How to make drum maps shorter?

Cubase
1

Hi all,

I’ve been writing a couple of drum maps. I only have sound assignments between C0 and C4 and would like to delete everything outside this range so that the drum maps are nicely streamlined. Is there a way of doing this?

2

Go into the XML file and you will be able to remove lanes but take care not to alter white space as it can crash the program.

3

AFAIK it’s not possible to “remove lanes” without corrupting the drum map/xml file. Undefined notes will cause Cubase to crash. face.saver, if you know a secure way to do this please let us know.

I’d rather recommend this to get a clear drum map:

  1. Marking unused notes with, for example, > and < by using the Drum Map Setup. Then it looks like this:

  1. If you also edit the list order in the drum map file you’ll save some scrolling. Save the drum map and open the .drm file with an editor. Scroll down to this section:
   <list name="Order" type="int">
      <item value="0"/>
      <item value="1"/>
      <item value="2"/>
      <item value="3"/>
      [ and so on up to 127 ]
   </list>

Then simply copy the lines of the used notes to the top of the list and save the file.
In this way the list in the drum editor is starting with the actually used notes. Combining this with the renamed notes you’ll have a quite neatly arranged drum map:

4

Looks like a top tip Georg, thanks, going to give that one a try.

5

I’m just starting to do a couple of videos on how to do this… it’s not massively high up on my list of priorities but it will come in the next few months but briefly the best way i find of doing it is…

As it sounds like you’ve created your own kit… i always create a drum map at the same time as i create a kit and it adds literally five minutes to the job and saves ages once you get into editing.

firstly create a new drum map and keep your drum plugin open, say GAO for this instance. Then open the DRUM MAP editor by calling it up from the inspector panel at the bottom of your drum midi track, create and name a new, empty map and save it. then make sure your new map is assigned to your midi channel from the track inspector.
next create a midi event on that midi channel and double click on it, you can delete the event later. You can also open this with ‘midi/drum editor’… You should see a completely empty drum editor with no names assigned on the left hand side. You can create your drum map here as it is quicker than using the map editor… all your changes will appear in the map editor later when you come to save the finished thing. open GAO and drag a drum to a cell, say a kick drum to the cell C1 for agruments sake, then find the C1 cell in your drum editor, left click in the ‘instrument’ field and name it ‘kick’. then drag a snare sample to cell C#1 in GAO and then find C#1 in your drum editor, left click in the ‘instrument’ field and name it snare… repeat until you have your finished kit… then reopen the MAP EDITOR and you will see all your changes have made it over too! cool eh! you can now just save your finished map!!!

Easy or what!!! :wink:

Once you’re used to it, it add literally no time at all and saves LOADS of time when you come to use the editor, also if you use the BD plugin you will miraculously find your map has made it’s way into that too! how cool! :smiley:


EDIT: a little video explaining just that i knocked up earlier… How to create drum maps in Cubase 5 - YouTube

6

Perfect mate, exactly the information I was looking for, thanks!