converting drum pad inputs to midis

[fo536]

hi all -

im putting together a new setup; including some electronic drum pads going directly into my motu ultralite and into ableton live to trigger various drum samples or synths.

i got this to work with some other plug ins, but im wondering if silent way couldnt do the job a whole lot better.

could it do this:

take the incoming signal from a drum pad (a piezo type signal - sort of a dirty cv) and convert it into a single midi note with varying velocities.

i played with the demo a bit, but wasnt able to get the desired result within the first 2 time outs

any help would be appreciated..

[os]

Hmm - this isn't what Silent Way is designed for, which isn't to say that it couldn't be made to work.

Could you send me some recordings of your drum pad output, so I can see what kind of signal we're dealing with?

[fo536]

just sent you a PM with a link to the file.

i know expert sleepers would probably be overkill for this simple task, but ive been thinking of picking it up anyway for the other cool things it can do.

[os]

Got it, thanks. I'll take a look.

[os]

This will probably best be handled by some custom coding.

What's your platform (OS & DAW)?

[fo536]

thanks. macbook pro + ableton live 8 + motu ultralite mkIII

spent the weekend noodling with pure data with mostly frustrating results..

[os]

PM'd you a link to a plug-in. Ignore the name and the unrelated functionality - this is just a little test-bed plug-in.

For your file, I turned on 'Hold Neg Peaks' and set the 'Neg Peak Threshold' to about -0.05. What you should get out of that is a DC signal that changes every time you hit the pad. You can then use something like Silent Way CV To MIDI to generate a MIDI message on each change. SW CV To MIDI will generate you a CC or note on message, with the pitch dependent on the velocity of the pad hit. You could transform that to a note on with the velocity dependent on the pad hit using MidiPipe or something similar. I'll add that mode to SW CV To MIDI when I get a moment.

I did notice on your recordings that the loud hits were seriously clipping. You might want to turn down your input levels a bit.

Let me know how you get on.

[fo536]

thanks - will do!