Jamstix

When I started experimenting with computer-based drum production, more than two decades ago, the field was rudimentary and everything sounded terrible. Apps like Groove Agent and EZ Drummer weren't stable on my system, and getting plug-ins to work effectively was a struggle. Although the major drum production packages are much more stable and robust today than they were at the time, my frustration led me to experiment with Jamstix. And I loved it. I also knew that I needed to share my knowledge of this software with a wider audience, so I produced the tutorials that you'll find on this page.

These tutorials were produced in Jamstix 3. Version 4 is out now, but you'll find that the interface is fairly similar. I'd like to upgrade my tutorial series to show Jamstix 4, but for now, it's not really necessary. This page will feature an installation video (which some people will skip), plus four detailed tutorials. There's also a lot of written info on this page, which you can review if you want.

Basics, Installation

If you already know a few basics about music production, such as how to insert an effect onto a channel or how to use a VSTi (virtual instrument on a computer), and you have an audio editor on your computer, you can probably learn how to use Jamstix in an afternoon. And I don't mean just making a simple, static, rigid, and boring kick/snare combination that remains unchanged throughout the whole song. I mean something that sounds like it was played by a real drummer. Incidentally, I have no affiliation with Rayzoon, the company that makes this software.

I know a fair amount about music production, and I when I first started to play with Jamstix, I was able to get up and running and produce my first Jamstix song in about two hours, start to finish. After I spent a week getting familiar with it, I could accomplish the same thing in perhaps twenty minutes. I already had some familiarity with several other drum production software packages, but I liked Jamstix better almost immediately. The other software that I had used before sometimes had some pretty good sample libraries, but I needed to do a lot of work and technical programming to create a drum track. Jamstix, on the other hand, has an Artificial Intelligence engine that they call the AI, or sometimes call "The Brain," which acts like the brain of a human drummer. You give it some simple instructions, and then the Brain composes and plays the track for you. No tedious programming, or adding notes onto a MIDI grid. Yes, you are still able to do that to enhance your drum track if you want, but if you want something simple, you can set about a dozen parameters and the Brain will do everything for you.

This first video is just an installation video, which you can skip if you want:

Part 1 - Getting Oriented with the Interface

Overview

- Jamstix simulates a real drummer.
- Most drum modules output static MIDI patterns or pre-recorded patterns. Jamstix doesn't. It has the Brain which simulates a human drummer.
- The Brain's performance is based on rules (but with some random variation added in) to provide a unique output every single time, rather than being based on static patterns.
- As an example, the Brain knows how long it takes for a drummer to move his/her arm to a certain piece of the kit. If you move that piece further away from the drummer, the Brain will compensate by playing it less often or not at all.
- Everything that Jamstix does is playable by a real human drummer, unless of course you specifically tell it to ignore human rules. You can do that if you want to pretend you have a ten-armed drummer.

Intended Uses

- Useful for everyone from hacks to studio engineers, novice to professional.
- Create a quick backing drum track, for a songwriter.
- Create and tailor a complex track, for professional producers.
- Good for students learning about drumming styles.
- Even if you're not doing production work, it's very good for casual use, for example if you just want a "jam partner" to practice with.

Slightly Technical Stuff

- Jamstix is fully functional on its own. However, it's also good if you have any other existing drum modules, because Jamstix can take advantage of their libraries.
- Similar to Steinberg's Groove Agent in some ways, in the sense that it's easy to make a quick "out of the box" backing track. Disclaimer: I used to love using Groove Agent, versions 2 and 3. However, Groove Agent 4 is very different than GA3 and I wasn't really that impressed by it. Steinberg did a terrible job with the user manuals on GA4, and the learning curve is difficult.
- If you're used to using EZ Drummer, Battery, Addictive, or BFD, you can still integrate your kits from those modules into Jamstix to take advantage of high quality samples. Now I need to make a clarification here: the quality of the Jamstix sounds is quite good. But some of the other modules have absolutely amazing samples, and if you already own one of the others, you don't want it to go to waste. So a good option is to combine the Brain and simplicity of Jamstix with the strength of the samples from your other module(s).
- There are three types of plug-ins, 32bit, 64bit, and AAX for ProTools 11+. As I write this, I'm currently running version 3 of Jamstix and version 11.2.2 of Pro Tools. They do work together quite well. This was not the case with previous versions of Pro Tools. There is one slight limitation with audio output for Pro Tools users (single stereo master instead of eight lines) but I'll discuss that and a workaround later on.
- Jamstix works with all other VST hosts, as long as they fully support the VST specification properly AND can handle VSTi's. VST's and VSTi's are very related, although a few editors can only handle effects and not instruments. Jamstix works just fine with Ableton, Cubase, Sonar, FL Studio, Digital Performer, Bitwig, Reaper, etc. Please note that two popular audio editors, Audacity and Audition, do NOT currently support VSTi instruments, and you cannot use Jamstix with these two editors (Audition temporarily supported VSTi's in a previous version, but that functionality was removed because it wasn't working well). The fact that Audition and Audacity don't support Jamstix is unfortunate. Some packages will support VST plug-ins but not VSTi instruments. Make sure you know the difference, and check before you buy! I suspect that the Rayzoon website probably lists some other lesser-known working DAW hosts which I haven't listed here.
- If you're already familiar with using VST and VSTi plug-ins with your DAW, even if you consider yourself to be an amateur, I predict that after an afternoon of learning the software, you'll be able to put together good sounding complete drum tracks in about twenty minutes. Of course, you can spend hours doing fine tweaking of your drum track, if you're comfortable with that sort of technical detail, but the basics are fast and easy and don't require a tremendous amount of skill, as my videos will demonstrate.
- I just said that Jamstix is very simple and easy to use. I should clarify that that's true for what you see on the surface. For those of you who are technically inclined, you'll keep learning new stuff and capabilities for weeks. Under the hood, Jamstix is quite complex and powerful.
- For really top-notch results, a lot of professionals might want to feed in a basic MIDI track, let Jamstix generate a proper new track based on the simple MIDI submitted, then route the audio to a different module or sample library of their own.
- The strength of EZDrummer, Addictive, etc., lies in the quality of their sample libraries or sounds. They great if you're comfortable with playing pre-recorded patterns, or if you're a professional drummer yourself playing through a MIDI kit. Only Jamstix has the Brain. And also, you can mix and match parts of kits from Jamstix and other drum modules. For example, you could use a basic kit from EZDrummer combined with cymbal and percussion sounds from Jamstix. Tons of flexibility.
- One drawback: Jamstix does not operate in standalone mode (as of version 3.x). That won't matter to all producers, etc., but it could be a weakness for someone that just wants to use it as a jam partner, but who doesn't own a DAW. So you must have some sort of audio editing software (partial list above) and let that software act as the host, and then have Jamstix as a VST plug-in (or AAX plug-in for Pro Tools). Probably the cheapest DAW software that I can recommend which is still a high quality software package would be Reaper, by Cuckos. Only $60 for a personal license, and you can try it as a full-featured trial for a month for free. Reaper is highly praised. Maybe Jamstix 4 will offer a standalone mode.

How Does It Work?

- First of all, if you don't know anything about drums, it would be helpful if you know the basic terms and parts of a drum kit. A couple of my recommendations would be to read a book like "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Drums" by Michael Miller, or "Drums For Dummies" by Jeff Strong. You can also find lots of YouTube videos that teach you the basics of what's involved with a drum kit.
- If you want, Jamstix can work like a traditional drum module. You can send it MIDI notes from your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, or audio editing software) and it then plays. Where do you get the notes? Three choices: random MIDI clips that you've downloaded from the internet, stuff that you've played in with a MIDI drum kit or on any other type of MIDI controller, or MIDI that you've programmed by hand. Your choice, all of those options work if you want to give MIDI to Jamstix. But you don't have to.
- Jam Mode is pretty cool. When you're using Jam mode, Jamstix will synchronize automatically to the position, tempo, and time signature of your DAW host, and play right along. So you use your DAW's controls to start and stop play. When your host plays, Jamstix plays. If you already have a bassline programmed or recorded in your DAW, Jamstix will play the drums along with it and you can sing and play guitar. Or whatever.
- You do NOT need to record the Jamstix performance in your host. It's possible of course, but not necessary. In fact, sometimes recording the performance might be a weakness, because it means that you're "stuck" with that particular version. Remember again, although I haven't explained this in detail yet, that Jamstix takes the parameters you've given it and generates a slightly different performance every time it plays. So if you're using it as a jam partner, you might appreciate hearing a slightly different performance each time. Now of course each performance will be pretty similar, because Jamstix is paying attention to the parameters you've given it, and also paying attention to a complex set of internal rules.
- Further to the above point, what about saving a performance when you're going to shut down your DAW session? Well, you can save that particular "performance" (set of parameters and Jamstix settings) as a unique song, if you want. But if you've got Jamstix all set up within a session, and you save the session, the Jamstix parameters are automatically saved. This is slightly different than some other situations. For example, if I'm using Reason as a slave within Pro Tools as a host, using ReWire technology, when I save my Pro Tools session I need to remember to also save my Reason session separately, and re-load both next time I come back to work on the project. This is not the case for Jamstix. If I have Jamstix inserted on a track in Pro Tools (or whatever DAW) and all the parameters are set properly to perform the way I want along with other tracks in my project, when I save the Pro Tools session, the Jamstix information is all automatically saved within the Pro Tools session. I don't need to save the Jamstix information separately. I guess I might want to save it independently on rare occasions, if I want to use a copy of that Jamstix setup in another project. But in my experience so far, I find it's probably easier to just create a new Jamstix track from scratch, tailored to your new project. It's that easy.
- If you do happen to decide to save a particular unique song from Jamstix, instead of just saving the settings in your host's session, you can save it in the "songs" folder if you want and if so, it will automatically be added to the Quick Start list in the Wizard.

How Do You Control What The Brain Plays?

- To start, set your tempo in your host DAW program. Remember that Jamstix plays along with the host, so you can't force Jamstix to play stuff randomly that's out of sync with your DAW. Time signature changes and tempo changes are fine. Jamstix follows along.
- Select a Style. Styles include things like country, jazz, pop, rock, etc. That seems pretty general, but don't worry, within those examples that I just gave there are dozens of basic variations to use as a starting point.
- Select a Drummer. Depending on which version of Jamstix you own, you'll have at least a handful of drummers to choose from, and possibly dozens. Each drummer has a slightly unique way of playing, so they'll affect the performance slightly. Each drummer has a first name only, but I think they're roughly modeled on real-world drummers of the same first name. For example, I think that Phil plays a very similar style to Phil Collins of Genesis, Lars plays a very similar style to Lars Ulrich of Metallica, etc. I'll post a list of some of the Jamstix drummers in one of my upcoming Jamstix posts, and who I think they are roughly modeled on.
- You can change Brain settings. This is hard to explain in writing, and it'll make more sense in the video. It's tricky because every drummer has his own unique group of settings, although some types of settings are shared by many drummers. Of course, you don't have to touch the Brain settings if you're looking to get a performance together quickly. They're set to sound quite good at their default values.
- You can import MIDI patterns or create your own (playing them or programming them) if you want, and the Brain will pay attention to this MIDI when it performs. But you can totally skip this step if you want, and it'll still sound good. But yes, if you provide MIDI to the Brain, the Brain studies it and uses it for inspiration in generating a performance. Or you can turn off the "creative" part of the Brain and just have Jamstix play your MIDI note-for-note.
- It's important to understand that each time you play through the song in your DAW, Jamstix generates new audio. This audio will have very slight human variations compared to the previous performance. If you have edited the previous performance, this new performance can overwrite your edits! So if you make editing changes, you might want to click "lock" so Jamstix doesn't overwrite your edits. I'll explain this more once we dig into using it.
- Jamstix lets you drag and drop individual bars, parts/sections, or the whole song into your host if you want. This gives you actual MIDI clips to work with in your DAW, if you'd prefer to start doing some detailed technical editing to a performance. At this point, you don't necessarily need Jamstix anymore. You might want to keep Jamstix to use as a drum module, ie. route the MIDI from your DAW back to Jamstix and use the Jamstix drum sounds. But you might also want to route the MIDI through a different drum module, or through your DAW's internal drum kit, if there is one.

Understanding the Differences between Song vs. Part vs. Bars

- Since I'm going to teach you how to use Jamstix, you need to understand a few pretty basic terms.
- A "Part" refers to a specific section of a song. I always want to call these "sections" but in the Jamstix manual and software, they're referred to as "parts." Examples of parts that Jamstix understands include: verse, chorus, bridge, intro, end, pre-chorus, solo, drum solo. So as you're putting a song together, you don't have to think purely in terms of bar numbers. You can think in terms of intro, verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, end (just to give an example).
- A "Song" is, obviously, a song. Jamstix thinks of it not just as a number of bars (like "87 bars") or as a time-based length, it thinks in terms of a bunch of sections (parts) that are played in linear, sequential order. Of course, some parts might be repeated. You might have three or four instances of the "verse" within your song.
- Each part can have a unique number of bars. This starts out as a default value, but you can edit it. And yes, you can change that number of bars at different points. For example, your first two verses can have eight bars each and your third verse can have twelve bars. No problem.

How Does Jamstix Compose?

- This is something that's important to understand if you want to do more than just very basic compositions (if you don't care about anything fancy, you can ignore this information, but I think even beginners should try to understand this concept). Each individual bar in Jamstix is composed of three layers. Each layer acts slightly differently.
- The "Groove Aspect" layer is the main rhythm, ie. the basic instruments like the kick and snare.
- The "Accent Aspect" layer is the embellishments, with lots of variety, ie. maybe some ride cymbals or open/closed high-hat stuff.
- The "Fill Aspect" layer may not exist on some bars. Or to be more precise, it may be empty on some bars. Fills are only needed in certain parts, usually near the end of a part, or sometimes in the middle of a part.
- If the Groove Aspect of a bar is already composed, Jamstix plays the existing content. This would be the case if you've already played the song, or if you've given Jamstix a specific MIDI part to play. But if there is no content yet, then Jamstix creates some.
- There is a concept call "core bars." A core bar is any bar in the FIRST instance of a part within a song, ie. the first verse, the first chorus, etc. The second verse would not contain core bars, because they can only be in the first verse.
- As Jamstix is playing, if the bars are empty (because this is the first time through the song, and you haven't given it any MIDI to use as a reference), then bars are created. If the bar that needs to be created is considered a "core bar," it is created based on the setting in the brain, ie. the style and drummer that you've picked. If it is a non-core bar, ie. a bar in the second verse, the brain looks back at the core bars from the first part and plays something similar. This means that the style of playing in the second verse will resemble the style of playing in the first verse, to give continuity.
- The above explanation only applies to the Groove Aspect of the bars, ie. the main rhythm.
- No matter whether the bar is a core bar or not, the Accent layer is always composed from scratch, so it's always unique. The same applies to the Fill layer of the bar IF a fill layer actually exists for that bar.

Three Ways to Approach Composition

- First, you can just let Jamstix compose everything by itself, based on the tempo and style and drummer that you pick.
- Second, you can start by letting Jamstix compose the initial performance, then you can hand edit certain parts. These hand edited parts can be "locked" to become permanent changes, or they can guide Jamstix in future performances (but certain parts may be overwritten if they're unlocked).
- Third, you can program the entire performance by hand yourself (or play it in if you're actually a drummer in real life), so the Jamstix Brain isn't responsible for any of the composition.
- Although this isn't necessary, Jamstix has the capability to monitor audio or MIDI input through playback of a composition that you've provided, OR in real time, and the Brain reacts accordingly. In other words, the Brain can act somewhat like a human jam partner, reacting to your live performance! Essentially, what it does is that it keeps reading the average volume of audio (or the velocity of MIDI) and then uses that to adjust the Jamstix output, ie. playing softer or louder, and using different performance techniques. The Brain is pretty smart.

Tour of the Jamstix Interface

- This section is pretty much impossible to explain in writing. You really need to watch the video. I'll just explain, in point form, the features that you'll see in the Jamstix interface.
- You can change between "Jamcussion" and "Drum Edit Mode."
- The snowflake symbols freezes the arrangement, like freezing a track in a DAW.
- Jam mode can be done in one of three ways: normal creativity, paying attention to MIDI, or paying attention to audio. Just depress one of the three buttons to pick which one. If none of the three buttons are selected, Jamstix will act as a drum module.
- The transport bar in Jamstix has a big knob on the left for the "power level" and a little knob to the right of it that controls "minimum dynamic level."
- The Song Structure section is used to quickly create a song. The wizard button is the easiest way to create a new song. The song structure section lists the parts in sequential order, and they can be further edited. With the time and shuffle, you can change characteristics of individual parts or of the whole song.
- The Time Line down on the lower left lists all the bars in sequential order. The current bar is always highlighted. The brown bars indicate the last bar of the section.
- The Upper Display Window has lots of options, depending on the main menu.
- The Lower Display Window shows one of three things at any given moment, your choice; kit editor, bar editor, or mixer.
- There is a Status/Help bar to give you feedback and suggestions.

Support

When I was getting ready to upgrade from Groove Agent 3 to Groove Agent 4, I was doing a lot of research on the internet. I saw a couple of quiet references to Jamstix (every single one was very positive), and I saw comments on message boards by the owner of the company. I was also struck by the number of times that people said, "If you have support questions or requests, this company is very good at answering them quickly, and not ignoring you." That means a LOT in this day and age. I haven't had to use their support team, and I don't expect to, but you know that when a company pays attention to its customers and is willing to help you through any questions personally, that's a company that cares a lot about its product. I did get an email from the owner of Rayzoon though, thanking me for producing these tutorials.

Part 2 - Basic Editing, Song Builder

When you first open Jamstix within your host, you'll see the "Song" section of the upper right side main menu. On the left side, you'll see a ton of choices of "Quick Start" songs. There's a lot of variety there, based on different music styles mixed with various drummer personalities. Some examples:
- Twelve bar blues
- Disco track using "Chad" (probably Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers?)
- Generic jam sessions
- Jamcussion songs
- Motown using "Phil" (probably Phil Collins of Genesis)
- Reggae with Stewart (probably Stewart Copeland of The Police)
- Standard song
- Lots of others

Let me just interrupt my own train of thought for a second to mention Jamcussion. It's not available in the most basic version of Jamstix, but it's in a lot of the other more comprehensive versions. Basically, it's a percussion add-on. Think of latin instruments, hand drums, etc., all the sort of rhythm section instruments that aren't part of a normal drum kit. If you are using Jamcussion, it runs in conjunction with (but sort of as a separate unique identity to) the main drum kit.

On the right side of the Main Menu you'll see the Song Builder. This lets you set the rules. Start with laying out the structure in terms of parts. Each part has a unique initial. Here's a list:
 I = Intro
 V = Verse
 P = Prechorus
 C = Chorus
 B = Bridge
 D = Drum Solo
 S = Solo
 E = Ending

I'm hoping that the next version of Jamstix adds some extra choices, such as a Silent section, Breakdown, and Refrain. But those aren't critical, there are ways to emulate all of those concepts. As it stands now, you can easily make anything work. You might have to get a bit creative, ie. for a Verse/Refrain song, you might want to build it as Verse/Chorus. That doesn't matter. You can adjust the lengths of each part no matter what you call them. As Shakespeare once said, "What's in a name?"

Next comes the Style. It may say "8th Rock" as a default. Go in and explore some of your own choices. I have the full "Studio" version of Jamstix, so I have a lot of extra styls and drummers and expansion paks. In total, I currently have 510 different styles in 28 different groups. Some of the 28 groups include: Afro-Cuban, blues, funk, breakbeat, electronic, gospel, drum & bass, metal, march, Motown, country, R&B, surf, and others.

Click on the little black triangle that appears to the left of some of the styles, and you will see a bunch of sub-categories. For example, under "rock" I have eleven different sub-categories. Under "country," I have eight. Under "other world rhythms," I have Beguine, Bolero, Middle Eastern, and Tango. And finally, under Jamstix 1 (the legacy styles) I have what looks like a couple hundred different styles. After you choose a style, you can click on the default button to the right to set it as your default, if you want. Once you've picked a style, don't forget to press "Load" to load the samples into the player.

Next, you can pick your drummer. The default is probably "James Stix," the usual Jamstix default. I have a couple dozen other drummers who, as I alluded to in the last video, have first names that match a lot of famous drummers. I'm pretty sure that I know who over half of them are, and I'll put my list of guesses at the bottom of this blog post. There's probably a full list online somewhere.

In addition to the named drummers, there are a couple of special presets. For example, "Latino" specializes in Latin flavours. "Machine" is used in electronic styles where a more "drum machine like" behavior is desired, by disabling the limb transition time logic and avoiding timing or power variations. There's also a "Silent" drummer who doesn't create or modify any notes (this is good when you're hand editing a part that's already laid down). There's a player description on the right side of the drummer panel to give you some feedback about the style of each drummer. Again, once you've picked your drummer, don't forget to click on the "Load" button.

The next item you can pick is the kit. When I did the demo song for the previous video, I stuck with the default, the Standard Rock Kit. However, since I have the Studio version of Jamstix 3, I actually have 146 different kits to pick from. Again, there are broad categories on the left side, including kits to match a lot of the "Style" choices we've already covered. But you don't have to match a kit to its style. You could pair a New Orleans Jazz kit with a Drum and Bass style if you want. And of course, many of the styles have a black triangle beside them which you can click to see a list of sub-styles. If you're looking at using a kit style that has sub-styles, you must actually pick which sub-style you're going to use. For example, you can't just pick "drum and bass" as a generic kit style, without deciding on which particular sub-style you'll use.

A couple of the kits are special. You'll see kit categories for Additive Drums, BFD, and Toontrack (EZDrummer). If you look at the kit contents on the right side of the window, you'll notice that these say "MIDI output only," whereas all the other kits listed info to show where the audio samples will come from, and perhaps some description of the piece of kit. The reason these say "MIDI output only" is because they are default routings. You don't get the sound of BFD, etc., unless you happen to own that particular third-party drum module software or sound bank. However, they're good to have, because if you do own Addictive or BFD or EZDrummer, this is a perfect quick way to route the Jamstix MIDI out to your other drum module and take advantage of the high quality samples.

Once you've picked the kit you want to use, make sure you click on the "Load" button on the lower right, to load it into the player and return you to the Song Builder menu.

If you have a version of Jamstix that includes the Jamcussion expansion, you'll also need to pick a Style, Drummer, and Kit for your Jamcussion sounds. Remember that Jamcussion, if you have it, is a hand percussion based rhythm section that can accompany your main kit, or even play alone without a kit. Picking the Style, Drummer, and Kit of the Jamcussion section is done exactly the same way as picking the Style, Drummer, and Kit of the main drum kit, although of course this is hand percussion based, so all the styles and drummers and kits are different. You may want to experiment a lot here to find a Jamcussion kit that sounds appropriate with the main kit you picked. Or then again, you may not.

I know that I said earlier that it's easy to put together a song really quickly, but I just showed you a lot of complicated choices. Don't worry, you'll quickly start getting used to the choices of Styles, Drummers, and Kits available, and it won't feel like you're dealing with much. And worse case, if you're confused at the start, you can just ignore it all and use the defaults.

We're just about finished creating your first song. You just need to pick how many bars you'll have in a standard verse in your song, and how many in a standard chorus. After you do that, click on the "Create A Song" button, and look over at your Song Sheet editor window on the left. Your song should now be all laid out for you.

Song Sheet

At this point, you might want to make some minor tweaks in your song. Do you need to change the number of bars in any of your parts? You can double-click on the part's name (or anywhere else on the line) and it comes up with a list of things you can edit. You can rename the part, change the number of bars in the part, or change the number of repetitions. You can also change the time signature if you enable this in Options, but remember that Jamstix still syncs to the tempo of your host.

There are a couple other columns on your song sheet that you can play with if you want. The RF column stands for Repeating Fill. If this is checked, Jamstix plays a fill whenever the part is repeated. The TF is Transition Fill, and if checked, a fill gets played on the last bar of the part. The TRG column deals with trigger keys for Live Loop mode. I'll talk about that in one of the other videos, it isn't important for most users.

Drum Kit

Ok, so now that we've gone through the Song Sheet, let's take a closer look at the kit we've picked. Click on the kit tab up to the right in the Main Menu area. I already demonstrated in the last video that you can click on different parts of the kit to preview different drums. Also, because most of them have multiple articulations (sounds), you can hear different sounds depending on exactly where on the graphic you clicked. This is slightly tied to a way of letting you preview MIDI velocity variations. I'm going to try to avoid getting deeply into MIDI here, but the short version, if you don't understand MIDI, is that as you have higher "velocities" for notes or hits, the audio volume will probably also increase, and the type of sound of the hit can also change. For example, a low velocity hit on a ride cymbal might be fairly quiet and sound like a light pinging sound with reverb, whereas a heavy velocity will probably be louder and might sound more like a "clunk" when it hits.

Depending on your kit, you may see other things like jam blocks, shakers, eggs, cowbell, tambourine, chimes, etc., spread out on the visual display around your kit. Try clicking on some of them to preview them (this only works if the song is playing in the host).

If your song is playing, parts of the kit will light up as they're hit. Watching a performance from overhead as your song plays is a good education in itself. If you want to single out a specific part of your kit to see its effect on the performance in progress, you have two useful options. You can hold Ctrl and left-click on that piece and it will be solo'd, while the rest of the kit is muted. If you do a Shift-click, the piece is muted while the rest is solo'd. These key commands are presumably different in the Mac version.

If you turn off the lock button, you can move pieces of the kit around. I mentioned this in the first video. If you pull a piece of the kit away slightly, the drummer will be less inclined to use it. Pull it too far out of his reach and he will stop using it completely. Rearranging the layout of the kit can affect the drummer's performance.

The dice icon is also interesting. Click on it and the main kit will be rearranged somewhat, both in terms of layout and exact drums present, depending on what's available. Go ahead and try it. It can't hurt.

Up to the top left of the graphic of the kit, you'll see a drop-down tab beside the kit name. Check it out. Here's where you can adjust output routings if your host allows it. Many hosts allow for up to eight separate outputs, although right now, Pro Tools is limited to a single stereo master out. Be aware, as the manual states, you might have to configure your host to support multiple audio outputs or else you'll only hear the sounds going to the first output. This depends on which host you're using. If this all sounds like Greek to you, don't worry - the default value is for it to just work without any adjustments.

There are also a number of options in this menu for sending audio or MIDI output. Hopefully they're fairly self-explanatory.

The closed hi-hat variations menu lets you affect how much variety you'll get in the high hats, which can impact the realism of the performance. Directly underneath that, you can turn position based dampening on or off.

Resetting the visual kit arrangement doesn't seem to affect a kit generated from the dice, but if you pulled an individual piece of the kit away manually, this returns everything to an optimal placement.

Finally, the Key Map options are related to MIDI, which a lot of people won't worry about. I'll skip those for now, but if you're really experienced with MIDI, the Key Map is the assignment list as a tabbed text file.

Next, try to right-click on part of the kit. Now you have the option to remove the piece you clicked on, change its sound, or add another piece to the kit. Try playing with some changes to your kit. There are tons of options. Remove a piece, change a couple, and add something else. You'll find that there are tons of choices and its fun and easy to make big changes. If you like what you've created, there's a save button in the upper right. If you don't like what you've created, click on the "Load" button (or double-click the kit name over to the left) to bring up a new kit on screen.

Open the kit list again by clicking Load. You'll see a couple of options under the list of kit contents:
- Lock Outputs locks the current output assignments so they won't be changed if you load a new kit.
- Lock Mixer locks the mixer settings from being changed by a new kit.
- Keys Only will mean that Jamstix only loads key assignments and not sounds or mixer settings. This is for advanced users.

Finally, there is a "Filter" box at the bottom of the window. This box lets you control what gets loaded when you load a new kit. This is handy for lots of creative kit composition. Maybe you like most of your current kit except for the cymbals. Click on "Cymbals Only" to load cymbals from another kit while leaving the rest untouched.

Editing The Kit

To edit part of your kit, click on one of the pieces. That piece can be changed with the kit editor down below. You can click on the name to load a different sound. You can change the volume, pan, ambiance, dampening, or tuning of that piece of the kit. You can change MIDI parameters, if you're comfortable with advanced MIDI use and routing.

On the right side is a velocity scaling graph. Again, this section is only going to be useful for advanced users. If you're being fed external MIDI that's playing through your kit and it's all at lower velocities than you'd prefer, you can use this to raise velocity levels in a linear scale or some sort of compressed or expanded curve. You can also scale velocities down this way. There's a lot of flexibility to get your MIDI data in to a useful band/range. The Min and Max buttons are similar here, you can set Min and Max levels and incoming data will scale in that range.

Mixer

Next, let's jump over to the Mixer tab of the Main Menu. You'll see that it's an eight channel mixer. If you change the number of outputs you're using, you'll have to totally shut down then re-load your host, since audio outputs are set during the opening of your host when VST plug-ins are loaded. Also, remember that in the current version with AAX compatibility, Pro Tools is limited to a single master out.

Let me cover the features of the mixer in point form:
- The drop-down tab at the upper left lets you load or save mixer settings.
- When you start out, the EQ button is depressed and you have low/mid/high EQ knobs beside each channel slider.
- Click on the Comp knob and the EQ knobs will get switched out for four knobs controlling compressor settings. If you know how a compressor works, they'll make sense. From top to bottom, they control your threshold, attack, release, and wet/dry mix. The blue button turns the compressor on and off.
- Click on the Echo knob and your compressor controls will be replaced by delay controls. Top to bottom, the three knobs control feedback, low pass filter, and wet/dry mix. The delay is also synchronized to the host's tempo. So the 8th means eight note delay. Click on it to see a list of choices, down to 48th note. The -C- below it means that the delay is centered, but it can be changed to a slow or fast pan if you want.
- The Flip Stereo toggle changes audio from drummer's to audience perspective.
- Downmix puts all outputs to channel 1.
- The AMB To Last toggle will direct all ambient effects to the highest output channel.
- If MIDI Only is enabled, audio samples are unloaded and MIDI just routes to the host or to a drum module.
- The AMB knob controls the overall ambiance level for the currently selected drum or Jamcussion kit.
- DMP controls the dampening of the room's simulated ambient sound.
- WID adjusts the stereo panning of the kit. All the way left is mono, all the way right is full width stereo.

MIDI Remote Control

I've tried to avoid getting into MIDI in this video, to keep it simple for people who don't need to play with MIDI. But some of you may know that separate from MIDI note data, you can use what's called a MIDI controller to adjust controls in your software more easily than doing everything with a mouse.

If you don't understand what a MIDI controller does, you should. You don't need an indepth knowledge of MIDI to understand or use one! First, remember that it's called a MIDI controller primarily because it's using MIDI in the background as a communications system to control stuff. So it's less technical than you might have expected. It did a comprehensive video about MIDI controllers not long ago. I really recommend that you check it out to understand exactly what a MIDI controller is capable of: djbolivia.ca/controllers

Anyway, the point of this is that you can control all of the mixer controls simultaneously using a MIDI controller. This is so much easier and more powerful than trying to use a mouse! Of course, if you're comfortable with automation, you can also automate controls by drawing or recording envelopes. So much power. Strap yourself in and feel the G's.

The Drummers

I promised a list of my guesses about who some of the drummers are modeled upon:
Animal, from The Muppets
Carter Beauford - Dave Matthews Band
Charlie Watts - Rolling Stones
John Bonham - Led Zeppelin
Phil Collins - Genesis
Roger Taylor - Queen
Stewart Copeland - The Police
Mark Brzezicki - The Cult
Danny Carey - Tool
Lars Ulrich - Metallica
Chad Smith - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Keith Moon - The Who
Tony Thompson - Power Station
Will Champion - Coldplay

However, as Jamstix points out, "Drummer models are fictional and not endorsed by actual drummers with the same first name." So let's just watch Part 2 of the video series.

Part 3 - Intermediate & Advanced Editing

I'll warn you right now that this video for Part 3 (below) will make a bit more sense if you understand MIDI. There's just no avoiding it for certain parts of Jamstix, especially if you're getting into intermediate or advanced music production, rather than producing basic tracks or just jamming. However, even if you don't understand MIDI yet, you should continue with this tutorial anyway, because I still think you'll learn a lot. And I have a video tutorial about Basic MIDI Recording online already, so if you want to take a break to learn that, go to djbolivia.ca/midi. But in the meantime, let's get started:

The Transport and Drum Module Mode

In the Transport section, the large button on the left controls the Drum Kit, and the one on the right controls Jamcussion, if you have it installed. Both can play simultaneously. However, the one that is selected (lit up in blue) is the one that is active for all of the editing stuff on the right side of the screen. You have to flip back and forth between the drum kit and Jamcussion if you're editing both simultaneously. If you hold shift while pressing either of these buttons, it will be muted.

I already covered the three Jam buttons, and the fact that if you don't have any selected, you go into Drum Module mode. Let's explore that now:
- Most of this section is for advanced users and will only make sense if you have some understanding of MIDI.
- Click the "Map GM" option if you have a kit loaded that does not use the GM key layout and you need to send MIDI data in GM format to it. Jamstix will automatically translate the input to match the kit layout.
- If the Automatic Ride Bell is checked, any ride notes with a velocity of 127 (full) are translated to ride bell events. This is useful when using an eDrum kit with a single zone ride pad that can only send ride notes.
- The "Use TD-20 Extensions" option is useful if you want to play live into Jamstix with a Roland TD-20 eDrum kit. I presume it also works for the TD-30 and possibly also the TD-15 kits. According to the manual, this option modifies hi hat logic to produce realistic responses when the kit sends a CC4 change AFTER a note is hit. It routes hi hat rim notes automatically to the corresponding bow notes. It allows hi hat splashing. And finally, it allows cymbal choking via after-touch.
- Cymbal variations is a useful option because some basic eDrum kits only have one or two cymbal pads. This option builds in some variety.

Let's take a look at a couple of the jam options in more detail. When you start using Jamstix, you'll probably start with the normal jam mode. Eventually though, you might want to play with MIDI Jam or Audio Jam.

When you start using MIDI Jam, you should use the input trim on the jamming section of the options page. We'll cover this section in more depth in a few minutes. Same concept with audio jam. There's a plug-in called AudioM8 that comes with Jamstix that you use as an insert effect on audio tracks. Jamstix analyzes audio data from AudioM8 and then adjusts the power level, which affects a lot of performance decisions of the Brain. So this way you can use a guitar or bass to jam with Jamstix and you'll feel the software responding to the intensity of your performance.

The Power Knob controls the overall power level. Again, this controls performance decisions for the Brain. You can set this, or control it from a controller in the host, or from a hardware controller. And as I mentioned, if you're doing MIDI or Audio jamming, AudioM8 helps control the power level.

The DYN knob sets the minimum power level allowed, which is important! The kit will not play any more softly than this value. This keeps the kit from being too quiet in sections where the Brain's performance or MIDI data has lower intensity. By using a higher level on this slider, you can keep the volume up, but the Brain will still perform in a style that matches the power level. So think of this as a "minimum volume" knob. This can be set independently for the drum kit and for Jamcussion, if you have Jamcussion.

The Lock button locks Jamstix to the host song position. This is on by default. For some hosts, if the host is not playing and you want to preview something, you need to turn this off, but it depends on the host.

The next buttons are pretty straightforward. From left to right, they are "go to beginning of song," "go back one bar," and "go forward one bar."

I've mentioned the Snowflake already, which freezes the whole performance. This is useful if you're doing an audio or MIDI jam, and after a good run-through, you want to permanently save it. If you've clicked freeze after a performance, and play again, Jamstix will play an exact repetition of the frozen performance, even if you keep playing with real-time controllers.

Song Sheet

Let's cover a few things with the song sheet that I didn't cover before. First, if you hold down the control key (Windows), you can drag and drop a few important things from Jamstix right into a MIDI track in your DAW. You don't have to have the track set up to record. Drag the song name to create the MIDI for the song. You can also drag a specific part or a specific bar. Try it!

This is also the first close-up look that we've had at that MIDI note data. Zoom in for confirmation that the notes are not all rigidly attached to the grid. Lots of "human" variation there. You won't want to quantize this. It sounds really realistic.

As for the Live Loops button, well, I'm still not going to go into detail, but the concept is this. Let's say you're doing a live performance and you don't know how long your solo sections will be, or if you'll add extra choruses, or drop a verse. With Live Loops, you can use a controller to pick which part gets triggered next (again, if you don't understand what a controller is, I have a video about generic MIDI controllers which I'll post at the bottom of this blog post). Jamstix will normally go through the song in linear order, but if you want you can use the controller to jump around as much as you want. Of course, Jamstix only jumps to the next Part once the current part finishes playing.

Let's go into the drop-down menu at the top left again, and I'll point out a few items that I glossed over last time:
- Mute has a submenu that allows you to mute fills and accents, which can be really useful if you're composing a groove.
- Groove weights exist on every individual beat of each bar at 16th note resolution. Possible options are Heavy, Neutral, and Syncopated. These weights affect the composition process of the Brain, and can be be especially useful sometimes with less common time signatures.
- One of the features of the Bar Editor is to allow you to mark beats as hits or force silence on them. This choice will clear all of those markers on all bars.
- If for some reason, your host won't allow you to drag and drop your MIDI, this option exports for you.
- Host synchronization. This is a feature you'll hopefully never have to use. Sometimes, you'll be working with a song that was recorded at the wrong BPM, ie. 64 at 128, or vice versa. You can use this option to double or halve the tempo for Jamstix. Be aware that this is confusing because it will leave the Jamstix bar/beat counter out of sync with the one in your DAW.

If you right-click on any Part in the part list, a Part Menu will show up. Most of the choices in this menu are pretty self-explanatory if you want to adjust anything relating to Parts, so I won't go into detail. Roughly speaking, here are some choices:
- Create, remove, or change the type of a Part.
- Copy, paste, load, or save a Part.
- Copy or paste the style or drummer of a Part if the whole song isn't homogenous.
- Recompose the current Part.
- Lock a Part so the Brain can't recompose over top of it.
- Import grooves or MIDI patterns. If you have Jamstix 1 installed you can apparently import Jamstix 1 rhythms, although I haven't played with this yet so I don't know how it works. I know I have a lot of Jamstix 1 styles, but I didn't originally have Jamstix 1 installed.
- Play with groove weights, clear all forced hits and silence, or reset all timing and velocity offsets.

Moving down to the Timeline in the lower left, there's a bit more to it than I showed before:
- The currently selected bar is white, and the last bar of a Part may be brown/orange, but only if it contains a fill.
- The first bar of a part has a red line up the left side, although it's hard to see.
- If you right-click on a bar, you open the bar menu.
- You'll see some tiny dots in the bar. These are a mini version of the note data that you'll see in the bar editor display. These will change if you switch from groove to accent to fill on the buttons up in the Brain.
- A locked bar is semi-transparent.
- If you mouse over a bar, a lot of useful info shows up in the status line underneath.

The Brain

Before I get too deep into the Brain, let me define a few terms:
- You'll see "Power" a lot, and it refers to the energy level of a piece of the kit.
- The Bias basically filters out the start or end of a bar, keeping it from having any hits.
- Playing "In The Pocket" generally means playing with good timing, ie. not just consistently, but also in alignment with the beats of the music. A drummer can play slightly ahead of the beat or behind the beat if you need. Ahead of the beat means that the drummer hits a drum slightly before you'd expect from the groove of the song. Behind means slightly after. "In the Pocket" generally means that they're playing in alignment with the exact groove.
- Redirection happens when you set things up so that if one piece of the kit is hit, the sound for a different piece plays.

If you go into the Brain's menu, you have several choices:
- You can load/save/extract styles or drummers.
- Add things like snare ghosts, shaker, tambourine, tom grooves, classic controls.
- Show or map MIDI controllers.
- Play with Fill Default options, such as starting or ending fills with a crash, suppressing groove (default), or avoiding 16th shuffling.

If you right-click any of the labels within the Brain controls, you'll see a small sub-menu. You can disable an element so it doesn't play. And of course, there are half a dozen other choices. If you right-click on the control body itself, you'll open a MIDI controller mapping section.

The Groove Importer is what you use to bring in an existing MIDI clip, which will be fed into and which will affect the composition process. You should refer to the manual to learn more about this, as I haven't played with it.

The Fill Generator is pretty complex. Needless to say, the results will be far more impressive than if you were using other software that relied on static MIDI patterns.

The Accents page of the Brain is very similar to the Groove page. Accents make a groove more interesting and lively. Higher accent levels make a groove busier and therefore more energetic. Sliders can be controlled individually, or the "Overall" slider at the top can group them all.

The last part of the Main Menu section is the Bar Editor. I'm going to leave that for below. First, here's the video for Part 3:

Part 4 - Options, the Bar Editor

In this tutorial, I'm going to cover the Bar Editor in detail. I'm also going to talk about Restore Points, all of the items in the Options Menu, and VST Automation. Again, if you don't understand how MIDI works, some of this info will be really confusing, but I still recommend that you watch it because it will help you learn a bit more about MIDI and its capabilities.

Before I go any further, I should point out two things that I should have covered in the last video. First, I quickly went through a bunch of Brain controls. Be aware that these controls will change depending on the style and drummer that you're using. I don't just mean that the default values of the knobs and sliders may be different. I mean that the actual controls (within boxes called "elements") may vary.

Elements that are titled in white are associated with the current style. Elements in orange are associated with the current drummer. Go into the drop-down menu in the upper left and try loading a different style. Some of the white elements will probably change. Now try loading a different player (drummer). Some of the orange elements will probably change.

Also, I said that when you click on a label at the top of an element (either right-click or left-click), you get a menu that allows you to disable, freeze, or hide the element, and a bunch of other options. But if you right-click on a specific control within the element itself, you get a completely different menu. This separate menu is how you map the control to your external controller. If you know the specific number of the control on your controller, you can pick it, but you'll probably find it easier to just move the physical control that you want it to be associated with, and Jamstix should figure it out and complete the assignment.

Bar Editor

So we've already touched briefly on the Bar Editor. The resolution of the editor is 16th notes. We have six vertical rows, and these represent the four limbs of the drummer, plus two hands of the percussionist underneath.

All of the notes generated by the Brain are shown in this grid, in one of the three layers. Remember the layers: Groove, Accent, and Fill. Even though they are displayed separately, they play simultaneously. If you want, you can program the kick and snare yourself (the Groove layer) and then let the Brain handle the accents and fills.

When the Brain merges the three layers, what happens if there are limb conflicts between the layers? Well, the Brain knows that it needs to watch for this, and resolves them based on a priority system.

Looking at the notes and cells, if you double-click on an occupied cell, the note is removed. If you double-click on an unoccupied cell, a note is created. The Brain will add the most common sound for that limb, or the last sound you selected for that limb in the current editing session.

If you want to edit a note, there are two things you can do. If you do a left-click, you'll see a white line appear around the note. You can then play with the four knobs in the upper right corner of the bar editor. Unlike the knobs on the mixer, these knobs specifically control the one note that you've selected. So if you change their settings and then select a different note, you'll notice that the controls probably change instantly, to reflect the settings for the new note selected. Here's what each of the four knobs does:
- The VEL knob adjusts the velocity of the note, which is pretty straightforward.
- PRI is the priority of the note. Although it initially seemed counter-intuitive to me, moving the knob left will increase the priority. I'll talk about this more in a minute. Anyway, the note with the highest priority beats out any others that are supposed to hit at the same time.
- The TIM knob moves the notes ahead of or behind the beat by intervals of up to 47ms. This is the heart of groove processing within Jamstix as part of the drummer modeling.
- The HAT knob sets the opening amount of the cymbals of the hi-hat.

A minute ago I mentioned that moving the PRI knob to the left in the current version of the software will increase the priority of a note. This seems really odd, when 99% of knobs are at higher levels to the right. You should think of this as maybe a micro position adjustment on the grid. First of all, remember that the Brain is working in three layers. It might find a certain position in the bar where a specific limb generates hits on more than one layer at the same time. As an example, on beat three, maybe a snare hit is generated on the right hand in the groove layer, and a hi hat hit is also generated on the same beat with the same hand in the accent layer. The Brain knows that by playing one of the two, it has to skip the other because of the limb rules, so it plays the one with the highest priority. I believe that will probably always be the hit in the main layer (the groove), although I could be wrong and there could be some random chance assigned. I'm still getting a feel for this. Anyway, by changing the priority of the simultaneous notes, you can affect which one gets played and which gets skipped. So going back to my comment about conceptualizing the PRI knob as a micro position adjustment, you can think of it this way: rotating the knob slightly to the left will position the hit slightly to the left of (ahead of) the downbeat. So it's like a race. The hit that happens first, ahead of competing hits on the same downbeat, prevents the other [practically simultaneous] hit from being allowed to happen because of the limb movement rules. The drummers arms can't move that fast, so the Brain disallows one of the "simultaneous" hits. I'm not sure if this is the best way to explain it, but it seems like a great explanation in my own mind.

Ok, so all the stuff that I just described applies if you left-click on a note. If you right-click, you'll see a context menu pop up. However, you have to have the sound selected first before the proper context menu shows up! Here, you can cut, copy, and delete, but you can also change the sound, the hit style, the timing mode, or the shuffle.

Changing the sound is pretty intuitive. And the options make sense. If you're trying to change a foot item, you're going to have options like a kick, or a hi hat close/splash. Your foot obviously won't play a ride cymbal - even Rick "Thunder God" Allen doesn't do this (although you can accomplish that task elsewhere by using redirection).

The Hit Style is pretty basic too. "Single" refers to a single hit. "Double" refers to a double-stroke. "Bounce" refers to three hits (a 32nd triplet) of decreasing power, like the natural bounce of a drumstick.

The Timing modes in the context menu are a musical time offset of a 24th, 32nd, or 48th note. This will make sense to a professional drummer or music student.

The Shuffle option also affects the ultimate timing of the note, by shuffling the timing on just that one note rather than that of the entire bar.

Outside of the context menu, you'll see a Learn toggle and a Locked toggle, each of which turns bright blue once they're turned on.

If you lock an individual note, it's the same concept as locking a bar, but it only applies to that one note. Remember that the lock symbol icon on the right side of the bar editor is the one that locks the whole bar. If you manually add a note in the bar editor, the default setting is that the particular note is automatically locked, under the assumption that if you took the effort to put it there, you want it there. Of course, you can unlock it if you want.

If you see a red cross on a note, it means that the Brain attempted to generate it, but then suppressed it during the last play-through. This was probably due to a limb conflict or the internal limb timing rules. You can move the mouse over the note and look at the status line to find out why. It might say something like, "Priority override by Crash 1."

If the Learn button is turned on, the Brain will listen to incoming MIDI performance data, interpret it, and enter it into the Bar Editor. So if you're comfortable playing a MIDI keyboard or eDrum kit, this can be useful. If you're doing this, Jamstix pays attention to "quantize import" setting and locked items.

If you look closely at notes on the editor, the icons can communicate a lot of info. Unfortunately, this is tough to demonstrate in writing, so you might be better off to refer to the manual for this one. But essentially:
- There is a vertical red line on the right side of the note. It represents velocity, and if it goes all the way to the top it means a full velocity of 127.
- There might be a small red dot on the lower right side (the current manual incorrectly says it's on the left side). This indicates that the hit is a Double.
- There might be a pair of two vertical red dots on the lower right side (the current manual incorrectly says that they're on the left side). This indicates that the hit is a Bounce.
- If there is a black triangle on the left side, it means that the hit is shuffled, either individually or because the whole Part is shuffled.
- If there's a red line across the top, it means that the event is locked.
- The hi hat icon gives you a visual representation of the openness level of the hat on that particular note.

I've already touched on the Bar Menu in a previous video, and it's really self-explanatory, so I'll skip that.

If you click on one of the limb labels on the left side of the bar editor (two capital letters), you'll see a small limb menu. Again, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Along the top of the bar editor, you can do a normal left-click on any of the sixteen beat divisions, to see a small menu. This lets you play with the groove weights. You'll want to play with this to understand it more, because different styles put emphasis on different beats. Controlling the groove weights can be especially useful if a song has an unusual time signature. There are three choices for groove weights: heavy, neutral, and syncopated.

There are several more options to the right of the large Compose button:
- You can click "Compose" if you don't want to change any Brain settings but want to audit an alternative performance.
- If AUTO is turned on, changing Brain controls can lead to immediate recomposition.
- If BAR is highlighted, a recomposition only recomposes the current bar. Otherwise, the entire Part is generated again.
- The disk icon saves a Restore Point of your song. It's like the System Restore option in Windows. If you want to recover to a saved restore point, go over to the song menu drop-down in the Song Sheet.
- The trash can clears the current aspect (layer) of the bar and marks it as composed. When this happens, the Brain won't replace the deleted events unless a re-compose happens.

Style and Drummer Models

I've talked several times earlier about the style and drummer affecting the performance. I also mentioned the priority system, whereby the Brain will block out certain notes if they are lower priority than conflicting notes. You're probably wondering why the Brain has to do that. I did. Why even have the conflicts in the first place?

It's because the Brain doesn't really do all the composition as a unified whole. It's split up into two separate models, then it reviews what happened and decides what gets played. The two separate models, of course, are the Style model and the Drummer model.

The style model goes first. It focuses on the groove, and also contributes to the accent and fills. The drummer goes next, and mostly focuses on the accents and fills. This is how some overlapping hits can be created that conflict with the style model.

Some drummer models will add notes to the groove, but many do not. After both models have finished composing, the Brain does its limb and priority checks, and creates a realistic performance.

If you have a saved MIDI file from any source, in GM format (the General MIDI standard), you can use it by going to "import style." The Jamstix drummer will personalize it by adding accents, fills, power level, etc.

If you want to use the Jamstix bar editor to create a MIDI part, instead of doing it in your host DAW, you can. Just use the Silent style and the Silent drummer, and go into the Bar Menu to "Lock Manually Created Events." If you want, after you've made a hand-crafted groove, you could switch to a different drummer model to have that drummer interpret it. You might want to export your performance or create a restore point first though, in case you don't like the new results.

Options

A number of these are very obvious, so I won't list them all, but a few are worth clarifying.
- The Debug Log should be left off.
- You can turn off Limb Controls if you want to have a drummer with more than four limbs.
- Auto Edit Sounds means that a drum will play when you mouse over it in the Bar Editor.
- Usually, for hi hats, if the pedal pressure MIDI controller value is 127, it triggers a closed hat, and 0 triggers a fully open hat. If you activate Reverse High Hat Controller, it sets 127 to open and 0 to closed.
- Never Mix Down overrides the downmix switch in the mixer, which I mentioned earlier.
- Enable Song Looping is an option that allows you to keep a song from ending, by looping back to a specific part when it finishes the last part. I find that this is useful when you're just practicing a song with a guitar or something, and don't want to keep moving back to the start and hitting play every time the song ends.
- The LoD, or Load On Demand system, reduces memory consumption of the drum kits. I wouldn't disable this unless you're having technical problems with an underpowered system.
- Voice Reduction is also related to the CPU loading, so look this up in the manual if you're having problems.
- This is the number of stereo audio outputs sent to the host. The default is eight, and it ranges from one to seventeen, although Pro Tools is currently limited to one. If you change this, you have to restart Jamstix and possibly your entire host.
- Bar Offset (Visual or Actual) options are useful if the Jamstix Transport bar and beat numbers are not matching the ones in your host.
- Auto Save is expressed in minutes. You have the option to turn it off. The default is to save on exit.

Miscellaneous

When it comes to VST automation, there are actually only three things that you can currently automate in Jamstix 3: the Power Level, Reduction, and Global Timing Slider. This is because of a limitation with the VST standard. However, not to worry. You've already seen that just about every control can be individually mapped to a controller, and most hosts allow complete automation this way, by automating the envelopes for the MIDI controls. It's odd, but it's an effective workaround.

There are several status lights at the bottom right. MIDI In and Out are obvious, and they flash when MIDI is being sent or received. The Audio-In LED only lights up when data is coming into Jamstix from AudioM8. And finally, if you ever start to hear clicking noises in the audio (I haven't), look to see if the LoD% is bright red. If so, go into the Options and either increase Voice Reduction or increase the LoD pre-buffer.

If your song uses time signature changes, I said earlier that it wasn't a problem because you're slaved to the host. But unfortunately, it's not that simple, so I need to clarify. The VST standard isn't good with time signature changes, so you should set each part manually to be certain, if they aren't grey'd out. First, go into Options and make sure Time Sig Changes is enabled. That ensures that the controls aren't grey'd out. Then, go into each individual part and select the time signature for that part. If you have a time signature change in the middle of a part, you may need to get creative and call it two separate parts. Where this gets to be odd is that when using Pro Tools, you're using AAX plug-ins rather than the VST standard, so I had assumed it would be different. But apparently it's not. You can change the time signature in all hosts (including Pro Tools) so that Jamstix is not following the same rhythm structure as the host. Jamstix IS still forced to slave to the host's tempo, but you can have an inconsistency with the time signature if you aren't careful.

If you're trying to jam with audio, obviously you start by setting up Jamstix in a project as a VSTi, and click the Audio Jam button. Make sure you add AudioM8 as an insert effect on the audio track being monitored. You may have to enable "Input Monitoring" or "Input Echo," depending on your host. You should now see the Audio-In LED flickering as you play. The MIDI Jam works the same way.

Up to ten restore points are allowed. After that, new restore points erase older points. If Jamstix is auto-saving restore points because you've turned this on in the Options menu, Jamstix won't save a point while the host is playing, so you don't have to worry about it interfering with your ongoing work when a performance is happening, or when you're recording.

And finally, the rotary knob in the upper right controls the brightness of the Brain controls and Song Sheet.

Here's the final video for this series. I have to apologize in advance, it's a bit blurry in a few places. I didn't realize that the camera had been switched to auto-focus, and it sometimes went slightly blurry without me noticing the problem on the small screen. But it usually takes four or five hours to do the filming on one of these tutorials (they're a lot more involved than they probably look) and I figured that it would make more sense for me to invest the time in a different tutorial than spend an evening re-shooting this video, just to fix a few minutes of slight blurriness:

Conclusions

Ok, that's it. By this point, hopefully you're quite comfortable with most of the capabilities of the Jamstix software. And by now, you should realize just how powerful it is, especially for beginning and intermediate producers, because it really can avoid the very tedious tasks of hand entering complex MIDI data on a timeline. It avoids the static and boring feel that usually results from patterns that were hand-coded by non-experts.

So at this point, what should you do next? Well, I'd recommend getting a couple books on drumming, even if you don't want to become a real drummer, to get you into the proper headspace of what drumming is all about. After that, I'd experiment a lot by setting up drum tracks for various songs, so you get really comfortable with Jamstix.

If you revisit these videos frequently and you're looking for a specific section, I've created a clickable index. Bookmark this blog post:

djbolivia.blogspot.com/2016/01/detailed-clickable-index-for-jamstix.html

Finally, I'd recommend that you study the art and science behind mixing a kit in a DAW. Rather than just sending the output to a single stereo channel and playing with the volume, you can take things to a whole new level if you learn to split the pieces of the kit into their own separate tracks so you have a lot more flexibility over relative volumes within the kit. You can then learn to process individual pieces of the kit separately in terms of EQ'ing, compression, reverb, and so on. You'll truly be able to get some professional sounding results.

Visit some of my other music-related tutorials: djbolivia.ca/training