KVR Audio

grb · Post by **grb** » Thu May 17, 2012 1:43 pm

Is it possible to use the Sampletank drum sounds from Drumstudio (formally 'Drum Tab') ?

DrumStudio is a great app for natural sounding drums with various options to get a human feel to the patterns... it lists Midi Out (and In), but I can't work out how to get it to drive any other backgrounded app eg: BS16i or Sampletank.

Via Midibridge I can get DrumStudio to play an echo of it's own event, so I assume it's outputting MIDI events and hearing them again, but nothing from BS16i or Sampletank.

grb.

+ On a side note, does anyone have MusicStudio working as a midi sequencer with Sampletank as a sound module? (maybe I can export the midi drums from DrumStudio into MusicStudio?)

audeonic · Post by **audeonic** » Thu May 17, 2012 1:58 pm

grb wrote:Is it possible to use the Sampletank drum sounds from Drumstudio (formally 'Drum Tab') ?

DrumStudio is a great app for natural sounding drums with various options to get a human feel to the patterns... it lists Midi Out (and In), but I can't work out how to get it to drive any other backgrounded app eg: BS16i or Sampletank.

Via Midibridge I can get DrumStudio to play an echo of it's own event, so I assume it's outputting MIDI events and hearing them again, but nothing from BS16i or Sampletank.

I'm not familiar with Drum Studio, but does it have virtual MIDI support? Will it let you select MidiBridge as a destination? If Yes, then send events from DrumStudio to MidiBridge, and in MidiBridge connect MidiBridge in to MidiBridge out, make sure 'Run in Background' is on and start SampleTank after MidiBridge is running. Also make sure SampleTank's background audio mode is on (button has to be red)

+ On a side note, does anyone have MusicStudio working as a midi sequencer with Sampletank as a sound module? (maybe I can export the midi drums from DrumStudio into MusicStudio?)

Right now this is not possible because SampleTank and Music Studio's audio engines are incompatible. Maybe future updates of one or other app will solve this.

grb · Post by **grb** » Thu May 17, 2012 2:17 pm

I'm not familiar with Drum Studio, but does it have virtual MIDI support? Will it let you select MidiBridge as a destination?

No, just a simple pair of midi in & out options. Joining core in & out in midibridge produces a loop of events in DrumStudio (so I guess that proves the midi in / out is working), but I've not got BS16i or Sampletank to play anything.

I've tried to follow your examples on the Midibridge website, although I'll admit the input / output aspect has me a little confused, but I'm sure I've tried every combination

Thanks,

grb.

+ Shame about MusicStudio & Sampletank...

audeonic · Post by **audeonic** » Thu May 17, 2012 2:30 pm

grb wrote: No, just a simple pair of midi in & out options. Joining core in & out in midibridge produces a loop of events in DrumStudio (so I guess that proves the midi in / out is working), but I've not got BS16i or Sampletank to play anything.

Do you mean you interconnected the CoreMIDI Net in/outs in MidiBridge or MidiBridge ins/outs. I suspect the latter.

That means DS is listening/writing to all MIDI ins/outs in CoreMIDI land which is not good. Can you change the channel that DS sends/listens on at all? You're going to need to prevent that looping from happening, possibly with FreEWI remapping channels. The fact that MidiBridge is receiving the events is a good sign and SampleTank will definitely be able to pick them up.

I've tried to follow your examples on the Midibridge website, although I'll admit the input / output aspect has me a little confused, but I'm sure I've tried every combination

Because devs implement their CoreMIDI support in a myriad of ways it can be complex to workaround them. Admittedly it isn't always straightforward.

grb · Post by **grb** » Thu May 17, 2012 2:46 pm

DrumStudio has a separate on/off for midi output & input, so I can disable the 'feedback' loop.

If I make a connection to localhost in midibridge I can then hear an echo of each drum event in DrumStudio

If I then connect 'CoreMIDI Net in' to 'CoreMIDI Net out' there's an infinite loop of events played.

Not sure what this proves - perhaps that midibridge picks out the coremidi events from DrumStudio and sends them to localhost, which gets picked up by DrumStudio again (and the connection makes this loop infinitely) ?

Does this assist in working out how to 'drive' Sampletank or BS16i ?

Thanks,

grb.

audeonic · Post by **audeonic** » Thu May 17, 2012 3:27 pm

If you connect MidiBridge ins/outs (and disconnect CoreMIDI Net ones) does DS still do the feedback thing?

grb · Post by **grb** » Thu May 17, 2012 3:51 pm

audeonic wrote:If you connect MidiBridge ins/outs (and disconnect CoreMIDI Net ones) does DS still do the feedback thing?

No, I am afraid not, not even a single repeated event...

grb.

audeonic · Post by **audeonic** » Thu May 17, 2012 4:08 pm

OK, so you just go back to what you were doing with the localhost trick and only connect CoreMIDI Net in to MidiBridge (on right). DS will send events to CoreMIDI Net, MidiBridge will collect them and then forward to SampleTank. That should work and you don't even need to break the loop in DS.

grb · Post by **grb** » Thu May 17, 2012 10:31 pm

I can't make much sense of it... If I make the localhost connection and no other connections I get the echoed event in DS, and if I switch to sampletank I get the odd note when the app appears. Making a connection as you outlined makes no difference. Apologies that this is probably as frustrating to hear about as it is to experience.

Grb.

audeonic · Post by **audeonic** » Fri May 18, 2012 7:46 am

grb wrote:I can't make much sense of it...

Grb.

OK, I'll download DS and see if I can make it work with SampleTank and then post the step by step instructions. It is possible that DS might also break SampleTank's audio engine which means it won't work at all, but fingers crossed

grb · Post by **grb** » Fri May 18, 2012 8:15 am

I did wonder if it was some incompatibility. DS does provide a buffer size option, of which I tried a few.

Thanks,

grb.

audeonic · Post by **audeonic** » Fri May 18, 2012 9:11 am

grb wrote:I did wonder if it was some incompatibility. DS does provide a buffer size option, of which I tried a few.

OK, I downloaded DS but I'm afraid the news is not good. DS' audio engine stops SampleTank from working, because it forces an audio buffer size (well actually the sample rate) that SampleTank will barf at and go silent.

It might be worth contacting the DS dev and asking them about adding a future option to disable the built-in audio engine entirely and also support virtual CoreMIDI (preferably using the OMAC informal standard for best inter-app interoperability).

Of course IK may also update SampleTank to be more forgiving (I have been in touch with them about this so they do know about it) at some stage.

I don't have BS16-i, but I did try with BeatMaker 2. This works in that the audio engines work well together and BM2 can go into the background. However, the MIDI notes being generated by DS are not what BM is expecting and a remap job would need to be done. I tried remapping just one and I was able to get BM2's bass drum triggered from DS. I think DS is sending General MIDI but that's just a guess.

So, to summarise, SampleTank won't work, but BM2 will but needs a remap (which MidiBridge 1.4 coming soon will do if like me you can't figure out how to do this in BM2!)

grb · Post by **grb** » Fri May 18, 2012 11:32 am

Good effort! ...and some useful information too, a great many thanks for pursuing this issue...

grb.

Drumstudio to Sampletank (via midibridge) ?