Using your own MIDI beat as starter

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 7:26 am

Hi folks.Just bought Jamstix, have read the manual and been experimenting - seems pretty powerful and unique, although of course there's lots to understand! I'm trying to figure it out myself but wondering if I could ask a few things ?

I'm trying to start with my own beat, so I first record that by myself in my DAW with my MIDI keyboard- so then it's there as a MIDI track.

Then I use the MIDI jam and MIDI learn mode to introduce this into Jamstix.

Seems to work OK.

Only problem is that the very first beat, the bass drum and hi-hat, goes missing from the first bar. Hmmn not sure why.

Second problem is that I thought I'd try to extract the style of the bit that I played to use as a style in the whole song. I get a dialogue box to save it but I'm not sure where it's saving the extracted style to , or then how to access it ?
Thanks very much for any help folks.

Post by **Ralph @ Rayzoon** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 4:45 pm

I recommend you do it a bit differently:

Instead of using MIDI learn, save your self-made groove to a MIDI file in the DAW and then use the 'Import' style (from the '@Special Styles' folder) and select the saved groove there. You can now add other brain elements to compose alongside your imported groove, if you want.

When you're happy with it and want to use it in the song builder, use Brain menu->Save Style Preset and give it a short but descriptive name. Now go to the song builder, select 'Import' style again and then select your saved preset in the presets list.

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Thu Dec 12, 2019 8:27 pm

Okay thanks for the feedback, good to know. Will try that

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:27 am

Ralph [RZ] wrote:Instead of using MIDI learn, save your self-made groove to a MIDI file in the DAW and then use the 'Import' style (from the '@Special Styles' folder) and select the saved groove there.

Really enjoying playing with this software BTW.

Trying what you said I exported my self-made groove from my DAW (Reason - I used the Jamstix kit to make the 4 bar drum part on a Reason MIDI track).

Then I selected and imported it into Jamstix, but it didn't import the MIDI correctly. I tink it was silent actually
I re-opened the exported MIDI back into Reason to double-check, and it was all working okay there.

I found I could import other MIDI such as Addictive Drum parts fine. Maybe Reason exports MIDI files a bit differently or something.

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:10 am

BTW I've tried the various options for 'GM', GM2 mapping etc so it doesn't seem to be that

Post by **Ralph @ Rayzoon** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 10:45 am

Please email me the MIDI file and I'll look into it.

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:54 pm

Okay , many thanks, I've emailed you.

As i say other MIDI files read okay on Import.
The file imported into Jamstix doesn't trigger anything, it's blank.

I was able to import the Reason MIDI into Cakewalk Sonar and it played okay.

Edit: Actually I just had a thought, I then exported the file out of cakewalk and was able to open this one in jamstix.

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:39 pm

Basically I'm just looking at ways to really fine edit or personalise a pattern and then have that inform the whole song.

Another way of doing it might be to take a bar of an already-generated rhythm and fine edit that inside the jamstix Bar menu. I guess you could fine-tune a bar (eg get all the kcks and snares in the exact position you want 'em) , and then use the SAVE BAR option ...and then turn that into a jamstix groove so it informs the whole song ? If that makes sense

Post by **Ralph @ Rayzoon** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 6:32 pm

Based on your earlier post edit, it sounds like you don't need any further assistance on the MIDI file. Let me know if you still do.

I do agree on editing your basic groove in the Jamstix bar editor because it streamlines the process and requires no import. Just use the preview button and build your groove in the bar editor until you're happy. At that point, you can save it and use it with the 'Import' style to build a preset for use with the song builder.

hotmitts_1 · Post by **hotmitts_1** » Sun Dec 15, 2019 7:31 pm

Thank you. It would be still nice to know if I could use an exported file straight from Reason rather than having to import and re-export it from another program, just wondering if there was anything I could do to aid the process from the Reason end.

(I tried getting back into using Cakewalk but I've been using Reason for so long I can't remember where everything is! 2 very different GUI's))

Everyone has their own way of working i guess, mine has always been to come up with a rhythm guitar piece first and then to play a finger-drummed MIDI drum part along with that manually, so that it really matched the rhythm and also sounds 'live' (hopefully). Although I'm not a drummer so....I was hoping to kind of adapt my process to fit into the Jamstix way of working if I could I guess. I'm still getting my head around all the features and elements