Power Tab Discussion Forum

I realize there is no drum score for powertab.. but is there a way to write the percussion so that it goes through midi channel 10? if so, is there a way to know which notes are which sounds, example 40 is electric snare.. what note is 40?
thanks

I'm not sure I understand. Are you talking about scoring for a drum in PTE and then exporting the midi file to be played through a softsynth?

that's sort of what i'm talking about.. for whatever reason the percussion track is just like.. midi track 4 instead of 10.. so the synth i use doesn't recognize that it's a percussion track.. but that chart you posted is what i'm looking for, thanks!

There is a way for u to have drums playing thru powertabs using this trick . However, in the chart that Urban Hermit gave, all the notes are off by 1. For example: the Acoustic Bass Drum is actually a B note, and the Bass Drum 1 is a C, etc.



Unfortunately PTE doesnt assign channel 10 (which is needed for percussion) to any of the tracks. It would have been nice if Brad allowed u to assign the channel when u add the guitar. But there is a way around this limitation.
There are 2 free pgms u can get from http://www.midiox.com. They are Midi-Ox and Midi-Yolk. Midi-Yolk is used to allow Powertab and Midi-Ox to "talk" to each other. After installing Midi-Yolk, u should be able to see it in the Powertabs Midi Setup. You should assign Powertabs midi output to Midi-Yolk's port #1. Then run Midi-Ox, and assign Midi-Ox's input to Midi-Yolk's port #1. This allows the O/P of PTE to go to the I/P of Midi-Ox. The O/P of Midi-Ox should then be assigned to where u normally had Powertabs's O/P going to (usually your soundcard, or Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth). And finally here is the trick: In the Options tab of Midi-Ox, there is a Data Mapping feature. In your example u said that PTE was putting your "Drums" on channel 4. You can use Midi-Ox's Data Mapping to change all "channel 4" commands to "channel 10" commands. When u press "play" on PTE u will now have a drum backing track to jam along with.

OMG

IT WORKED! DRUMS IN POWERTAB!!!!!!!!!!!

chuck rock, you're my new hero. You should publish this, everybody should know about this. I'm still catching my breath...

That's awesome. I already had both programs, but never really checked out MIDI-OX in full. It does indeed work! I would love for this to be incorporated more for the UCA, but it's still a little impractical. Perhaps we could make a YouTube tutorial video and sticky it in the UCA forum.

By the way, it seems that you need to keep the metronome on in order for it to playback, but I guess you could just set the metronome volumes to 1 when you're not using it.

That's because when you turn off the metronome Power Tab sends a message that puts the Channel 10 volume to 0. Luckily, you can filter out this message in midiox. I'm going to have a blast with this once I finish my exams in 3 days.

This is so awesome. You can also use it to change your instruments in the middle of playback. So although you'll be limited to 7 guitars at one time, you'll be able to change any of the instruments at anytime!

Also you can reroute the percussion to Qsynth and apply a drum soundfont to it. What a gift! We should prepare a tutorial as soon as possible.

A tute is a must!

Why is that?

Inside the computer they are off by 1, but when you deal with them directly they are correct the way you have them. This is because the messages are only 7 bit wide, which means they can be from 0 to 127 when you translate from binary representation. If they are to be 1 to 128, you'd have to use 8 bits and waste all the numbers from 129 to 255.

That was going to be my next suggestion. After routing PTE to Midi-Ox to convert the drums to channel 10, you can use Midi-Yolk port#2 to route the O/P of Midi-Ox to SynthFont and all the tracks can have soundfonts. (I had trouble with Qsynth, the pitch bends didnt work).


The Acoustic Bass Drum is the 36th note, but the computer starts counting from 0, so it assigns the value of 35 to the Acoustic Bass Drum. It can be confusing cause some people refer to it as note 35, and some refer to it as note 36. But whether u call Acoustic Bass Drum a "35" or "36", either way it is a "B" note, not a "C" note.

Holy crap that awesome!!

Even though im shit with things like this, im gonna spend ages getting good, this is really a god send, chuck rock you are a genuine legend!

You can also hex edit powertab instead so not even have to use midiyolk.