CaTaPulT
08-29-2009, 03:45 AM
Greetings all.
This tutorial is regarding the recording options of the DTXtreme III.
Have you ever wanted to record yourself playing to the internal songs on the DTXtreme III and would connect your module to a computer and record directly to the computer and saving as MP3 just to find out your recording level were way off, or the drum sounds aren't what you were looking for, after all that playing to get the perfect take on the recording you have to start over. Well, there's a easier way by using the built in record features of the DTXtreme III. (this should also work with external midi 0 files).
This tutorial is a beginner's guide to doing this, I just started messing with this last night so there may be easier ways of doing this once you get used to the basic idea.
I will be using one of the built in songs for the tutorial, Pre35 PowerBld, the idea is for you to follow along to see how this works.
Let's get started.....
1) You cannot edit a preset song, so you have to save a preset song or external midi song to a "user song", let's do that now, press the "song" button on your DTXtreme III, now use the jog wheel and go past the preset songs to "USR:01" which should read "EmptySong". Now press the job button (F2), sellect option "01:Copy Song" press "enter/store", now scroll to "Pre:35 (PowerBld)",press "enter/store" and "yes". Notice at the top right, the
USR:01 now says (PowerBld).
Now press the "Meas" button (SF3), since this song is a loop (roughly one minute) we want to copy the measures to make the song last longer, if you try playing the drum track now, only one section will be recorded (measure 1 to 16 and your drum track will loop as well) and then looped. In the Measure menu, highlight "01:Copy Measure" and press "enter/store" now look at your screen, it shows "Pre:01", now use the jog dial to move it to "USR:01", notice it says "Track 1" leave this alone, now hit the right arrow three times and change the 1 to 16, this song has 16 measures per loop, so we want it to start at measure 1 and define it stops at measure 16. Now hit the down arrow and enter 17 there, we want the measures 1 to 16 to be copied over starting on the 17th measure. Press the "enter/store" button and "Yes". So now we have this song playing the loop twice, now repeat the steps above and copy, measures 1 - 32 to 33 and store it, now you have 4 loops of the song you can drum to. Now press the "Song" button, scroll your cursor with arrow buttons till you are on the Loop function, (circular arrow) and change that to a arrow pointing right, this will turn off the loop, now you can listen to the song, you can scroll through after to test by placing the cursor on the number next to the word "Meas", this will let you scroll from one measure to the next, go to measure 16, listen to it, and at 17, the song starts over, this is the 2nd loop, and so on.
At this point, it might be a good idea to save this User Song to a USB flash drive, to do this, insert USB Flash Drive (formatted on the module beforehand) press the "File" button on the main pannel. The display should show "AllData", use the jog wheel to scroll to "AllSong", now scroll down once, give your file a name, let's call it "test1" and press the "enter/Store button, the cursor jumps to the directory window, now make sure the "Save" is highlighted at the bottom left and press "Exec" (SF1), your file is now saved. :)
2) Adding your drum track to the song.
Press the "DrumKit" button and chose the kit you want to use to play to the song.
Press the "Song" button, press the "KitLock" (F6) button and the "Drum" (SF1) button, this will prevent the song from changing your chosen drum kit and also turn off the drum track in the song.
Now to record and start playing.....
Press the "Record" button (next to the play button), on this screen, move your cursor to "Track" and change this from 1 to 2, the song is on track 1, your drum track will be on track 2.
Now you are ready to start recording your performance, to start, hit the "play" button and away you go, the recording will keep going until the 4 loops end or if you hit the "play" button a second time.
Now since you recorded something, might as well listen to it, press the "play" button, there's the song and you playing to it! :)
"Oh no, I didn't play very well that time and I want to try it again", this is easy, with the song stopped and in song display (like when pressing the "Song" button), choose "job" (F2), choose "Track" (SF2), on this screen, use arrows and highlight "04:Clear Track" and press "enter/store", Now highlight the number 1 and change it to 2, this is very important since if you leave this at 1, you'll delete the song. Once "Track" shows 2, press the "enter/store" button and "yes". Your drum track is gone and ready to start again.
To try playing to the song again, press the "record" button, always making sure the Track in the display is set to "2".
Once you have a recording you're happy with, then I'm sure you'll want to save that also.
Press the File button and repeat the steps as listed above, change the file name to "test2".
That's it! :)
3) After turning off the module, you can load the song from your USB flash stick back into "USR:01" by doing this, press the "File" button, change the "AllData" to "AllSong", highlight the "load" (F2) at the bottom, scroll to the right side window, find your saved performance, in this example "Test2" and press "Exec" (SF1), now hit the "Song" button and press play, doesn't sound right? Make sure you chose the appropriate drumkit you played it with and hit the "kitlock" and "Drum" buttons so the song doesn't change the drum kit and you want to disable the preset drum track! :)
The cool thing about doing things this way is you have your performance saved as midi data in the module, so once you are happy with your performance, you can play it back (without you having to drum) while recording to PC or other audio recording devices, and adjust drumkit effects, volumes and so on to make the kit sound better in the mix even before recording to a PC audio software and ultimately a MP3 file! :)
How many times I recorded the perfect take just to find out my kick drum was too loud, or too soft and had to pull my hair out to do it all over again, this method of recording your performance eliminates this! :)
I hope you have enjoyed my recording tutorial!
I know others have done this before but many haven't, so this tutorial is for them! :)
Take care
Regards: >>>> Jack <<<<
This tutorial is regarding the recording options of the DTXtreme III.
Have you ever wanted to record yourself playing to the internal songs on the DTXtreme III and would connect your module to a computer and record directly to the computer and saving as MP3 just to find out your recording level were way off, or the drum sounds aren't what you were looking for, after all that playing to get the perfect take on the recording you have to start over. Well, there's a easier way by using the built in record features of the DTXtreme III. (this should also work with external midi 0 files).
This tutorial is a beginner's guide to doing this, I just started messing with this last night so there may be easier ways of doing this once you get used to the basic idea.
I will be using one of the built in songs for the tutorial, Pre35 PowerBld, the idea is for you to follow along to see how this works.
Let's get started.....
1) You cannot edit a preset song, so you have to save a preset song or external midi song to a "user song", let's do that now, press the "song" button on your DTXtreme III, now use the jog wheel and go past the preset songs to "USR:01" which should read "EmptySong". Now press the job button (F2), sellect option "01:Copy Song" press "enter/store", now scroll to "Pre:35 (PowerBld)",press "enter/store" and "yes". Notice at the top right, the
USR:01 now says (PowerBld).
Now press the "Meas" button (SF3), since this song is a loop (roughly one minute) we want to copy the measures to make the song last longer, if you try playing the drum track now, only one section will be recorded (measure 1 to 16 and your drum track will loop as well) and then looped. In the Measure menu, highlight "01:Copy Measure" and press "enter/store" now look at your screen, it shows "Pre:01", now use the jog dial to move it to "USR:01", notice it says "Track 1" leave this alone, now hit the right arrow three times and change the 1 to 16, this song has 16 measures per loop, so we want it to start at measure 1 and define it stops at measure 16. Now hit the down arrow and enter 17 there, we want the measures 1 to 16 to be copied over starting on the 17th measure. Press the "enter/store" button and "Yes". So now we have this song playing the loop twice, now repeat the steps above and copy, measures 1 - 32 to 33 and store it, now you have 4 loops of the song you can drum to. Now press the "Song" button, scroll your cursor with arrow buttons till you are on the Loop function, (circular arrow) and change that to a arrow pointing right, this will turn off the loop, now you can listen to the song, you can scroll through after to test by placing the cursor on the number next to the word "Meas", this will let you scroll from one measure to the next, go to measure 16, listen to it, and at 17, the song starts over, this is the 2nd loop, and so on.
At this point, it might be a good idea to save this User Song to a USB flash drive, to do this, insert USB Flash Drive (formatted on the module beforehand) press the "File" button on the main pannel. The display should show "AllData", use the jog wheel to scroll to "AllSong", now scroll down once, give your file a name, let's call it "test1" and press the "enter/Store button, the cursor jumps to the directory window, now make sure the "Save" is highlighted at the bottom left and press "Exec" (SF1), your file is now saved. :)
2) Adding your drum track to the song.
Press the "DrumKit" button and chose the kit you want to use to play to the song.
Press the "Song" button, press the "KitLock" (F6) button and the "Drum" (SF1) button, this will prevent the song from changing your chosen drum kit and also turn off the drum track in the song.
Now to record and start playing.....
Press the "Record" button (next to the play button), on this screen, move your cursor to "Track" and change this from 1 to 2, the song is on track 1, your drum track will be on track 2.
Now you are ready to start recording your performance, to start, hit the "play" button and away you go, the recording will keep going until the 4 loops end or if you hit the "play" button a second time.
Now since you recorded something, might as well listen to it, press the "play" button, there's the song and you playing to it! :)
"Oh no, I didn't play very well that time and I want to try it again", this is easy, with the song stopped and in song display (like when pressing the "Song" button), choose "job" (F2), choose "Track" (SF2), on this screen, use arrows and highlight "04:Clear Track" and press "enter/store", Now highlight the number 1 and change it to 2, this is very important since if you leave this at 1, you'll delete the song. Once "Track" shows 2, press the "enter/store" button and "yes". Your drum track is gone and ready to start again.
To try playing to the song again, press the "record" button, always making sure the Track in the display is set to "2".
Once you have a recording you're happy with, then I'm sure you'll want to save that also.
Press the File button and repeat the steps as listed above, change the file name to "test2".
That's it! :)
3) After turning off the module, you can load the song from your USB flash stick back into "USR:01" by doing this, press the "File" button, change the "AllData" to "AllSong", highlight the "load" (F2) at the bottom, scroll to the right side window, find your saved performance, in this example "Test2" and press "Exec" (SF1), now hit the "Song" button and press play, doesn't sound right? Make sure you chose the appropriate drumkit you played it with and hit the "kitlock" and "Drum" buttons so the song doesn't change the drum kit and you want to disable the preset drum track! :)
The cool thing about doing things this way is you have your performance saved as midi data in the module, so once you are happy with your performance, you can play it back (without you having to drum) while recording to PC or other audio recording devices, and adjust drumkit effects, volumes and so on to make the kit sound better in the mix even before recording to a PC audio software and ultimately a MP3 file! :)
How many times I recorded the perfect take just to find out my kick drum was too loud, or too soft and had to pull my hair out to do it all over again, this method of recording your performance eliminates this! :)
I hope you have enjoyed my recording tutorial!
I know others have done this before but many haven't, so this tutorial is for them! :)
Take care
Regards: >>>> Jack <<<<