cubase and roland vdrums?

Cubase
#1

Hi

just got a set of TD15KV vdrums. anyone here use roland to record with?

i am wondering how you do this? i keep looking for step by step instructions on youtube etc but cant find it

i just want to use the kit to record into cubase, then quantize and fix what i play. if possible i would like to use superior drummer to change the sound, but thats not as important to me as being able to play and quantize and fix

is it a midi track? instrument track?

does the rolan kit show up as an input?
is there latency or what should i set my symphony to ?

sorry brand new to this and i cant find much on it other than alot of people say they do it all the time lol

thanks

#2

Connect a USB cable from the drumbrain´s USB out to your computer´s USB port, and probably follow the instruchtions that come with the vDrums

Depends on what you prefer, and Cubase version…

Since it´s USB MIDI - probably. Should be very simple for you to find out yourself…

Depedns on computer, interface, buffer settings. Obviously you should set it as low as possible…

#3

I do it every day. The drums are in another room.

I run a stereo output from the studio into the external input of the Roland ‘brain’ and a MIDI cable to the drum room.

On the drum kit, I’ve added 3 home made triggers, which I use for ‘Start’, ‘Go To Locator’ and ‘Record’. You could also use drum pads too, I guess.

I then use Generic Remote. I assign the 3 triggers to the functions I just mentioned in Cubase.

The drums then trigger Superior Drummer.

Works fine. I just turn down the internal Roland sounds and listen to Cubase through the headphones.

Lately, I’ve also been using Cubase iCPro, which now seems to work reliably for me with the latest version.

—JC

#4

Hi,
I also do not use the USB from the drum module, I found the Roland driver to be a pain in the neck. Plus, with a MIDI cable you are much less restricted in terms of cable length. I used to use USB extenders and the like… messy. I now have a Roland UM-ONE MIDI interface, works great.
But at first, I set up a simple MIDI track with input from the USB Roland module connection and recorded monitoring the drum sounds from the module. That is a two-way connection, so the recorded MIDI can trigger the sounds from the module. Set the module to local-off.
Later I found the sounds in the module seriously lacking compared to Superior Drummer, and now I use that, even for the monitoring, and I use a MIDI cable instead of the USB.
I actually HAVE to use Superior Drummer, since the Module doesn’t have MIDI-In, so you can’t even listen to the recorded MIDI!
However, I’m lucky enough to run with a pretty low latency with my setting so that doesn’t bother me (or the session guys coming in to play… :slight_smile: )
Input to track: MIDI interface, Output from track: Superior Drummer, rout that to your monitoring solution.

I hope I could be of help. The 15KV’s hi-hat is especially nice, but a little tricky to set up with SD 2.0, but once I got it going, I never looked back.

Benji

#5

I’ve been triggering Superior Drummer 2.0.x via my Roland TD-4S V-Drum kit using a standard 5 pin MIDI cable (15 feet) since Cubase 5.0 without issue. I do not have any latency when my ASIO buffers are set to either 128kb or 256kb.

#6

Great!

thanks all.

i have the USB cable right now, and am about 15 feet away from the Imac. i am using cubase 7.5 and an apogee Symphony so i dont have any midi ports on that. i take it then i should get a midi interface and run the midi out on the TD module to that? seems to be better than the USB cable

still a little unsure then how to setup Superior Drummer as the sounds and how that maps to the kit and then records back to the midi track in cubase but i will keep checking that out.

i havent had a chance to test this yet since i am traveling and am just trying to get the step by step in my head to try out this weekend and try and get it working.

thanks for all the help and ideas!

i will keep at it

#7

Trock, the driver situation might be much different with the Mac, and 15 ft. is the max (=ok!) for USB. Try that first, since you can trigger the module with the data you recorded. Much more straightforward for now. Move to SD when you have the basics down.
My 2c,
Benji

#8

On the drum kit, I’ve added 3 home made triggers, which I use for ‘Start’, ‘Go To Locator’ and ‘Record’. You could also use drum pads too, I guess.

Neat. Consider it nicked. Thanks.

#9

  1. Yer trying to master several technologies all in one go. They’re not rocket science, but get one thing going at a time.

  2. Start with MIDI. Make sure that when you hit a v-drum it is registered in Cubase.

  3. Then figure out how to route that to Superior.

  4. THEN start thinking about Generic Remote. and the Learn function.

  5. You can buy cheap drum triggers. If you know one end of a soldering iron from the other, you can make all 3 for $5 using blocks of wood, piezos and duct tape. The only ‘trick’ is that they have to be isolated from other vibrations. I just tape e’m to my rack.

It will take time if this is new territory. Probably days. So be patient.

—JC


#10

There is no “learn” features I needed to do with Superior Drummer and the Roland V-Drums. Everything is mapped accordingly to work with the Roland kits in Superior Drummer. I also don’t beleive there is a difference between the standard 5 PIN MIDI and the USB MIDI. It should work just the same.

  1. ADD a VST instrument and choose “Superiror Drummer”.
  2. Now go to the Superior Drummer VST track and in the Inspector choose the correct MIDI IN port (the one your Roland module’s MIDI OUT is sending to). The MIDI IN won’t say Roland or anything. It will either be the name of your MIDI interface or if its a USB MIDI interface it may just say USB IN.
  3. Enable the MONITOR button on the Superior Drummer VST track to listen to your triggered V-Drums.
  4. Enable the RECORD button on the Superior Drummer VST track…Hit PLAY/RECORD and you should see MIDI events being recorded.

This shouldn’t take days at all if your MIDI interface is set up properly and is recognized in Cubase. Should take 2 minutes tops.

#11

thanks again!

great stuff

def alot to learn here. i will try it all out soon, and hopefully get it going so i can use it efficiently! very exciting as well

thanks for all the help guys!

#12

I’ve been using a TD 12 with Superior drummer to record with for about 5 months. cmaffia has the right idea.

The way I use it is have the drummer listen to the Roland kit through the phones from the TD12 and I also feed him a mix from Cubase of what I want him to play to. The mix goes to the aux in on the TD12.

I record the midi off the TD 12 and use that to trigger SD. I found on some of my larger projects the latency was too high to trigger SD directly for monitoring so this compromise works. I set up a custom drum map so the drums I’m recording are at the top of the map. I also tweaked a few things in the SD to get cymbal swells to sound better in SD. Also the Cymbal chokes had to be tweaked. There’s info on Toontracks about these things.

Once you have it all working it’s great.

#13

The next thing you will want to experiment with after you got the above working is configuring both the SD mixer and SD in the VST Rack to “MultiChannel”. The method described above outputs SD to a stereo track in Cubase and any mixing of the drums is limited to the SD Mixer. MultiChannel will route all of your SD instruments to individual tracks in Cubase.

The way you would do that is:

  1. Go to the mixer view in Superior Drummer.
  2. Right click on any output (default is S1/2) and choose “Multichannel”.
  3. Hit F11 in Cubase and bring up the VST Rack.
  4. Enable the outputs of Superior Drummer in the VST Rack to what you are using in the SD mixer. The icon looks sort of like this [->

When completed, you will see now in the Cubase project screen an individual track for every instrument output in the SD mixer. I typically process each SD instrument in Cubase and route the output each of those tracks to a Drum Buss that I created.

Please note that you will want to do any individual processing of these SD tracks after you have recorded your performance as plugins on each SD instrument and the Drum Buss will add latency when you play your kit in realtime.

Have fun.
Charlie

#14

that is some fantastic info!

i almost didnt dare to ask about the multi track out thing, which of course is what i would LOVE to have in the end. so much control! like a real kit

does the multi track out include the bleed and stuff SD has internally?

anyway, i will concentrate on this one step a time.

one thing that worries me is i am literally at the edge of 15 feet on my midi cabling and that is stringing it across the floor, to set up a permanent and neat cable setup would be 20 feet or more.


should i get a midi box? and run a midi cable out of the TD module? that way i could permanently had it cabled and not have to run the USB cable, over the floor, then unplug it every time to be able to move around etc

if so what a good little midi box out there now? i dont have any midi ports right now, just a symphony 2x6

thanks all!

#15

Anything that is in the SD mixer is outputted so yes bleeds, SD EQ (which I hate) are all passed to Cubase.

I have used both the 5 PIN MIDI interface on my DM3200 and a USB to 5 PIN MIDI cable with about 15 feet or more of cabling (when you include the cabling used to connect to my MIDI switch) with equal success.

Unless you go with a hybrid audio/MIDI interface box that connects via Firewire or some proprietary slot card, then most of the cheaper MIDI boxes are connecting via USB 2.0 anyway. I suggest trying a USB to 5 PIN MIDI cable first. They are cheap and it may work. If it doesn’t you wont be out of much and you can use it for other MIDI devices.

EDIT - Maybe this simple MIDI signal booster would work:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-MIDI-EXTENDER-PCBs-MIDI-REPEATER-BOOSTER-AMP-Send-Midi-4000-Daisy-Chain-/270955739982?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f16387b4e#ht_3427wt_1362
What’s interesting is (and this is the second source I’ve heard this from today) that the auctioner is stating that “A standard Midi output is rated for 50’ max”. If that’s true then you could run the footage of MIDI cabling you need from any USB MIDI interface to your Roland kit.

#16

Just wanted to report …SUCCESS!

so far so good! i plugged the USB cable from the module to the Imac, loaded the roland driver from the roland site

added a midi track in cubase with “all midi inputs” and Superior Drummer in the output

hit the monitor button and record, RAN BACK to the kit and smacked some drums! i could see the drums in SD being hit in the distance. RAN BACK and stopped the recording and there were DOTS IN THE LANE!

played back and SD played the MIDI notes!

i was blown away

now i have no idea how the kit and SD sync’d up? i didnt set anything at all?

some things i want to look at now are, its very hard for me to stretch headphones back to the kit, with latency set as low as i can get it, does anyone just play out loud over speakers? i figure since this is drums and direct i dont need it to be quiet and that would be much easier than trying to get headphones back to the kit

  • i am going to setup and use the IPAD app so i can sit at the kit and control cubase

  • i need to learn the whole quantize thing next.

  • now i will try and combine some great grooves from SD that are way better than what i can play and then in the sections where i need to add something i need a count in? possibly do that loop recording? not sure if i should set it to add to the track as i build it or just overwrite it each time? i figure since its a kit i should overwrite since i am not trying to build it drum by drum

  • once good at this then head to the multi track out thing.

but man, it worked! thanks all!

amazing

#17

Congratulations. That’s the easy part. Now for the part that takes a few days… :smiley:

To go further… read my o/p.

  1. You’ll want to take a stereo feed from your DAW back to the Roland brain external input and then hook some headphones to the brain. No loud noises.

  2. You’ll want to learn about Generic Remote and triggering so you can start/stop/record from your kit.

Good luck,

—JC

#18

Good news! Told you it wouldn’t take days :smiley:

Firstly, I would suggest you SPECIFICALLY choose which MIDI input you are using and not choose “ALL MIDI INPUTS”. If you don’t and you connect an additional MIDI device to your setup with “ALL MIDI INPUTS” as well, the new MIDI device will trigger Superior Drummer simultaneously when you play it.

Secondly, using the specific input is best practice! You should know the inputs and outputs of your equipment in general as it will be easier to implement new hardware and troubleshoot issues in the future.

As I said in an earlier post, there’s no need to “map” because the Superior Drummer already supports Roland Kits natively. You need to do a deeper dive in Superior Drummer because there are specific settings you should configure that are Roland specific under mapping. For example, there is a setting to tell SD that you are using a Roland kit as it will affect how chokes and the high hat pedal respond. You can obviously make changes to each instrument and create your own template based on your touch and style. But you got the basics down so congrats.

#19

What Roland driver did you need to install? Maybe it’s drivers for USB data connectivity to your computer…or USB MIDI? I was under the impression that you connected your kit using a USB to 5 PIN MIDI dongle to your Roland’s sound module (in which no Roland drivers are required).

#20

Hey

sorry its been so long. i just FINALLY got a chance to record today! i had the Roland MODULE USB connected to my IMAC and Cubase 7.5

i put Superior Drummer 2 on the OUTPUT of an instrument track and had ALL MIDI inputs selected for the kit ( i wasntr sure which specific track the kit was on)

the kit mapped perfectly to SD2. and i recorded just fine at a 64 buffer.

now in my headphones i had a little lag, would 32 buffer work better? but more than that it was hard to hear the kit all that well with the other tracks. it had a little lag and it was buried quite a bit so it made it hard to drum?

so am i doing anything wrong here? should i do this differently? i would really like to hear the kit nice an clear with the other tracks and without any lag , if possible?

it was great fun though, and with a little quantize help it came out very well! so i could do it this way and make it work but its def a fight

thanks for any tips!