems to be the function to route MIDI directly to the DAW.

MIDI Out: Checking this option allows MIDI to be sent from EZdrummer 3 to other software that is also launched in your host DAW. This option is intended to be used inside of a host DAW with multiple software instruments launched, therefore is not available in standalone. It is useful if you would like to send MIDI from EZdrummer 3 to other virtual instruments launched in your DAW. Additional routing will be required inside of your DAW in order to complete the process.