Exporting Midi to Audio for Multi Track Drums (Kontakt Related)

[dxtrinc]

Hello Everyone!

I have a question about exporting Midi to audio. I also don't know how to search for what I am looking for, as in, I can't figure out what words to search lol

So I use the built in Kontakt kits for my drums at the moment (though I am hoping to get something more substantial in the future). After I get the midi laid out I do the usual "Apply track/take FX to items as new track (multichannel output)" or whatever the exact words are.

I am wanting to do multi track audio for my drums so I can mix them better. I have tried every tutorial I can find to do multi track drums inside of Kontakt and it doesnt work for me.

Here is the order of what I do to get multi track audio using the kik as an example.

1) In the Midi Take window I cut all the midi notes but the kik
2) Apply track/take FX to items as new track (mono output)
3) Explode All Takes To New Tracks
4) Delete the new Midi track and obviously keep the audio track
5) Delete Active Take
6) Delete all the midi notes for the kik
7) Paste the midi notes back into the Midi Take window
8) Rinse and Repeat

Now this is much quicker than having to mic up a kit of course but I was wondering if there is a quicker or easier way to do this? I tend to miss how great Reaper is and do things in a very complicated way but its much easier to do here. Must be my years training and using ProTools (ba-dum-tsh).

Anyways!

Any help would be awesome, thanks so much!

[DarkStar]

It all depends on how often you are going to use that Kontakt drum kit.

In your position I would put some work in to create a multi-output drum kit within Kontakt. That will make life much easier, and you can capture all the kit pieces separately, all at once, in Reaper.

-- In Kontakt's Mixer, create all the channels you need (you can always add more later), name them "Kick", "Snare", "Toms" etc as desired and route them to sequential pairs of outputs (1|2, 3|4, 5\6 etc.)
-- In Kontakt's Mixer, save the config as an Output preset
-- now load your drum kit, by default all its output goes to the first Mixer channel and so to plug-in output channels 1|2.
-- open the Instrument Editor by clicking the "wrench" ("spanner") button,
-- open the Group Editor by clicking its button
-- there (in a cramped window) you will see the various groups for the drum kit samples,"Clap", "Bass drum", "Snare left" etc.,
-- click on a name of one of the kit pieces to select it, then click the check-boxes of other kit pieces that you want to send to the same output,
-- in the Amp section, select the desired output, then deselect the groups
-- repeat those two steps for the pieces you want to send to each output.

When done, close the Instrument Editor and Save the drum kit with a slightly different name.

---------------------------------------
Now, back in Reaper, open the FX panel on the Kontakt track,
-- make sure Kontakt is selected,
-- click [Options] then "Build multichannel output ...."
-- this will create output "audio" tracks for you and route the Kontakt plug-in outputs to them,
-- select those newly-created tracks, RecArm them and set them to Record Output (Stereo),
= put your MIDI item (with all of its notes!) on the Kontakt track and hit Record.

Here in Kontakt 4 (!) I am assigning three groups to the SNARE output:


And here I have recorded the different drum kit pieces to separate tracks:

^^^^
In case you're wondering, I did not change the output for the Hats, so they are recorded on the Kick track.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by dxtrinc

I am wanting to do multi track audio for my drums so I can mix them better. I have tried every tutorial I can find to do multi track drums inside of Kontakt and it doesnt work for me.

Hi dxtrinc, DarkStar has given some great advice.

What I'd like to add, is that I have some free drums (SMDrums) that are much better then the Kontakt drums. You get 2 instruction manuals along with all the samples, plus Reaper project files that are setup with multi-track tracks including a Sub Drums bus, just the way you are describing above.

You can get the Kontakt version as well as listen to a few demos here:

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=150868

This kit is multi-miced with individual controls for each mic.

Also you can use the kit in 2 ways:

1> A single nki file that has all the drums in one Kontakt nki file.
2> Individual kit pieces with individual nki files for each kit-piece (Kik, Snare, SideStick, Hat, Ride, crash, and Toms.)

Each kit piece is multi-layered with 24 to 64 individual layers as well as 4 Round robins.

There are Reaper project files that have all the individual multi-tracks laid out for you, all you have to do load the project files into Reaper.

If you need any help let me know.

[dxtrinc]

Holy Cow Guys!

such great answers! thanks so much for your efforts!

darkstar I will definitely be taking time to make my own kontakt kit. I probably could've / should've done this before hand anyways. Thanks for laying it out how to do it. It'll make my job much easier!

And also thanks tod for your efforts as well! I will definetly be grabbing that your kits! Thats so awesome!

The stock Kontakt kits are alright with some mixing but as I am a drummer myself it's not where I want it. Fine for demos but not for real music.

I am working on a couple projects right now and having better drums will help so much!