Transient section
- Use the Input Gain knob to make the strongest transients of the incoming drum hits reach the "max" line, meaning they represent velocity 127. You could also push it slightly above the "max" line to generate stronger 'trigs' in general.
- Set the Threshold to your desired level. Anything below the Threshold will be ignored. For example, a high Threshold means only stronger hits will be detected, a low Threshold means you can detect weaker hits such as ghost notes on the snare etc.
- Increase Sensitivity if the detection misses hits. If Sensitivity is set too high you may encounter the opposite, like double hits etc.
- Adjust Hold Time to avoid unwanted flams or double hits (the kick beater bouncing etc). The hold time basically says "after a hit, I will wait until the Hold Time is up before I trig again."
SuperStart: Find a suitable passage in your song that has a few relatively clean strong hits. Click the SuperStart button and a dialog opens up. Hit play in your DAW.
The incoming audio will be analyzed and some basic settings will be automatically done for you: Input Gain, Threshold, Sensitivity, Hold Time and capturing of one Fingerprint (based on the strongest detected transient).
The waveform display
The line at the top represents "max", i.e it translates to maximum velocity. Use the gain knob to adjust your input signal for desired results. To capture the most dynamics, only your strongest hits should reach this line. You can of course lower it so that any decently strong hit will hit the max line, which gives you less dynamics in the generated velocity but more perceived loudness, if that's what you want.
The triangles/flags in the waveform represent detected transients that are above the Threshold level. Their colours indicate different things (read more info about what 'Fingerprints' are further down):
GREEN: A trig event was generated! And here's why:
- When no Fingerprints are active, all hits above the threshold level get a green flag.
- When using Fingerprints in PLUS/Accept Mode, if a hit is above the threshold level AND matched to such a Fingerprint, it is accepted and gets a green flag.
- When using only one fingerprint in REJECT mode, all hits above the Threshold level who do NOT match that fingerprint get green flags.
RED: When using Fingerprints, if a hit is matched to a stored Fingerprint in MINUS/Reject Mode, it is rejected and gets a red flag.
GRAY: When using Fingerprints, if a hit does not sound close enough to any of the stored Fingerprints (i.e. the Fingerprint registers below the Match level), it is rejected and gets a gray flag.
You can click on the waveform display to audition detected transients, which is useful when capturing Fingerprints.
Audio Fingerprints
- Addictive Trigger's unique Fingerprint technology helps you determine "right" from "wrong", separating the hits you want from mic bleed and background noise. It does this by making a spectral frequency analysis of each hit detected in the Transient section.
- "Last Detected" shows the last detected 'Fingerprint'. If you want to 'Capture' a fingerprint to improve your detection, just click Capture on any of the 4 Fingerprint Slots:
- When playing: Click immediately after you hear the desired sound.
- When stopped: Click on the waveform to hear each "slice" and then click Capture if you want to use it as a Fingerprint.
You should now see the accepted hits indicated with a small GREEN triangle, while the rejected hits get a RED triangle.
- The Match section shows you in real time how well the "Last Detected" Fingerprint matches the Fingerprint(s) in the Slots. Adjust the slider to make the algorithm more or less picky on how close the sound needs to be to cause a Trig event.
- Enable button: Turn on/off a Fingerprint.
- Capture buttons 1/2/3/4: Clicking these copies the Last Detected Fingerprint into that slot.Click directly on the 'hatch' of a closed slot to enable it and capture in one click.
- Fingerprint display: Shows the current Fingerprint, with each little bar representing a frequency band. If you hover over it, a Delete (X) button appears on the rightmost side if you want to clear the Fingerprint Slot.
- Mode: The green [ + ] button is the default mode, meaning "Trig on this Fingerprint". If needed, you can use Fingerprints to "reject" problematic hits that should not create a trig event. Use the red [ - ] button to do this. You can also use just one Fingerprint in 'Reject' mode to say "trig on all hits EXCEPT this one. (Sometimes it is easier to say "trig on everything but this" rather than "trig on this, and this, and this...").
Snare Stroketype (snare only)
For Snare there is an extra section: Snare Stroketype. A snare has more 'Stroketypes' (ways of hitting the drum) than kick and toms. You can set your Default Stroketype in the MIDI Response section, and that is what is normally played.
However, using Fingerprints you can now do some cool stuff, for example:
- Capture one fingerprint for an "Open" (regular) snare hit and another one for "Rim Shot" (when the drummer hits both skin and rim) and assign them accordingly to those AD2 StrokeTypes to maintain the nuances of the drummer's performance.
- Assign softer ghost notes to "shallow hit" in Addictive Drums 2 for a different sound on those.
MIDI settings
Response
- Kick & Toms
- Snare
- Snare with Velosplit
Use this section to set the MIDI Velocity Range you desire. You can also adjust the response Curve. This gives you control over how the strength of the detected hits are mapped to a MIDI velocity scale. Example: By raising the lower left handle to the middle, only MIDI velocities within the 64-127 range will be generated.
For Snare there are some extra options: You can choose which StrokeType you wish to trig as default (Open Hit, Rimshot, Sidestick etc) and you can also choose a Velocity Split mode, where softer hits trigger a different StrokeType than stronger ones. An extra Split slider appears next to the Velocity control so you can set the exact split point in this mode.
MIDI Output & Export
Addictive Trigger constantly records the MIDI generated by the Trig engine. The resulting MIDI file can be immediately drag'n'dropped from the 'Display area' into a MIDI track in your DAW.
Click EXPORT to open the MIDI EXPORT Window which gives you a bigger overview as well as some extra options:
Map Preset - choose a key map for AD2, GM or any of our supported 3rd party drum solutions.
Multiple Plugins / Merge Tracks - if you have several instances of AT running, i.e one for kick, one for snare, some toms, and play back your track, they will all record their individual "parts". Using this button you can merge these separate parts into one MIDI file. You can drag this "multi-performance" MIDI file straight onto a track in your DAW.
The Kitpiece Setup section
This section provides an easy and creative way of creating and shaping your ideal sound. You get direct access to the Main Kitpiece along with the 3 available Flexi slots.
When a Kitpiece is loaded in a Flexi slot, a section with buttons appears that lets you audition and link (i.e "layer") the available StrokeTypes. Depending on what kind of Kitpiece you load, anything from 1 to 4 StrokeTypes will be available. Use the Link buttons (A/B/C/D) to easily layer sounds. [Ctrl]+Click to link more than one StrokeType from the same Flexi slot.
Switch Kitpieces by
- clicking the up/down arrows
- clicking on the Kitpiece name to get a dropdown with all available Kitpieces.
- clicking the L button to open the Kitpiece Browser.
Each Kitpiece Slot also offers Volume, Solo and Mute controls. You could for example mute (or completely unload) the Main Kitpiece and just use a sine wave in one of the Flexi Slots to add some extra oomph to your kick.