How do I record drum machine patterns

james-pino wrote on 1/22/2017, 10:03 AM

Hey everyone...I must admit I am very frustrated right now. I just bought Music Studio 2017 and I am playing with all of the cool features and instruments it came with. What I cannot figure out however, is how in the world do you record the drum machine patterns. from, for example, Vita Drum Engine? For the life of me, I simply cannot figure it out. I've been Googling this for hours and cannot find any relevant articles or tutorials. There are articles on how to do it Music Maker, but not Music Studio. Maybe I am missing something really super obvious...

I just want to add that I have been using Magix audio products in one form or another for 15 years (various forms of Samplitude and even Sequoia in semi-pro settings), so I know what I'm doing. It just baffles me that something so simple is so hard to do. And if it's NOT possible, then what is the point of having these drum machines? If I was using Garage Band, I would have already had my entire song completed, mixed, and mastered by now.

Comments

browj2 wrote on 1/22/2017, 5:20 PM

Hi,

Not sure what you are doing. To record, you arm the track (click on the red record button that is in the track params area). Associate an instrument with the track. Look at the instrument (see below) to see which keys on a keyboard will play which drum/cymbal. With your keyboard connected or using the on-screen keyboard - NOT the keyboard that is with the instrument in the image below - start playing. What you play will be recorded. When stopped, double-click on the object created and edit the notes in the piano roll. There is a drum editor button at the top of this screen. Start reading the manual. There is a lot to learn.

By the way, all instruments work this way. See below for what I am talking about.

See also Kraznet tutorials on YouTube.

james-pino wrote on 1/25/2017, 11:03 PM

browj2 - this is not what I was asking. I've been recording MIDI with Samplitude since 2002. I asked how to record the patterns. For the Vita drum machines, there is a "play" button at the top that will play drum patterns, based on the preset you choose in the drop-down menu. I don't know if it's possible to "record" these or not because some of them sound very useful. There are other VSTi drum kits, for example, Studio Drummer from Native Instruments, that have various sample patterns which can be exported to the track as a sequence of MIDI notes. I would think there'd be a way to do this same thing in Vita. If not, it just seems kind of pointless. After all, a drum "machine" is supposed to play patterns, not just offer you the ability to play individual sounds. And by the way your tone is condescending. Read the manual? Seriously? Did you miss the part where I said I had been using Samplitude for 15 years and that I know what I'm doing?

machine

browj2 wrote on 1/25/2017, 11:27 PM

Hi James,

Sorry about the slight, but your question did not demonstrate to me your 15 years in Samplitude, and I think that my answer concurs with your question. Now that you have explained it better, basically, you have to make your own patterns. If you want premade patterns, there are plenty in the Soundpool loops for that. The pattern that you are hearing when you preview the drum set in the Drum Engine, is coming from the following folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\MAGIX Services\MxSynth\Drum Engine

The VSTi's are in the 32 bit system folder.

There you will find a wave file and a MID file that you can copy somewhere else and then import into the Arranger.. The most common pattern is the MID file, but there seems to be at least 1 variation and I don't know how they do it. You can take a look through the files in all of the folders in this area and you will see that the pattern is the same for each instrument; the MID file is the one used to preview the instrument, but somehow there are variations.

What may help you are Beatbox and Livid, both of which have patterns that you can modify.

browj2 wrote on 1/26/2017, 12:31 PM

I did a little more research today. As far as I can tell, the MIDI file that I mentioned is placed on the arranger in MusicMaker when the instrument is dragged and dropped on the arranger. Samplitude and MusicStudio do not have this feature so they only way to get the MIDI file is manually. As I mentioned, this seems to work for many of the layers but not all, so it seems that the playback in the instrument window must be something that is built into the layer. It would be nice of Magix to include all of the MIDI files.

james-pino wrote on 1/26/2017, 12:57 PM

browj2 - Thanks for looking into this. This is exactly why I was so frustrated in the first place. I kept wondering what the hell the point of having the cool, playable patterns available was if I couldn't actually, you know, use them, and there was just no obvious way to do it. I, as an end-user, should not have to go digging around in the file system for stuff like this. I am pretty loyal to Magix products and love the advances they've made, but it seems like some things are simply overlooked while they focus on marketing and bloat. This is why I am beginning to use Garage Band more and more. It doesn't have the advanced editing that Sampltiude does, but my creative flow is much less encumbered, and I've only been using it for about a year now. Magix needs to hear this.

Rule #1 in UX design: don't make the interface frustrating to the end user!