DrumPi Studio manual

Studio can record sounds from an installed drum plug-in, from soft hits to hard hits. Use a VST3 instrument, or an Audio Unit on Mac.

Set up the capture

1. In “Kit View”, choose “+ → Capture VST/AU Kit”, also available in the “Track” menu.
2. If your plug-in isn't listed, use “Scan plug-ins...” to scan its format. Select it and click “Open”, press Enter, or double-click its row.
3. At the bottom of the capture window, click “Show plug-in” to open the plug-in’s user interface. To show it inside Studio, change the dropdown beside it from “Separate window” to “In capture panel”. Load the kit you want, then set its tuning, microphones and effects.
4. Inside the plug-in, route the microphones to separate outputs. In EZdrummer 3, open “Mixer” and choose “Multichannel” for output routing. Studio can only separate the outputs the plug-in actually sends; a single stereo mix stays a single track.
5. Load a capture preset, or click “Add instrument” for each sound. Name the row, choose its “MIDI note” and press “Play” to check it. Choose “Articulation” to set what will trigger it on DrumPi, or leave it “Unmapped” for now.
6. To capture several hi-hat openings, follow “Capture hi-hat openings” below before recording. It shows how to group the sounds so DrumPi can choose the right opening as you move the pedal.

• Capture hi-hat openings→

“MIDI note” chooses what the plug-in plays. “Articulation” chooses what will trigger that sound on DrumPi.

Rows with the same “Instrument name” go into one pad with that name. Each captured sound adds an articulation to that pad. For example, name both the snare head row and the rimshot row Snare: capture creates one Snare pad containing both articulations. The rows can use different MIDI notes.

The “MIDI note” −/+ buttons play each new note; “Play” repeats it.

Drag a row’s left-hand grip above or below another row to change the capture order. Drag the panel dividers or column edges for more space; double-click a column edge to reset its width.

Route the microphones

1. In table B, assign every plug-in output to a DrumPi mixer input, such as kick, overheads or room. Choose “Unused” for outputs you do not need.
2. Press “Play” on a sound and watch the output meters. If a microphone is missing, check its routing inside the plug-in. Silent outputs are left out of the captured sound.
3. Tick “RR ref.” for the close microphones of the drums you are capturing. For example, for the snare, tick the snare top mic; for the kick, tick the kick-in mic. This tells Studio which microphones to use to measure hit loudness. Studio groups hits of similar loudness and keeps different takes as round robins: alternate samples that make repeated strokes sound more natural.
4. Click “Detect mono/stereo”. Leave channel mode on “Auto”, or choose “Mono” or “Stereo” for a particular track.

For each sound, Studio chooses the ticked microphone with the loudest average attack as its reference. Capture stops if none of the ticked microphones receives audio.

Drag output rows by their grips to change the track order. The reference microphone becomes the first track; the others follow your order. Save the preset to keep it.

Choose how much to record

“Passes per velocity”

Repeated hits at each velocity: 1–32, default 1. The usual sweep runs from 127 down to 1, completing every pass before moving down. Five passes means 635 captures per instrument, before filtering.

“Max round robins”

The maximum samples retained within each final group: 1–128, default 5. This does not set the number of velocity groups or reduce the number of hits recorded.

“Remove duplicates”

Enabled by default. Filters repeated copies of the same hit from all microphone tracks together. Original recorded WAVs remain on disk. More passes only add useful variation if the plug-in produces it.

Rendering mode

“Offline (fast)” is the default. Try “Real-time compatibility” if the plug-in renders incorrectly offline; it processes at normal playback speed.

Keep a reusable setup

Save a capture preset to reuse your sound list, groups, MIDI notes, CC values, output routing and row order. Studio includes an “EZdrummer 3 Native” preset. Selecting a preset applies it immediately.

“Load”

Open a capture preset JSON file, including a profile shared by another user.

“New”

Start a blank capture configuration while keeping the plug-in loaded.

“Save”

Save your setup, or update the loaded preset in its original location.

“Save As...”

Choose a filename and location for a separate JSON profile you can keep or share. Use this to copy a read-only factory preset.

Profiles opened with “Load” or saved with “Save As...” stay in the preset list for next time. Keep those files in place; if you move one, use “Load” to open it again.

Record the sounds

1. Click “Start bulk capture” and wait for it to finish. Studio adds the sounds to your kit and creates pedal ranges for grouped openings.
2. Return to “Kit View”, then continue to Listen and refine to check the recordings.

“Cancel” keeps finished sounds and removes the unfinished capture. If saving fails, keep the recoverable sound path shown in the error.

The summary shows how many sounds were added and how many hits were kept or removed. Each hit includes all its microphone tracks.

• Next: listen and refine→
• Troubleshoot plug-in capture→

Use this workflow when every hit is already a separate file. Import one microphone at a time, with the same hits in the same order for every microphone. Consistent numbering makes that correspondence clear:

• kick-in-1.wav, kick-in-2.wav, kick-in-3.wav …
• kick-out-1.wav, kick-out-2.wav, kick-out-3.wav …
• overheads-1.wav, overheads-2.wav, overheads-3.wav …
• room-1.wav, room-2.wav, room-3.wav …

The Kick example below uses four microphone tracks from Just Add Drums.

• Just Add Drums — Sample library used for the Kick example↗

Create a sound and import the hits

1. In “Kit View”, click “+ → Create New Sound”. An unfinished kit gets a draft sound automatically; a saved kit asks where to create its .d-studio sound project. Studio opens the sound for editing.
2. Choose “Track → Add Individual WAVs”. Select all the close-microphone files for that sound in one operation.
3. Choose the track’s “Input”, such as “kick-in”. Repeat “Add Individual WAVs” for each remaining microphone and assign its mixer input.

Studio sorts the files by name, including their numbers, and places them in sequence on one track. Different file lengths are accommodated while keeping corresponding hits together across microphones. The file boundaries already define the starts, so you do not need to mark them manually.

• Next: listen and refine — Check the imported hits and their groups→

Use this workflow for recordings that contain a sequence of hits, with one long audio file per microphone. The Tom 10 example below has close, overhead and room recordings, therefore three files.

Import the microphone tracks

1. In “Kit View”, choose “+ → Create New Sound”. Studio opens the sound for editing.
2. Choose “Track → Add Long WAV” and load the close microphone first. It becomes the grouping reference.
3. Use “Add Long WAV” again for the other microphones. You can select several files together; each file becomes its own track.
4. Assign each track’s “Input”, then click the close mic track before navigating its hits.

You mark each hit’s start once, and Studio applies the same start position across every microphone.

Find and mark the starts

1. Zoom in on the first hit: Control + Scroll zooms horizontally around the pointer, and Alt + Scroll changes the waveform’s vertical scale.
2. Press S to briefly show the suggested start lines. If necessary, adjust “Hit Detect-Db” so navigation finds the hits you want.
3. Right-click at the actual beginning of the transient to create a cut. Use the waveform to choose the exact position; the detected line is only a guide, and the final placement is up to you.
4. Press N to move to the next detected hit, inspect its start and right-click again. P returns to the previous detected hit.
5. Repeat through the recording. Studio calculates the tails and groups the marked hits as you work.

To correct a misplaced manual cut, Control-click its region to remove the cut, then right-click at the correct start. Control + N and Control + P move between existing cuts; N and P move between detected hits.

The starts are shared across the microphones, preserving their recorded timing. Studio determines each microphone’s tail from its audio.

• Next: listen and refine — Check the marked hits, groups and tails→

The “Sound properties” panel controls grouping and trimming. Scroll within it to reach the lower controls. Changes to the analysis settings recalculate the affected cuts or groups; save the sound after checking the result.

“RR Grouping”

“RMS” measures the average level over the initial window; “Peak” uses the highest amplitude. Both use the first track as their reference.

“RMS Window-ms”

Length of the RMS window in milliseconds, from 1 to 1000; default 50. It only applies when “RR Grouping” is “RMS”.

“Separation-Db”

Allowed level difference within a group, from 0 to 5 dB; default 2. Higher values generally give fewer layers with more round robins.

“Silence-Db”

Tail threshold in dB. A higher value trims sooner; a lower, more negative value keeps quieter decay. The default is −85 dB. Check room and cymbal tails carefully.

“Max Chop-Secs”

An optional maximum hit length in seconds. Set 0 for no additional time limit; silence detection and the next hit or file boundary still determine where the cut can end.

“Fade out”

Fade length before the end of a cut, in milliseconds; default 20. Use it to make the trimmed tail end smoothly.

“Hit Detect-Db”

Sensitivity of the suggested hit starts used when navigating long recordings. It does not replace your manual start markers or the tail threshold.

Zoom vertically to inspect the quiet end of a hit, then listen to the full decay. A tail should end naturally rather than stop while it is still audible. Check more than the reference microphone: overheads and room tracks can decay much longer.

Each track’s “Input” routes it to a DrumPi mixer input. “Gain” adjusts that microphone’s level and is saved with the sound; you can also adjust the mix later on DrumPi.

Transient shaping softens the attack of closely spaced hits during DrumPi playback. It can help a press roll sound more natural without changing the round robin grouping.

“Trans-Smooth.”

Smoothing amount, from 0 to 1. Start with a small amount and listen to fast repeated strokes.

“Trans-Dur.”

Maximum duration of the smoothing, in milliseconds, from 0 to 200.

For a press roll, try “Trans-Smooth.” at 1 and “Trans-Dur.” between 0 and 10 ms, then listen on DrumPi and adjust to taste. Keep ordinary single strokes clear as well as checking the roll.

• Next: organise and map the kit — Arrange the instruments and set up their triggers→

Start on Studio’s pads page (“Kit View”), where the kit’s instrument pads are shown. Click the hi-hat pad to show its sounds in the panel on the right. Use these steps for captured or imported hi-hat sounds.

Enable “Crossfading” for each opening

“Crossfading” lets a hi-hat sound that is already ringing change smoothly as you move the pedal. Enable it separately for each opening sound.

1. In the right-hand panel, double-click a hi-hat opening sound to open its sound editor. If the sound is inside a collapsed group, click the group’s arrow first.
2. Find “Sound properties” at the bottom left. Scroll inside that panel to the bottom and tick “Crossfading”.
3. Choose “File → Save Sound”, then click the arrow and kit name at the top left to return to the pads page. Repeat for the other bow and edge opening sounds.

Set the openings on the pads page

1. Back on the pads page, click the hi-hat pad. Work in its articulation panel on the right.
2. Keep the bow openings in one shared mapping, such as “hihat bow open”, and the edge openings in another, such as “hihat edge open”. To make a group, drag one sound onto another and choose the group’s “MAPPING”.
3. Expand the group with its arrow. Each sound’s “CTRL RANGE” slider shows the part of the pedal’s 0–100% range where that opening plays. Arrange the sounds in the order you want across the pedal movement.
4. Drag a movable handle on the “CTRL RANGE” slider, or edit the percentage box beside it. The neighbouring sound’s range updates too. The first range starts at 0% and the last ends at 100%.
5. Use “Link CTRL ranges” when bow and edge should change openings at the same pedal positions. If it is off, click the chain-link button in the toolbar above the hi-hat sounds to turn it on. Then move a range limit: the corresponding limit in the other group moves with it. Clicking the button alone does not change the ranges.
6. Send the kit to DrumPi and play the hi-hat while moving your pedal. Adjust the ranges if an opening changes too early or too late.