Drum Editor: how to solo multiple drum sounds?

Cubase
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I’m trying to edit my live e-drums performance (Yamaha DTX-950++) in the Drums editor (Cubase Pro 11.0.41) and need to focus, say, on just the kick and snare, and not hear the hat, cymbals, and toms until that’s dialed in. I thought, “Aha! The big 1 ‘Solo Instrument’ button is what I want; I’ll just multi-select both the kick and snare rows.” But noooooo, only the last one selected is included.

This seems a fairly obvious need, and I’m hoping I’m just missing something?

Similarly, I would have thought that the Drum Map would have a Solo button, not just a Mute button for each sound. How unfortunate. Again, am I missing something?

Yes, I realize that the Drum Map functionality was literally written back during the Reagan administration, but crufty as it is, it otherwise works - and is absolutely essential!

FWIW, I use Superior Drummer 3, including all of the SDX add-ons, and have spent many hours carefully crafting my Drum Maps as the Rosetta Stone that ties it all together, from controllers (DTX & nanoPad2) to Cubase drum tracks to SD3. I had to create a very detailed spreadsheet to map all the goesintas to the goesouttas, and have just the one place - Cubase Drum Maps - where there is remapping (other than the initial, careful configuration of the controllers, of course). I’m happy to share the spreadsheet, Drum Maps, SD3 presets, etc. with anyone who might find them useful.

Right now I’m debating whether I should create a Logical Editor preset that translates the DTX’s CC4 hihat into discrete MIDI notes, for easier editing in the Drum Editor. It’s a PiTA trying to wiggle CC4 in the editor for open/close hats…

– jdm

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Maybe you should read the manual first just to name the things with the right terms…
Your writing is… confusing… at least

The drum editor uses a drum map to name the notes with drum instruments…
and doesn’t produce any sound, that’s what the Superior Drummer does…
Mapping instruments to different outputs available in the mixer could help… maybe…

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Wow, rude much?

I thought I clearly explained that I have created and used Drum Maps for a long time. I’m not asking for help with them; they are working just fine.

My question is looking for a way to solo 2+ drum sounds when editing in the Drum Editor. Each row is a drum sound, and it corresponds to its entry in the Drum Map.

If you have the Drum Map editor up at the same time as the Drum Editor, you can see that certain operations in the Drum Editor make on-the-fly modifications to the Drum Map. For example, Solo Instrument magically mutes all the other drum sounds - you can see all the black dots light up, as if you clicked them all yourself. BUT, you cannot unmute another drum sound, unfortunately; that would have been a work-around, at least.

For another example, if you click enable Pitch Visibility in the Drum Editor, the rows there are hidden, as expected (this is an awesome feature that makes working with Drum Maps worthwhile) BUT, in the Drum Map editor, all those drum sounds disappear, also! I’m sure they had reason to implement it this way, but it was surprising to me watching it in action. Unfortunately, that hiding/unhiding in the Drum Map is a little flakey, as sometimes the hidden drum sounds (rows in the Drum Map) don’t all appear again, at least not right away. But that’s a minor nit that doesn’t effect functionality.

ALL I’m looking for here is an easier way to “Solo” multiple drum sounds, without having to Mute all the others. It’s just a workflow productivity thing. Just like there are Solo and Mute buttons per track, it seemed weird and unfortunate to me that there is no Solo - at least not for >1 drum sound at a time.

For the record, Drum Map, Drum Editor, and drum sound are all straight out of the manual.

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still, it is just MIDI no sounds attached in this moment…

If you map the sounds of superior drummer to seperated outs, you can solo each of them in the mixer and you can easily add as many sounds you need to hear…

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I’m sorry, but I think you think I’m unfamiliar with Cubase, and that is not the case, by literally decades.

Of course it’s MIDI. Perhaps you haven’t used the Solo Instrument button in the Drum Editor? That feature (the big “1” button in the upper left), plus selecting a row in the Drum Editor causes the Drum Editor to play, yes, the MIDI, of just that drum sound / MIDI note. My complaint is that you can only effectively only solo one row; you can select multiple rows, but only the last selected one plays.

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I’m sorry, but what is your topic all about? Just a rant that it is like it is, a question for help, a bug report or a feature request?
How should we know this from your writings?

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I tagged the topic as “issue”

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I`m guessing the OP is looking for a possibility to solo drum instruments on midi level in the drum editor.

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Hi there! It is very important that you keep things simple. Otherwise, it is hard for people to give you a hand. You should’ve added the feature-request tag and formulated the problem like this:

Please allow the user to solo more than one drum instrument in the Drum Editor. Currently, only one (of two selected instruments) gets soloed. Thank you.

GIF (soloing 2 instruments in the Drum Editor doesn't work)

solo drum

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interesting… I will tag it as feature request additionally…

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Thanks all - yes, jazztom is correct, and alin89c expressed it perfectly as a feature-request.

In the OP, I was unsure if this was a missing feature or just missing knowledge on my part.

I have used Cubase literally since the mid 1990s, so I’m usually quite self-sufficient and don’t visit these forums often. Specifically, I was not aware of the de facto tagging practices, like feature-request, in this case. Now I know.

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