8.0

MIDI Editors
Drum Editor Operations
499
I-Notes (Input Notes)
When you play a note on your MIDI instrument, the program looks for this note
number among the I-notes in the drum map. If you play the note A1, the program
finds that this is the I-note of the bass drum sound.
This is where the first transformation happens: the note gets a new note number
according to the pitch setting for the drum sound. In our case, the note is
transformed to a C1 note, because that is the pitch of the bass drum sound. If you
record the note, it is recorded as a C1 note.
For example, you can place drum sounds near each other on the keyboard so that
they can be easily played together, move sounds so that the most important sounds
can be played from a short keyboard, play a sound from a black key instead of a
white. If you never play your drum parts from a MIDI controller but draw them in the
editor you do not need the I-note setting.
O-Notes (Output Notes)
The next step is the output. This is what happens when you play back the recorded
note, or when the note you play is sent back out to a MIDI instrument in realtime
(MIDI Thru):
The program checks the drum map and finds the drum sound with the pitch of the
note. In our case, this is a C1 note and the drum sound is the bass drum. Before the
note is sent to the MIDI output, the second transformation takes place: the note
number is changed to that of the O-note for the sound. In our example, the note sent
to the MIDI instrument is a B0 note.
The O-note settings let you set things up so that the bass drum sound really plays
a bass drum. If you are using a MIDI instrument in which the bass drum sound is on
the C2 key, you set the O-note for the bass drum sound to C2. When you switch
to another instrument (in which the bass drum is on C1) you want the bass drum
O-note set to C1. Once you have set up drum maps for all your MIDI instruments,
you can select another drum map when you want to use another MIDI instrument for
drum sounds.
Setting Pitches of Notes According to their O-Note Settings
You can set the pitch of notes according to their O-note settings. This is useful if
you want to convert a track to a regular MIDI track with no drum map and still have
the notes play back the correct drum sound.
It’s a typical use case to export your MIDI recording as a standard MIDI file. If you
first perform an O-note conversion, you make sure that your drum tracks play back
as intended when they are exported.
• To perform an O-note conversion, select MIDI > O-Note Conversion.
RELATED LINKS
Exporting and importing standard MIDI files on page 622