I’ve got a drum plugin from Ugritone that has no midi browser. How do you go about finding drum midi to build your parts when there is no built in browser? I usually end up programming basic stuff myself, but was just wondering if there is a way around the problem I’m not thinking of. Ugritone also has a bunch of midi packs… that you can pick up for as little as $5 on sale… but not sure how useful they are without being able to browse/listen for parts you want to use.
Do you mean it has no place to store drum samples? There are a few good free samples available like GrooveMonkey and Odd Grooves that have pretty useful grooves. I generally edit them a bit and use EZ Drummer 2 to play them. It gives you a good starting point. I find with most of the sample stuff you have to write the song to fit the drums, so if you’re good at building a track you’re better off that way most of the time.
No it has its own drum samples (sounds)… but I have a library of MIDI drum ‘loops’ and phrases (I think you are referring to the MIDI as the samples… as found in Groove Monkee). In programs like EZ Drummer there is a way to browse your MIDI library and sample the phrases, and sometimes even a way to build up tracks with those phrases. This program has no MIDI browser built in at all. It’s just the samples and a mixer for the kit. I would like to use some of the MIDI I have on hand (if I can map them correctly) but without a way to browse the MIDI files I’m not sure how to do that. Maybe it just cannot be done.
That is pretty strange. So if you add an expansion pack, the program has to access it somehow, which would in effect be a library with no user access. I need to read up on it to be any help but that makes it extremely limited.
Okay, I spent the $5 and got Riot Drums and the Freebie Pack. It sounds good but it’s pretty clunky. I use Reaper, so the way I access the grooves is through the Insert menu. The dropdown allows me to select “Media File” which allows me to scroll through the grooves and fills on their Midi pack. (It took me an hour to figure that out). So, my guess is that you should either be able to: 1. Load your midi files into the same folder as the Riot Drums expansion pack, or 2. When you import the media item on your DAW you can direct it to the folder where your MIDI clips are located. You have to load them into a track using Riot Drums as a virtual instrument, since they don’t have a gui within the program. You should be able to drop a MIDI file into a track, and from there keep it or remove it.
Spending the $120 or whatever it was on a good drum plug (mine is Addictive 2) was one of the best investments I’ve made in music making. So worth it to have a really feature-rich tool. Ya get what ya pay for…
Wow… well thanks very much for going through the trouble. Yeah I had picked up “Assault Drums” a while back when they had it on sale super cheap! I like the sounds but it took a little effort to figure out how to get it loaded up in Reaper. Once I figured out their setup it wasn’t bad (then stored as a template). Even the MIDI mapping was eventually figured out. I have the instrument loaded and working… but finding the right ‘groove’ for the job is really a pain in the ass since there’s no way to browse, preview and select the one you want without actually loading it up in a track and checking it out. i was holding out some hope that the gurus at IRD might know some magic tool to make that easier… but I wasn’t holding my breath. 
I also have a copy of MT Power Drum Kit 2 and the free Slate Drums 5 to mess with. Eventually I’ll spring for something ‘better’ like Addictive or EZ Drummer… also been looking at GGD as a possibility.
Thanks again for going the distance. Truly above and beyond!
No problem, it was kind of fun in a torturous way. They say you can load their Midi into other drum software, so I guess you could use EZ Drummer to find the groove you want, then load that groove into Riot, but that’s a screwy work flow.
I wonder if the KVLT drums have more functionality? Since I only have $5 invested I might load it into EZ Drummer 2 to make it easier and scrap Riot.
Holy moley… leave it to Reaper to already have supplied a solution… sometimes it’s just hard to find it.
I just found that if you go to:
View > Media Explorer and navigate to the folder with the MIDI files, as long as you have your instrument loaded and the track armed and highlighted… it will audition each MIDI file when you click on it. Then you can drag and drop the MIDI file right on your track to build a song.
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