triggering samples using a roland Vdrum brain

[Czar]

Hello,
First off - If there is an existing thread about this subject I wasnt able to find it. Please point me there if anyone has a existing resource. I have been to the v drums forum as well.

Im gong to break this down as clearly as possible sorry if im long winded!

Goal-
Start and stop samples while playing drums live by striking a drum pad. Spend as little as possible in this endeavor.

Gear:
Roland TD-10 (unexpanded)
Laptop computer

What my plan is now - please tell me if it's flawed!
Use the laptop as a sampler. I can connect my computer to the TD-10 drum brain via a USB to MIDI cable. My samples are in MP3 format now, so I will need to convert to (AFF?) MIDI compatible files.

My specific questions are:
1) What kind of software can I use? Rumor has it that frootyloops will do the trick. Can someone confirm/deny that?
2) Anything I should know about converting the files from MP3 to a MIDI format.

I'm sure that I'll have questions as I go along and start assigning pads and sound and such.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give! I'm trying to get off on the right foot!!

[Czar]

I found this for free. Will this work? Please let me know if Im barking up the wrong tree!!


http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=72066

[Czar]

OK- Tim o'Brian posted some very helpful links on another thread. Reading up on this I have determined that I will be able to trigger samples form my Roland kit. The key info I need is what synth software to get.

bear in mind that at this point im only going to want to trigger non tempo specific sounds (chainsaw, background sounds) so I am not going for high end by any means. Im hoping that something free or cheap will work for this.

can someone please let me know if any of these will work as a synth program and meet my simple needs?

Audicity - dont think so
Reaper?
Frootyloops?
Do I have to buy cubase? Seems cubase can do it.

[sabianq]

midi is not an audio file.
one cannot "convert" a sound file like a wave or mp3 into a midi file.
(you can in a sense like humming "Mary had a little ham" and having the TUNE get translated into a set of midi notes, but that is not your question)

here is why.
back in the ancient times, keyboard players all of a sudden got something new, a "bank" of sounds. these sounds were samples of instruments like a guitar or a horn or a drum. A bank was a dynamic type of memory that held all of these samples. keyboard players needed a way to trigger their new library of sounds. since sampler keyboards had the memory installed and the sampler keyboard would store the samples in the memory bank. If a guy had another keyboard and could trigger or access a sample stored in different instrument, the cavemen of the time could do some really cool stuff.

which is why MIDI came along. The Musical Instrument Digital Interface was a language that keyboard instruments used to communicate with each other.
using a series of numbers programmers learned that the keys on the keyboard, how hard each key was hit, and if it was sustained, could be represented, this information could then be sent to another instrument to trigger a sample in the different keyboards memory sending the sample to the PA.

MIDI is just a set of instructions that tell the "program" what to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_Instrument_Digital_Interface

all you need to do is hook up a midi cable from the IN of the TD-10 to the IN of a MIDI interface.

since MIDI is a language, then anything with a MIDI IN and OUT can speak it.

any software that supports MIDI can be used as a bank of samples that can be triggered by a MIDI signal.

do some more reading on MIDI and i bet you will find your answer.
cheers!

[Czar]

thank you. this helps. I'll keep reading.