Roland HD3 + Addictive Drums MIDI Interface

Jizolo

Junior Member
Hallo dear avid drummers,

I am really new to this forum and this is my first post. Sorry if I am posting this under the wrong category.
I learned drumming for two years and then had to Stop it due to work and lack of time. Sold my acoustic kit(was a really sad moment for me).
But after a long time I asked my self what I would really love to do again with some spare time and Birthday coming around the corner, my answer was to get a Drum set and start learning again. I badly want to get back on the throne. Meanwhile I have tried to do Jam session when ever I got an opportunity and people always told I had potential but when it came to complex dynamic playing I was really far from even good.

Now Although living in a rented apartment, I have decided to get myself an E-drum. Lack of space and don't want the police knocking at my door due to loud noise. Since I am not living on the ground floor, I still fear the noise from the kick pedal of the E-drum, which is kinda inevitable.So for the beginning I have decided not to invest too much on a kit and find a quieter one. After visiting a music store nearby and checking a few E-drum kits from ALESIS(More quantity but not so good quality,even the DM10X samples sounded crap), Yamaha(Good build and sample kit quality), Roland(I liked them the best, but damn expensive).Anyways I have decided to get myself the Roland HD3 Edrum kit(It looks like a kids kit,but I guess it has some really good potential).I found them very quite while playing so going for it(ofcourse the kick pedal on them wont feel real, but thats the price i have to pay to keep away the neighbours and still enjoy some drumming).

I will stop boring you with my story and get to the gist of this post. Although I like the built in sample kits in the Roland HD3 drum brain, I would still like to buy Addictive Drums(AD) and use it for practicing. Those VST kits sound awesome. Only issue here is, the HD3 has only a MIDI OUT port and no USB. I have a core i7 laptop with 4GB RAM running WIN 7 SP1 and no Firewire. I am not sure how I can interface the HD3 with Addictive Drums(either Standalone or as VST in Reaper/Cubase). The software part, I hope can be taken care but its the hardware i am wondering.

1) Will just a usual MIDI to USB cable (eg. Roland UM one MKII or Maudio USB Uno) do the trick without perceivable latency?Unfortunately in this case I guess I have to listen to the triggered AD samples through my Laptop headphone Jack as there is no extra sound card.

2) Or do you guys think an external sound card like a TASCAM US-122 MKII or Focusrite saffire/scarlett would be much better in latency?Definitely here I could listen to the triggerd AD samples either through the Line(L/R) out or the Headphone jack.

I really dont want to buy some really expensive interface as I only have a MIDI OUT option on my HD3.I hope some of you have experience with the HD3 kit or triggering the AD over some MIDI USB interface or suggest what would be the best way to approach this situation. I would be really glad to hear any suggestion regarding this issue or even the way I have posted this from all of you. This whole setup would be probably my Birthday gift if these small problems get cleared :D.

Thanks for taking your precious time for my post.
 
I think that a MIDI to USB cable going from the MIDI out of your drum module to the USB port of your computer, and an install of Addictive Drums or similar may be all you need. There should be no latency because you are not using audio out.
 
Get an E-Mu Xmidi 1X1 V3 on amazon for about $25. I have one it works really well. You just plug your MIDI OUTPUT from the HD-3 to the Cable that is marked MIDI IN on the EMU-Xmidi and plug the USB cable of the EMU-Xmidi into your laptop.

windows will find a driver, but its better to get the latest driver from Creative's EMU section of their website.

I run midi from my Roland TD-4 into my desktop music computer and trigger 2 instances of Addictive Drums in Cubase 5. I wrote a thread about my set up, 'Studio Set Up With A Roland TD-4k2' that is about 1/2 way down the page that has a lot of information.

You can run Addictive Drums standalone now too, but I use cubase because I have a lot of other stuff I can do, but for practice the standalone is great.

You could also get an outboard soundcard, I have a Focusrite 8i16 and and EMU 0404 USB outboard the EMU is cheaper and better functionality and a midi in port, 2 really good Mic Pre's, and a good sounding headphone amp. It will sound way better than the stock soundcard in the laptop.

And latency can be a problem with midi, when the data is transmitted poorly designed hardware can cause delays, so get quality stuff but it shouldn't be a problem with the interfaces I mentioned.


Have fun, and believe me when they say addictive, they mean it.
 
I think that a MIDI to USB cable going from the MIDI out of your drum module to the USB port of your computer, and an install of Addictive Drums or similar may be all you need. There should be no latency because you are not using audio out.

Hi thebarak, thanks for the reply. what do you mean by having latency if using audio out and not otherwise. The only Audio out I could use with Addictive drums will be from my Computer soundcard or an external USB soundcard(like the TASCAM i mentioned). which I intend to use to practice drumming.

or did u mean the Audio out from the HD3 brain?Then I can only listen to the inbuilt Brain samples and not Addictive drums.

Get an E-Mu Xmidi 1X1 V3 on amazon for about $25. I have one it works really well. You just plug your MIDI OUTPUT from the HD-3 to the Cable that is marked MIDI IN on the EMU-Xmidi and plug the USB cable of the EMU-Xmidi into your laptop.

windows will find a driver, but its better to get the latest driver from Creative's EMU section of their website.

I run midi from my Roland TD-4 into my desktop music computer and trigger 2 instances of Addictive Drums in Cubase 5. I wrote a thread about my set up, 'Studio Set Up With A Roland TD-4k2' that is about 1/2 way down the page that has a lot of information.

You can run Addictive Drums standalone now too, but I use cubase because I have a lot of other stuff I can do, but for practice the standalone is great.

You could also get an outboard soundcard, I have a Focusrite 8i16 and and EMU 0404 USB outboard the EMU is cheaper and better functionality and a midi in port, 2 really good Mic Pre's, and a good sounding headphone amp. It will sound way better than the stock soundcard in the laptop.

And latency can be a problem with midi, when the data is transmitted poorly designed hardware can cause delays, so get quality stuff but it shouldn't be a problem with the interfaces I mentioned.


Have fun, and believe me when they say addictive, they mean it.

Hi stellar92010, Thanks for the detailed Info.After counting all the cents in my Bank, I have gone for the Roland UM one MKII MIDI to USB as a first shot at the interface with asio4all driver on my laptop.If latency is too much even after tweaking only then I shall try to get an outboard soundcard. As I am not planning to use a MIC or the preamps the soundcard investement might be too high for the begining.If things work out just with this MIDI-USB cable I would be more than just Happy:). Now Just waiting to get my Shipment home :D

Haaa haa yes I know using AD can get real addictive and I just hope my neighbours would support this addiction of mine :p
 
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