First of all not sure yet as to what to choose as pad layout, QFG or Dragon…I come from a jazz fusion guitar background and play drums a bit and my tradition-itis pushes me to use a “drummers” layout.
But then enters the Yamaha FGDP, haha. And Tory Slusher :-)…
So I am on the fence of buying a Yamaha FGDP, (I do own a Push 2 and Novation Launchpad X already).
Now my question:
How do one go about configuring the FGDP with Addictive drums or EasyDrummer using the FGDP as a midi input device?
Do you change the layout in the drum software (remap) or do you reconfigure the FGDP itself?
Thanks in advance and greetings from Belgium,
Hugo
P.S. Couldn’t resist and ordered a FGDP 50 (b-stock) from Thomann, should arrive end next week .
I totally understand this actually. I think what you should look into is if the QFG layout will stop yo from doing traditional drummer things (maybe with the order or the toms swapped on a non-FGDP traditional 4x4 controller).
I suspect it won’t. You can still play the hi hat with your dominant hand and hit kick and snare with he other hand if that feels better.
You will still not be using your legs, so something has to change either way.
I have both AD and EZ drummer. I lean towards Addictive drums for this use anyways.
I already used the Midi learn function to configure AD with the Launchkey X. So not really a problem. So in between typing I ordered a FGDP 50. I just wondered if it was better to reconfigure the FGDP or AD. I asked this also because I suspect the FGDP is not that easy to configure. That being said I chose the 50 over the 30 just for that reason (display etc…).
I also lean to leave the pad config on the unit itself “as is” and try to learn it that way. From the conversations here I understood that you (partially) do the same.
Yes I do change the layout but the toms I leave as is on the FGDP. I basically just put cymbals in the corners and the rides one row up and the sidesticks in the place of the rides.
The FGDP-50 is really very easy to configure, including Midi note mapping. These can be saved and recalled via registration memory. I generally try and map everything to general midi and then set AD to GM. That way I can play my ipad drum software using the same layouts. I’m not familiar with the 30 but I would suspect this to be much more difficult on the 30 - you made the right choice getting the 50 I think. The ui is a bit counter intuitive and the manual is not super great either but once you get the hang of what’s going on it becomes second nature.
is there a primer somewhere on how to reassign the pads on the FGDP device itself? i understand how to do it using AD2, so when it’s connected to my computer i’m all good. i use the QFG layout.
but when i’m using the FGDP as a stand alone (which is one of the reason we bought the thing in the first place!), i’d like it to match the QFG layout.
There is an fgdp 50 user manual online (easy to find with Google). You will want to read the section “Editing a Kit - Voice Edit”. Those instructions cover what you are looking for.
It looks like the standard ModernJazz kit on FGDP-30 (and in addition the ClassicJazz kit on FGDP-50) are a step closer to your preference, with ride cymbal bows positioned at C1 and C2 for greater freedom when playing a swing beat.
Yes that’s right. But it’s easy to change the pad sounds and save them under a preset though, so I would not select a kit based on the assignment of the pads. It’s 15 minutes of work and you can have any sound anywhere you want.
I have sent the Yamaha back. Bought a Maschine micro MKIII instead, but thanks for the help. I am not really bothered by being “tied” to the computer having my laptop always nearby :-).
Yes that is a valid conclusion to draw. Once you’ve gained some ground practicing finger drumming you might want to look into the FGDP again. From my experience after 8 years of ‘normal’ finger drumming it really gave me a lot an I’m now happily playing both devices. Very happy to have both in my life at the moment.
my goal is to get the Addictive Drums 2 Session Percussion kit (using the Soul voices) converted into .wav files so that i can put those files on a usb, then load them on to the FGDP-50.
i’m okay with the latter part of that process, but i’m stuck on how to turn the AD2 kit pieces into .wav files.
i’ve read a number of articles, even consulted Copilot, to see how i do this, but i’m still having trouble. so instead of throwing more darts at the thing, i thought i’d ask here.
my DAW is FL Studio.
as i understand it, i’d need to get the sounds of the individual kit pieces into FL Studio, then export them individually as .wav files. but i’m having a helluva time figuring it out.
thoughts? is there reference out there that can help? is there another way to get this done?
This is something I like to use Bird’s Rolling Sampler for (costs 19$). I can let it run in the background recording and then play things I want to sample. Then I drag out the parts I want to keep and use ocenaudio (free) to check that the samples have been properly trimmed (Rolling Sampler tries to remove silence, but not always gets it right if there’s some background noise).
No need to use Rolling Sampler or Oceanaudio in particular, though. You can also just load AD2 in FL Studio and record its output to an audio track. Then do single hit triggers on the drums you want to sample. Since AD2 has velocity sensitive and round robin samples, you may want to do this several time for the same kit. Then pick the samples you like most and load them on the Yamaha FGDP50.
hey simon, thanks a lot for the speedy reply. i’ll give this a go and report back.
since i don’t use my DAW regularly there’s always a ‘how did i do that?’ period where i have re-acquaint myself with things i’ve done in the past. like playing the fgdp-50 in FL. : )
or like connecting it to FL in the first place. i’m now looking for a better controller than ‘generic controller’ for FL.
.