ivoaudio wrote:
How about this:
- Ambience L
- Ambience R
- Overhead L
- Overhead R
- Ride Cymbal
- Hi-hat
- Bass Drum 1
- Bass Drum 2
- Snare Top
- Snare Bottom
- Tom 1
- Tom 2
- Tom 3
- Tom 4
- Extra 1 (Cowbell)
- Extra 2 (Snare 2)
Well...I'm making kits for DrumGizmo, and my map is going to be this:
- SnareTop
- SnareBtm
- KickIn
- KickOut
- KickSub
- Tom1
- Tom2
- Tom3
- HiHat
- Cym_L
- Cym_R
- Cowbell
- OH_L
- OH_R
- Room_L
- Room_R
The order is the way I want it to be, but even if I re-ordered it, consider the differences. I have 3 kick proximity mics, which a lot of people won't. (You could file "KickSub" under "extra" if you want, but then consider the grouping and how it'd have to be rearranged since you want that with your other kick proximity mics). I have cymbals in their own OH buss to allow for better volume adjustment of them relative to how "roomy" the kick/snare/toms sound (if you want a "big kit" sound but don't want the cymbals being too loud, or if you want a dry "metal kit" sound and find the cymbals too quiet because the OH is turned down too much). Since there are several cymbals I can't give them each a proximity mic channel. I also only have 3 toms (although for one of the kits which is more suited to "metal" I'll have an edited version of Tom3 that's deeper sounding, and it'll have to go through the same channels as the "normal" Tom3 or I'll sacrifice the cowbell channel).
So it's easy enough to say some of the channels should be the same for all kits, and even suggest an order. But the differences will happen depending on the recording process and intent of the kits. It's unavoidable, unless you want people to limit their recording process and intent of the kits (considering the channel map first, then recording). I didn't have that option in the first place since the samples I'm using weren't recorded by me (they're the
Tchackpoum kits).
Here's a recommendation. I use REAPER. It allows saving of effects chains and track templates. I don't know if the DAWs you're using allow for it, but if it does: load the kit you want and all the channels in the order you want, set the levels, etc. Then save it as a track template. Do the same for whatever kits are different enough in their channel layouts/sound/volume levels. Now when you want to compare the CrocelKit to DRSkit, you can load a track template for one, then remove it and load the track template for the other. The process is as quick as loading a drumkit to RAM (the rest, adding/removing channels in the DAW mixer) is instantaneous.
As for "out of the box" use, each kit already offers that as much as reasonably possible. Since there will always be differences from one person's kits to another person's kits, there will be things like this which prevent it from being an "automatic swap" (let alone the other differences I mentioned). Saving track templates makes sense. Hopefully your DAW allows this.
On the note of the MIDI map: I wanted as much compatibility as possible but I realized it's not easy. If a person uses Ezdrummer (etc.) then wants to use a kit that I've made, I have different kit pieces. (I was also planning on having round-robin alternates on adjacent notes, but it turns out I won't have to do that, so that's one problem solved.) Also Addictive Drums uses different maps from Ezdrummer (and I say "maps" because Ezdrummer doesn't just use one map). So if I target GM drums as the compatibility to achieve, I get this map I'm not comfortable with (toms mixed in with cymbals, some of my articulations will have to be outside that range too, etc.) I'm almost forced to aim for the default Ezdrummer map (or Addictive Drums) map if I want to bother with any kind of compatibility in that regard. At least in REAPER I can use a MIDI remapping plugin that takes no noticeable CPU, to remap the notes how I want. Hopefully other DAWs have this ability too. (Note: this MIDI remapping plugin can be saved in a track template along with everything else in REAPER.)
I'm saying that the most "simple, out-of-the-box" compatibility will not happen with DrumGizmo's kits (among various kit authors). It's about the same as expecting the same level of compatibility among Ezdrummer, Addictive Drums, Kontakt drums (various different MIDI maps and channel maps for those kits too). Even suggesting people follow a certain channel map...it's kind of pointless since chances are they're going to have proximity mics for snare, kick, toms (and whatever differences they have, they won't want to specifically conform them to a recommended channel map).
The benefit of course is that if you can save track templates (or something like that, depending on the DAW), you should still be able to quickly exchange kits to try them with a given MIDI file.
(edit) I forgot to mention that since I'm using Windows (at the moment), I can't use DGEdit (it's only for Linux). I don't know if it allows for quick rearranging of the channel map, but if it does I'd say that covers things fairly well. If not maybe request that DGEdit has this functionality added.
Either way (DGEdit or "manually" editing XML files), you realize that editing a kit is only necessary once and it's quick. So when you first download a kit, yes it's understandable that the channel map might annoy you. But it's something that will only bother you once if you edit the kit XML file. The next time you load the kit, the channels will be arranged the way you want them.