JS and double-kick patterns

[Loka_senna]

(I wanted to make a new thread for this, rather than cluttering the SSD topic any more, in case anyone else might be having the same problem)

I'm currently having a devil of a time getting Jamstix (both 2 and 3) to play double-kick patterns the way I'm expecting. Using the Custom Metal style, I'll program a solid bar of sixteenths, expecting to hear both feet taking turns evenly - KkKkKkKk... and so on. Unfortunately, out of the box, Jamstix plays the entire line on one foot, like so:

[url]http://stashbox.org/810851/Jamstixdoublekick.mp3[/url]

The result, to be fair, sounds like a pretty convincing impression of me (not a drummer) trying to play sixteenth kicks smoothly - wimpy, uneven, and missing several hits. The limb control section of JS's brain looks at this pattern, says "wtf, real drummers don't do that", and quite correctly messes with the pattern to make it playable.

For fast, modern heavy metal, fast double-kick sections are rather important, and I would rather not have to program entire songs by hand.

Ralph kindly pointed out (in one of the SSD threads) that JS3's Freestyle style has a Double Bass element, intended to spread kicks between both feet. I added this to my Custom Metal setup, with the following results:

[img:974e8911b2]http://stashbox.org/810843/jamstixdoublekick.png[/img:974e8911b2]

It's obvious that Double Bass is trying to do the right thing - I think it might just need some fine-tuning, or a "Strict" setting.

The gallop pattern (top) is obviously problematic - two-note segments are being completely ignored.

For straight sixteenths, there's one problem and one visual bug: the upper image is what JS spits out when I click "Compose" and then play through the bar. Looks a little weird, no? Well, clicking anywhere in the bar grid erases the odd notes, leaving the lower pattern. Much closer, though the final kick is still on the wrong foot.

(I'm using beta A13, btw)

Have I missed anything else that might get my kicks consistently on the right feet? If not, as I've mentioned elsewhere, would it be possible to get an option/element that simply forces the use of both feet if sixteenth-note kicks occur together?

Cheers.

[Robitaille20]

I'm right there with you! I'm looking for ways to get some more metal type drumming as well. I've been playing with hand editing my drum patterns by having the style and drummer set to 'Silent'... and I'm kinda getting there but something still isn't quite right to me.

I've been trying to get a drumming style like Jeremy Spencer (5FDP) and if you know the band... you know the kicks are BUSY!!!

[dysfunction]

If you want a solid bar of 16th doublekick notes, just use the Modern Metal style, or else extract the kick controls from that style, and set the kick pattern complexity to 100%. Unfortunately if you want a kick pattern that has is not doublekick throughout the bar, you'll either have to manually delete some of the notes in the bar editor, or else use Custom Metal and manually move notes to the left foot as desired.

[Ralph @ Rayzoon]

The "Double Bass" splitter currently only looks at 3 note sequences, not 2. I'll see what we can do there.

[Loka_senna]

Just a quick bump to say that, as of 3.1b9, my double kicks are behaving almost perfectly. The only hiccup I'm still seeing is with a gallop pattern like the one I was using in the picture above - the last pair of kicks starts with the left foot, which means that the last note of the bar and the first note of the next are both right hits, and thus the brain starts skipping notes.

One fix I can think of would be to simply force all two-note clusters to start on a specific foot, all three-note clusters to start on the other, four-note, etc, so that it should be impossible to compose a pattern with a conflict. It's possible that this might have unintended consequences with some other patterns, but I can't come up with any off the top of my head.

Alternatively, you could have the brain look at both the first and last clusters of the bar and adjust the last one so that the feet are alternating properly.

Cheers.

[Loka_senna]

Another bump - I'm using 3.1.3b1, and still getting the same glitch.

Steady eighths with an added final sixteenth, like so: X X X X X X X XX, puts the last cluster on the wrong limbs and causes a conflict with the first hit of the next bar, muffling the sixteenth.

It's a small bug, but annoying as hell to fix whenever I recompose a part.