Digitech SDRUM Auto Drummer + MG3 Basic - Does the Combination Make Sense?

General
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So I saw a video on the SDRUM. I’m not a big fan of drum machine sounds or feel. But I’m moving to an apartment from a house. So no more drummers for me. I won’t even have space for an electronic drum set that can play silently.

I gave the SDRUM video a look and listen and was somewhat impressed with the way it ‘learns’ your strumming to trigger drum kits. What I liked was the overall simplicity of the process. And the quality of resulting drum line creation looked like it was going to be more about my ability to strum my guitar in time and with the rhythm I wanted than by my ability to tap or hit a pad on a hardware MIDI drum device.

However, I was amazed that considering that the SDRUM does audio detection of the strum and converts it to a drum hit, there is no subsequent MIDI conversion or MIDI output available on the device. So the kit sounds are limited to what’s in the pedal. How stupid is that?

OK. I could see that the added step of MIDI conversion is going to increase the latency of the pedal in real time. But who cares if you’re recording the MIDI and using the MIDI track to re-voice the track with the kit sounds you want.

Which got me to thinking…

What if I output the audio of the pedal into MG3 Basic? Since it doesn’t require a hex output, MG3 basic should be able to convert the audio drum hits to MIDI. And because the SDRUM can start with just a bass drum track, the conversion of that track should be quite accurate. And since I am basically creating a drum track from layers, one drum / cymbal at a time, subsequent MIDI conversion should be very accurate.

So my question is: am I making flawed assumptions here?

Your comments are appreciated…

Steven.

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Hi @scratch17, I played around with Digitech’s SDRUM a while back—it’s pretty nice for simple live performances and sounds great, too.

But if you don’t necessarily want to trigger the drums from a guitar and just need it for recording in your DAW, you might want to check out DUBLER 2 from VochleaMusic. DUBLER 2 does a great job with beatbox sounds from your mouth.

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i think you’ll run into trouble trying to convert sdrum’s audio output. i’d try running some drum loops thru mg3 as a test first before getting one on order.

if i understand it correctly, it records loops using downstrokes and upstrokes.

there is a recording phase and a play along phase, so it is more like a looper and a drum machine than a spontaneous jam device.

it should be easy to use mg3’s looper with a drum vst to emulate much of this and you could develop more sophisticated patterns than the sdrum can provide as well. and with pretty much any drum kit you might desire.

you wouldn’t have the verse/chorus/bridge switchability though.