Connect 2 drum machines to drum seq.

[Smig]

Hi all ,
Just got a BSP and looking at different scenarios but a question i have is if i have 2 different drum units ( volca beats & nord drum ) and i want them both to play via midi on the drum seq of the BSP as i want to use say the kick and snare of the nord and the  rest of the sounds from the VBeats will this work? I  currently have a synth on seq1 via midi but this has midi thru so i am chaining thru this to the nord drum midi in.if i go midi out to vbeats will they both output on  ch10?

[megamarkd]

Can you remap the Nord MIDI note numbers to different ones than the defaults?  The Volca Beats note numbers are fixed to General MIDI (GM) conventions, which most drum machines have used since GM was introduced.  So know that the VBeats' kick is set to note number 36, set the Nord Drum kick to 34 (to avoid crossing over with the deeper kick that GM sound modules have mapped to 35 a lot of the time).  Here's a link to a list of GM drum note numbers: http://soundprogramming.net/file-formats/general-midi-drum-note-numbers/

Failing that, apparently the BSP firmware vers. 2.0 can use note maps for the drum sequencer using different MIDI channels per note.  This way you can map out, for example, three kick drums set to MIDI note number 36 (C1, the standard note for a GM mapped kick drum, which is what Korg have used for the VBeats), you can make a map with three pads assigned note number 36/C1 but with different MIDI channels.  As Korg have been nice enough to let us assign it any MIDI channel, set it to match one of your kick drum pads' channel assignment and the same with your Nord Drum.  Now if you were like me and had bought a Rhythm Wolf which has fixed MIDI channels for both it's drums and bass synth (channels 10 and 1 respectively), you can control it independently from the other two drum machines you own by set those two to, say, channels 11 and 12.

Good Luck!

[Smig]

Hi .thx for the reply . Yes the Nord has Midi note learn so am I right in thinking i can assign a midi note number to a specific pad on the BSP  then assign that  midi note number for the kick on the nord so long as it doesnt interfere with the vbeats values?

[megamarkd]

Yes.  The Volca Beats notes are listed in it's MIDI implementation chart, well mostly listed, there are a few which aren't on there but definitely are tied to a note number.  I'm not near my cheatsheets right now, but I'm sure someone else has listed them and dumped them somewhere on the internet.

If those are your only drum sources right now, put the Nord Drum kick on 37, the Volca Beats has nothing on that number.  37 is right next to 36 and in the same octave as the Volca Beats kick, so no need to change octave to access it.

The next instrument on the VBeats is the snare and it's assigned to 38, which is again adhering to the GM standard and will most likely cross over with the Nord's defaults.  But here's where you might want to keep them on both on the same note number.  The VBeats' snare is a bit crappy to my ears and to a lot of other users' ears also, but does sound okay as part of a multi-layer sound.  You can create a decent snare on your Nord then augment it with the VBeats snare.
I'm sure you get the idea of how to deal with the situation from what I've suggested, so I'll leave it there.

A bit of reading about modding VBeats produces stories of incomplete circuits that require resistors added to get what is supposed to be the snare sound.  It's a rather chintzy machine really only saved by it's kick and hats.  And even then it is a bit of a disaster when the kick is used within it's own kit.  At high instrument levels, the kick will drown out most of the other instruments.  It actually sounds like there is a compressor at the end of the circuit that is set to follow the kick's dynamics.  It can create some interesting pumping results similar to those Novation are touting as a feature on their Circuit (which sounds like the cheap and nasty groove box it is when sat next to analogue gear, but it's sequencer is pretty decent still).
I'm still keeping my Volca Beats, bypassing the kick issues by getting a Volca Kick (lol).  I have a Vermona Kick Lancet which is nice sounding kick synth, but the VBeats' kick has some really classic elements to it's sound, like the tennis ball kick, that with a little reverb can be turned into a basketball kick.

Blah blah blah, I'm way off topic now, time to stop!