RAYZOON

Hi, I'm completely new at this so . . .

I guess one prollem I'm having is not quite understanding when / where / how to "print" if I might use that term. . .

One basic thing is that I don't "see" a graphic representation of what is going on with jamtrax in my host (reaper) when I record it or not. Is this a characteristic of Midi? What horribly essential concept do I not understand?

If I can't see it how can I manipulate it? The immediate problem is that I can't start the midi recording (if that is what it is) some place after 1.1 in Reaper. So when I add a non jamstix track the beginning of notes are cut off in the intro.

Please help me get over this hurdle . . .

Don't worry.I'm a Reaper user as well and when you 1st get into Jamstix there's a different way of thinking or a standard way.

Instead of jumping straight in to doing a song spend some time practising how to use JS as it has an awesome concept that no other Drum software has.

The most powerful parts of JS for song writing is the Song sheet and then the midi bar editor.Forget about using a midi drum track/Midi editor in Reaper for now.

Start a new project and load JS as an FX.when it 1st launches you will be asked to pick a song.For now choose the Standard Rock song,"Jam session Rock".Choose,"Jam No Input" from the window at the top.Don;t worry about Drum kits for now.

Now in the window where you can load a song on the left is the Song sheet section.The rock song loads a 2 bar intro and the an 8 bar loop repeated 100 times.This is of course silly but it means you get a beat going.

OK.Go to the Intro and choose the green half arrow next to the intro and click on it and choose,"Remove part" an confirm the removal.You have just removed the 2 bar intro.

Now you have a song with an instant drum start but it's 8 bar repeated 100 times so let construct a simple rock song.

Click on the green half arrow again and choose to copy the part.Then click on it again and choose to paste.Now you have two song sections that are both 100 bars long,again totally silly but there's method in my madness.

Now click on the 1st part but only once in the middle.It should pop-up telling you the Bar details and how many repeats etc.Drop the number of bars to 4 and the the repeats to 1.
You have now made a new intro 4 bars long.You should now rename this Intro which you can do by double clicking in the same spot you single clicked.

Now do the same with the 2nd part but drop it to say 8 bars and 1 and name it for argument's sake 1stVerse.

I think you will see where I'm going with this.You can now use that copy command you used to copy a part again and place it where you want but we have gone far enough for now.Don't worry about the drumming yet.

Now start Jamstix playing in Reaper and the JS,"Brain" will form a drum pattern.You can then change the drummer and the style and edit the beats in the small bar editor and everything else.This takes time to learn but you can't run before you can walk.
Remember you can call up the JS manual from JS,it's the little book icon on the Top right,so read it from time to time using the Adobe search option with key words and when stuck post again

Checkout the,"Your Songs" section for stuff both myself and other people have been doing and you will see what power the program has

thx for response . . .

I understand the very basics . . . but I want to make an intro of my own . . . as opposed to what I understand the term "intro" to mean to jamstix, which is a short drum intro . . . anyway.

So I compose my intro in the editor, because it isn't a groove thing, right? I lock all the hits in the intro, turn on play in Reaper and things work fine from 1.1, the intro segueing into a self generated pattern at the beginning of verse 1 . . . great.

Here's where the problem is. I want to add other instruments on the first beat of the intro. This means that there is a little pre 1.1 sound as the first chord / note anticipates the one beat of the intro. This sound gets cut off in the recording -- not good.

So I need to move the jamstix intro to say 2.1 so the "anticipatory" sound of the instruments is included on the recording. That's all I want to do. Should be easy, right?

If I understand you then just redo the Intro and if it was 2 bars long make it 4 bars long and start adding the drum bits later in the part?You can use the small green half arrow in the JS bar editor to choose to clear all events to start fresh if you need to.
It's useful to learn that small half arrow as it lets you clear full bars or grooves,fills or accents.
Or add a new part with say 1 blank bar before the intro?

aaaaahhhhhhh . . . brilliant . . . thx

Glad I could help.

What I do in Reaper with JS is match the song sheet in JS .I use Markers that match the parts I've made in JS e.g intro,1stV/1stBridge/Chorus etc.

That way I can go to any part of a song/composition and know where I am in both programs.Makes it really easy to fine tune drum parts

good idea . . . thx again