Recording edrums?

littlemissfraze

Hi i was wondering if anyone could help me out a bit? I want to record e drums, i have a laptop and am using reaper. I got a program called ezdrummer which gives pretty cool sounding midi drums. I was just wondering, to record my own beats is it possible to connect the e drums from the midi out to the laptops usb or is there more to it?
Any help would be really appreciated

DamagedTrax

no more to it other than selecting the correct midi input in reaper.

RealEstateKing

For some insane reason neither EZDrummer nor addictive drums allows you to change the keymapping...what where they thinking?

So you may need a program that can remap the drum notes for you, specially if you have a cheapo drum kit like one of the Millenium ones where you cant change the notes on the kit either.

Theres one called Edrum MIDI mapper that I use that seems to do the job.

slavedave

You could play them into your software and edit the midi events afterwards - painful process in reality but it does away with drum maps (which need some thinking through to get up and running). Or you ould get a software mapping programme as suggested above.
I use ezdrummer triggered though a drumkat, a handsonic or a zendrum. The drumkat allows me to change midi notes sent to my software which is the easiest way by far. The handsonic output can work like this too with GM kits but needs tweaking with EZdrummer whilst the Zendrum has a learn function that allows you to map pads to midi-notes in EZD.
Look in your drum manual to see if you an assign your own midi note output to EZD. If yes you are off on a gallup. If your module has a midi to usb connection fire away. If not, you will need a midi-to-usb interface that an be had for 50 euro to get the output from the drums to the laptop. Depending on your soundcard though, you may not get adequately satisfying results playing live due to "latency" (do a search here in the forum about that). Asio4All is your friend in this case. Or you may need a decent "pro" soundcard to do that - more bucks!
It is possible though, just some work to do before you get there. Isn't that always the case? Learning can be part of the fun though.

littlemissfraze

Thanks for the replys! I just like to clear one or 2 things up cause its all quite new to me!
I was going to buy one of these to connect the drums to usb midi to usb adapter and then select midi as source in reaper and then simply hit record. As far as i gather from your replys the drums would likely record a different note than the ones EZD uses (the kick on the edrums could be a d note where as EZD might for example use a c for the kick) so when i turn on the EZD fx a kick mightn't necessarily be a kick??

So thats where the options of either recording it how it is and then moving the midi notes to where they should be after or else usinig the key mapping program before recording??

Or am i way off?

slavedave

No you have it correct. Either-
i. Change the input note at source (if your drum module allows you to).
ii. Map the notes into Reaper via a software midi mapping programme that sits between you midi input and your music software.
iii. Re- map the notes internally within your sequencing software.
iv. Edit your drum recording using the piano roll view or event manager in your software sequencer.
Give ezd a lash with its standard settings first because many of the General Midi notes are standard in EZD already. You may not have to do too much.