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Still plan to do testing but have several questions about what rules the 'Divide Drum Track' actually uses to split things up.
For reference see Blakes Tech Talk - https://youtu.be/0c3xYobr5_o?t=1735
And Bad Mister's article about the topic - https://yamahasynth.com/learn/montage-series-synthesizers/divide-drum-track-in-os-v3-0-mastering-montage/
I'm not a drummer but I follow the basic concept, and see the benefits, that Blake and the article present about creating separate tracks/parts for various types of drums. It makes it a lot easier to exert better control over the mixing and any effects (panning, etc) when you can deal with one type at a time.
This paragraph from BM's article sets the stage:
Concept: Normally, you record your basic drum groove using a single KIT, on a single Track. “Divide Drum Track” applied to that track will then analyze what you played and automatically EXTRACT the different components and split them (dissolve) to separate tracks, using Tracks 9-16 and Parts 9-16. It assigns the same Drum Kit used to all eight Parts so there will be no difference overall in how it sounds, initially. The idea is so that you now have separate tracks for your different drum components.
But I'm trying to understand how a drum part/track that might have up to 73 different different types of sounds gets mapped to only 8 new parts.
The paragraph that follows that one above is this:
It is not strictly isolating just one Drum per Track, necessarily. It puts things together that you would work on together. For example, the HiHat Closed, HiHat Pedal and HiHat Open all arrive on the same dissolved Track – this makes sense as these are worked on as a set. The Tom-toms and the Crash Cymbal arrive on the same dissolved Track – this makes sense when working on a Fill-in phrase. The snare, sidestick, and snare roll will all arrive on the same Track, and so on. Your mileage may vary depending on the Type of Kit you have selected and the layout of its instrument data, but generally, it looks to isolate instruments of the same kind or instruments you would likely work with together.
That makes me think that the 'divide' operation expects certain types of drums to specifically be on certain keys. Then it could use a mapping table to identify notes/keys for the different drum types and parcel them out to a separate track.
But it raises several questions to me:
1. how is the actual drum 'type' determined? Are specific keys in the C0 to C6 range always mapped to specific drum types. If so, what happens if you use that key to a different sound?
2. only 8 new parts are created so are some of the 73 drum keys/notes C0 to C6 discarded if the limit is exceeded? Or if more than 8 drum types are detected do some of the 8 new parts have the notes from more than one drum type?
3. There are three HiHats mentioned above. Is there some internal flag that actually identifies them as 'HiHats'?
The 'Divide Drum Track' operation appears to work even using an AWM2 part:
1. create Init Normal (AWM2)
2. create a new pattern and play a simple set of notes: F3,G3,A3,B3,C3,B3,A3,G3,F3
3. save the pattern and performance with name 'aPattern'
4. play the pattern and it plays a loop of the notes above
5. use 'Divide Drum Track' and select 'track 1'
6. specify 'aPattern2' as new performance name
The result is a new performance with the identical part 1 and new parts 9-16.
1. load 'aPattern' two operformance
2. go to the pattern screen and select Part 16
3. play any key on the keyboard and the above sequence of notes will play
Note that there were no drum parts and there were no 'drum' keys.
But it created 8 new parts and puts all the notes from track 1 of the pattern into the new part 16. So it didn't just blindly map notes in the range C0 to C6 to separate parts. It treated all the notes as if they were the same 'type'. Or it looked at the part type and determined it wasn't a drum part but an AWM2 part and classified the notes at type 'AWM2' so put them in the same target part.
Does anyone have any thoughts about what is actually going on under the covers? Is there some defined set of 8 drum types that are used for the mapping?
Posted : 18/10/2024 1:43 am
Check out a drum part and click on BD, HH, Crash, etc. These map to expected keys although there's no rule that says they absolutely have to match. These are conventions. See if these keys are associated together as BM mentioned and feel free to put any sound into these slots. I'm guessing these conventions for keys are used to designate HH, crash, etc.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 18/10/2024 2:54 am
Check out a drum part and click on BD, HH, Crash, etc. These map to expected keys although there's no rule that says they absolutely have to match. These are conventions. See if these keys are associated together as BM mentioned and feel free to put any sound into these slots. I'm guessing these conventions for keys are used to designate HH, crash, etc.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 18/10/2024 2:55 am
Topic starter
I'm looking for a good test strategy to work it out.
Check out a drum part and click on BD, HH, Crash, etc. These map to expected keys although there's no rule that says they absolutely have to match. These are conventions. See if these keys are associated together as BM mentioned and feel free to put any sound into these slots. I'm guessing these conventions for keys are used to designate HH, crash, etc.
That is where I started and immediately found out there must be something missing that I can't find anywhere.
P.119 of the Montage classic Reference doc (p.120 for Montage M) shows: BD, SD, HHC, HHP, HHO, LT, HT, CC
On the M sub-display it shows longer names: BD, SD, HH Close, HH Pedal, HH Open, Low Tom, High Tom, Crash.
Those are the only 8 'types' I have come across and the 'Divide Drum Track' always creates 8 new parts in parts 9-16 even if those parts end up empty. So at first I thought there might be a match.
Until I saw this in Bad Mister's article:
For example, the HiHat Closed, HiHat Pedal and HiHat Open all arrive on the same dissolved Track – this makes sense as these are worked on as a set. The Tom-toms and the Crash Cymbal arrive on the same dissolved Track
That puts the 3 hi hats on 1 new track and the 2 toms and crash on another new track. Which leaves BD and SD possibly for one new track each. But with 8 new tracks those 8 drum types only create 4 tracks.
Which is what led to my questions: what goes into the other 4 tracks, how is that determined, what if a HiHat is moved to some other key - will it still be recognized as a HiHat and join the other 2 HiHat types?
The 'part type' clearly seems to be taken into account. For AWM2, FM-X or AN-X the 'Divide Drum Track' still works even though the code should clearly know those aren't drum tracks at all. But if you divide track 1 it basically creates empty parts 9-15 and appears to just copy part 1 to part 16. Not sure what the point of that is.
And the other clue is that a user can pretty much put anything at all in any drum key they want but they have no way of setting any flag that might indicate 'HiHat, 'SD' or anything else.
With all the other possible percussion instruments (blocks, bells, gongs, etc.) it raised the question of what happens to them if you divide a track.
I was just hoping that someone with experience in that area might be able to shed some light on things and/or have a better idea how to devise a small number of tests to see what is going on.
I'm not trying to avoid doing tests. I'm just not sure how to come up with some tests that might be definitive without potentially wasting a lot of time and effort. Especially since I'm not a drummer and don't really have a personal need to solve a particular problem in this area.
This is one of those that I will definitely email Support on just in case I can get a response. From where I sit only the programmer is going to know just what the rules are unless there is some internal documentation that hasn't been released.
For now I'm just curious but if I hear back I will post the info. They have been pretty good about getting back to me when I can narrow the scope of my questions. The scope of this one is about as narrow it gets? LOL!
Posted : 18/10/2024 3:36 am
The "standard" drums of HHO HHC BD SD Crash etc are "obviously" mapped somewhere because they mean something. They are specific keys. There's also a setting which will use different standard drum keys for a few pieces -- I guess to conform to some different standard of mapping. So those MIDI notes would be of some focus. When you press on the shortcuts for BD SD - etc - the Drum Key will display showing the MIDI note. Starting at C1, there are some sharp keys ... If you stick any other sound into these keys it doesn't change how they are recorded (dissolved into Parts 9-16). So the actual sound is meaningless. It's about MIDI key values mapping to certain Parts. I don't have this all mapped out but the standard values of BD SD HHC etc all mapped to different channels. I accidentally hit other keys between C1 and ... C#2 so some of those were stray non-standard values. And those also mapped to different Parts on their own without other standard drum key sounds mixed in. I know this because I started with Init Drum and replaced the standard kits pieces from C1 on up (all BD SD HHC HHO Toms Crash etc) with different sounds. The waveforms I used weren't even in the drum category. I picked syn lead category waveforms just to prove it doesn't matter.
The more methodical way to see the mapping would be to put Init Drum into Part 1. Record a pattern where you press all 73 keys from C0 to C6 they don't have to be all at once. However you get that done. Then dissolve. Then mute Part 1 or delete it and play the pattern. Your dissolved Parts are playing. While playing the dissolved Parts only, record to MIDI. Take a look at only MIDI channel 9 and look at which MIDI note(s) are recorded. Look at MIDI channel 10 and look at which MIDI note(s) are recording ... and so on through MIDI channel 16. This will give you the mapping of the drum dissolve algorithm.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 18/10/2024 4:46 am
