Evaluating Free version of Jamstix and have some questions

[mikeon_b4c]

Hey Mike,
Honestly, I'm glad that I could help you out. Feel free to ask about anything that raises questions in the future. As I said, if I can answer it, I'll gladly do so.

👍👍👍

[mikeon_b4c]

Hey Mike,
Honestly, I'm glad that I could help you out. Feel free to ask about anything that raises questions in the future. As I said, if I can answer it, I'll gladly do so.

Well I've been and went and gone and done it. And you know, I looked at the various options and thought - you only get one life and I'm a fair way along mine, and you could have a really interesting journey exploring what Jamstix can do. So I busted the budget and bought the Ultimate collection. And its already delivering nicely on a song I'm working on. I almost wonder how much I will end up wanting (or not) to edit the MIDI for a song created with Jamstix. I also am a bit puzzled by people who can't get on with its interface. Overall, I found Jamstix interface pretty presentable and pleasant to use. Yes it may seem a bit odd but there's never an idiot proof way to present something that wants to allow a user (who may not even have much understanding of musical terminology - not Jamstix fault) to be able to create their own drum track while also suggesting AI flavouring. When I briefly looked at EZdrummer 2 it had its own 'takes time to learn' interface. The difference (and this is what worried me) was it might not ultimately do more than give you lots of standard building block options (and you would then have to edit those to remove/add notes). Jamstix AI on the other hand, will alter the output in much more subtle ways using its AI. You then have a much more interesting set of ideas which you can still put into MIDI and remove/add bits just as you might with EZ2. At the moment, a couple of queries are emerging, in case they make sense:

1) Although I seem to be getting the parts of the kit to route from the Jamstix track to separate tracks for Kick, snare, hi-hat, tomtoms, cymbals, the output channel numbers in the Kit section in Jamstix are not matching the routing numbers I'm setting in Reapers track routing. I don't know why this is as in a similar exercise with Manda Powerdrum the numbers do match (can send a screen snapshot if that helps). Does the cryptic AudioM8 plugin have any relevance to this as it seems to deal with track routing? Sorry if I'm not smart with all this.

2) I exported the song as a MIDI track and took a quick look at it. It seems to open with the same MIDI editor that Reaper opens MIDI editing with by default. But the MIDI looks odd and in one part I was still hearing Audio on playing my song even though there didn't seem to be any MIDI notes. Also, with Manda PD, if I click on a note in the MIDI editor, it plays. It doesn't seem to do that with Jamstix as the VSTi (set in playback mode of course). I should add I've only taken a cursory look at this so far and not explored the problem so it may be something obvious. But if you have any thoughts and time to share them, I'm listening!

Right...I'm off to tinker with Jamstix some more! 8)

[Azimuth (Archive)]

the output channel numbers in the Kit section in Jamstix are not matching the routing numbers I'm setting in Reapers track routing.

1) I'm not really following what you mean here, a screen shot probably would help.

2) Pretty hard to say without seeing what you are looking at, maybe another screen shot? Jamstix does produce sound for me when I click on a note in Reaper's ME.

[mikeon_b4c]

the output channel numbers in the Kit section in Jamstix are not matching the routing numbers I'm setting in Reapers track routing.

1) I'm not really following what you mean here, a screen shot probably would help.

2) Pretty hard to say without seeing what you are looking at, maybe another screen shot? Jamstix does produce sound for me when I click on a note in Reaper's ME.

Sorry for slow reply - thought I might do better to study and play around with Jamstix more to see if I can unravel the mysteries before bothering you more. And I'm making great progress. While watching a youtube video today I noticed that if you load Jamstix by creating a virtual instrument track in Reaper, it immediately invites you to create routed tracks for all 8 outputs. SO did that, it worked, I now know how it likes to route audio to tracks (not like Power Drum that simply sends each item - kick, snare etc - to separate tracks, but more like it is driven by 8 mic outputs, with bleedover). I've created a track template so I can load that whenever using Jamstix and wnat more than its internal mixer for control.

I also found, on an existing project, that it was easier to recreate a drum 'song' in Jamstix than to go through the pain of importing legacy MIDI.

So, overall, I think my journey of discovery was being held up by attempting too quickly to shoehorn Jamstix too hastily into legacy projects. I think though that now I am beginning to make real progress. I can see it will take a lot of working with Jamstix to really learn how to master using all its features, but I'm sure I'll get there, and I'm sure I'll crack the MIDI import thing soon (importing it hasn't been the problem as much as getting what's imported to play as it should - probably errors by me when splitting legacy stuff into verses, choruses etc).

I'll post again if I can't suss how to do something critical but really, I think I should just spend time reading hte manual, watching tutorial videos, and practicing. Jamstix is a fascinating phenomenon though and I'm pleased I ended up buying it.

Mike

[mikeon_b4c]

Hi

Just had a message from a newish J4 user called Gary and sent him a substantial reply saying how I was finding it. I thought it might be useful (cos I had been meaning to post about my progress anyway) to reproduce my (hastilly written) summary here, as follows:

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[...] Well, first, I have been using it for all my projects since I got started with it, including for percussion work. I love it and will stick with it. Now for the nitty gritty:

What I love
-------------
Is the element of surprise when I have set out a song in Reaper, been disciplined about naming my song regions (including noting in the region title how many bars long it is) and am then able quickly to set out the song in J4 and put it to work, experimenting with its various options for style and drummer. Occasionally I am happy with exactly what it has done. Here is an example where I had just started with J4, chose (from memory) Surf style and drummer Charlie. Because the song does not require the drums to do anything more than back (and not upstage) the song, and because the song is just a collection of verses, it was a simple job for J4. Nonetheless, it played the drums just how the song needed them to be played, and I think it sounds great

https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys/my-ba ... na-boysmp3

Similarly, this song uses J4 percussion and (from meory) I made no changes whatsoever to what it created

https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys/carey ... clana-boys

Most times though, I will want to intervene and manually edit/change what J4 has created. I'm still learning about best ways to do that (J4 seems to understand / notice when you've started to change patterns, such as kick, in the early bars of a section and seems to some extent to then change other bars in the section). J4 will though over-write and destroy what you have done if you get it wrong: it is very unforgiving. So, my first IMPORTANT TIP is to save a song at an early stage and keep saving it regularly (or at least hit the Save A Restore Point button, though with that option you then have to find your restore point in the list of restore points as J4 is not tidy in the way it lists them). Similarly, when you've got a whole song that works but that you think you want to go over again to try and make it better, then start a new version of the song and name it Vn (where n is the version number) as well as describing when and why you started the new version. Overall, Jamstix is not good on undo/redo stuff and you can really lose a lot of work if you don't save things regularly.

What I hate
-------------
* The user interface is a dogs dinner and it takes a lot of using to settle to using J4 and how to find your way around it
* Unless you are a musician who understands the terminology (and maybe even if you are), trying to get the hang of how changing the many parameters will change what J4 creates for you is very confusing. And J4 will just destroy and recreate things as soon as you alter the various settings (which is why you MUST have something saved and that you can restore if need be).
* There is very little by way of good tutorial material on Youtube for helping you learn how to use J4. There is a 3 x 1hr part (I think) tutorial for J3 that is better than nothing, but only just.
* Some of J4s pattern creations are just cheesy. But hey, you can always edit those out

Overall
--------

I love J4 and I don't think I would swap to the other well known drum VSTi's as they seem to be based much more on glueing together standard patterns (of which there are a bewildering number, which makes decision making harder). I would rather be surprised by something that I can use for inspiration and go on to customise, than to constantly feel I am in some huge department store where I might missed seeing the perfect item for me: better for there not to be one and to have fun playing with the parameters in J4.

I fear for J4 as a commercial product though as I think it is unfriendly and clunky to use so that perhaps only a minority (who love the ability to create, or to just get lucky and have offer the perfect solution straight off, and are prepared to commit to the long learning process in J4) will stick with the product.

When it comes to percussion, J4 really seems to score. I would not know how to get close to manually painting a realistic percussion part in MIDI and I'm no sure what other VSTi's out there will handle (creative) percussion part creation.

So, overall, I love J4 and will stick with it, mainly because it is a great tool for creativity and composition. The notes it creates can be exported as MIDI for use by other drum VSTis (maybe because you want a different sounding set of drums). I find the learning curve enjoyable overall as it is a learning adventure, with dividends, and I am retired and this is my hobby. But if time was tight, I might find it frustrating.

It would be so good if there was better tutorial support for J4 and hopefully Rayzoon might read this email and ponder on what I have written. Its a great concept, but it is due some attention in making it and the World of J4 more attractive and user friendly (in my humble opinion).

[...]

Mike

P.S. Any drums you hear on any of the songs at https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys are being played (and most have been composed) using J4

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I'd be interested to get the (polite!) reaction of other (more experienced?) users to what I have written. And thanks again for all the support I got when starting out with J4 (and I still have a loooong way to go with learning all its intricacies!)

Mike

[Azimuth (Archive)]

I've said this before in the forum but I think it is one of the most important things to figure out: just because there is a parameter you can adjust doesn't mean you have to.

After using it for a while I think most users will find there is a group of parameters you'll use 90+% of the time and the vast majority of them will hardly get used other than playing around to see what they do. I found that after focusing upon that group of parameters I found myself using the most, dialing in what I wanted became much easier.