avldrums.lv2 plugin

I have just installed the new avldrums.lv2 plugin. I can play it on my computer and it sounds great. However, I cannot record midi with it. Can it be set up to record in midi, using the kit graphic? If so how?
Ardour 5.5.
By the way terrific job to all who contribute to building the DAW!

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In short: No (not yet, anyway).

Some background information:

  • Ardour records the Input of a Track before all plugins: http://manual.ardour.org/signal-routing/signal-flow/ (there's ongoing work to allow to change this in a future version)
  • AVLdrums is just a synth plugin which turns MIDI into Audio. The Plugin GUI allows to audition the samples. While that does create an internal MIDI message, the plugin does not have a MIDI-output for Ardour to see. Ardour only sees MIDI-input -> Audio-output

I’d be interested how you expect to use the Plugin GUI to “record” MIDI. The only way I can imagine this to work would be step-entry.

Many thanks x42 for your prompt and clear advice. As you have probably guessed I am new to operating a midi drum sequencer and I am finding it pretty hard work getting my head round it.

With regard to your last query - I was hoping to just put down successive layers of percussion to create an overall drum sound. I thought just clicking on the Drum GUI would allow me to do this. I looked up step entry and I suppose I could use that. I haven’t done so yet, but can I connect a keyboard and build up a midi drum sound that way?

As a postscript, I have now been experimenting with Hydrogen and I downloaded a stack of awesome drum patterns from Git Hub. With these drum patterns, Hydrogen is more than sufficient for my requirements and it links well with Ardour. Yet again amazing open source software.

My ideal workflow would be to hit the pads on the GUI and (1) be able to hear the sounds and (2) at the same time have the corresponding midi notes be recorded in the ardour track. This would be like having an e-drumset hooked up to the track. I could layer drum parts over and over to build up a complete part.

My perspective is one of a real drummer who would like to picture the drum I am hitting on a representation of a real kit, which is much more preferable than hitting notes on a keyboard or doing step entry. It is so much fun to just hit the drum “pads” on the screen. Why not be able to record them at the same time in the song – as editable midi?

Admittedly, I have never seen this type of thing before, i.e., being able to record a midi track through the GUI of a plugin on that same track; and it may be at odds with what is currently possible with signal routing. But it sure would be cool!

Maybe some kind of workaround could be set up by which the GUI of one plugin instance sends midi to another instance (on another track).

@ohzbees, are you hiting notes (drum kit drew on the screen) with only 1 mouse?

@stratojaune, Yes, I do a one-handed boom-chick on kick then moving to snare (would be for a first pass in the drum loop). Then do the hi-hats with fast single or double clicks (for a 2nd pass of the loop). It works reasonably. However, I recall looking into multiple mice on Linux/X11 and I think it would work.

Well, maybe you might think about buying a cheap MIDI keyboard? I use a 50€/$ one, and it haved changed my life in terms of drum prog… :wink:

Oh yes, I have lots of midi gear and a midi drum pad setup-- as well as two e-drum kits (Roland). The point of using the on-screen GUI of a plugin is to make very quick drum ideas a breeze and a joy to make, e.g., imagine firing up your laptop to quickly put down a song idea rhythm before bedtime. Too much time to turn on lots of gear and plug everything in, make sure it is powered up and working correctly – much better to just instantiate a single plugin and click away on beautiful images of the actual drums I want to play (not try to remember which pad or key belongs to which actual drum)… done in 2 minutes… there it is and I can go to bed ;).

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@x42: you said “…does create an internal MIDI message…” “I’d be interested how you expect to use the Plugin GUI to “record” MIDI. The only way I can imagine this to work would be step-entry.”

How hard would it be to separate out the GUI of the plugin – making a simple “pad” plugin whose only job is to spit out MIDI when drum graphics are hit. Then we could input the pad MIDI track into the fluidsynth-based track to record the midi and play the samples. I imagine playing the graphic pads in real-time against a click.

There’s nothing particular hard about writing such a GUI. As far I know, it doesn’t exist. Splitting it out of a plugin is not a likely thing to have happen. There are “virtual keyboard” apps that do this for a piano keyboard, and that would be a more likely place to start, since most of what that has change is the graphics.

@ohzbees: are you talking about putting your fingers on the screen, where kick-snare-hh-etc photos are?

This was the reason I installed AVLDrums! I though you could record drums fast an easy by clicking the drumkit components, like you can do in i.e. Bandlab. Would be a really great if this got implemented, so that you can create initial drum tracks “on the fly”.

Although you can’t get MIDI notes out by clicking the drumkit, you can still record by routing the audio from MIDI drum track to a audio track.