Rock Out in GarageBand with the Rock Band Drum Controller

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How-Tos

Rock Out in GarageBand with the Rock Band Drum Controller

Posted 10/28/2008 at 12:16:17pm | by Joe Rybicki

METHOD TWO, LESS CHEAP AND SLIGHTLY MORE DIFFICULT

1. What's your function?

Follow Step 1 from the Method One walkthrough, minus the installation of GamePad Companion. Instead, download the JunXion demo and fire it up. As soon as you start JunXion, you should get a notice from GarageBand that the number of MIDI inputs has changed. This is a good thing.

Yep.

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2. Patch things up.

In the left-hand pane of JunXion, select the drum kit. Tap on the red pad and note which button shows a change in value. If you see two changing at once, test the other pads to eliminate the one that triggers with each pad. On our Xbox 360 kit that's Button #8, so we'll ignore that one.

Once you've isolated the correct button, click on the title and drag it into an Input Sensor field. A drop-down menu in the Action column should automatically appear. Tap on the pad again and you'll hear a sound sample—but probably the wrong one. Let's fix that right now.

The first thing we'll do in JunXion is figure out which "buttons" are triggered by each of our drums. (Click to embiggen.)

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3. Get the right sound.

Click the Actions tab in JunXion. Near the bottom, you'll see a field labeled Note NR with a slider next to it. This determines which sound is triggered by that button. For the red pad, we want a snare sound, so let's drag the slider down to 38.

Now repeat the last two steps for the remaining three pads and pedal. For the yellow pad, choose note 42 for a closed hi-hat. For blue, choose note 44 for a relaxed hat (or 46 for a fully open hat). For green, choose note 52 for a crash cymbal (or 51 for a ride cymbal). And for the pedal, choose note 36 for the kick drum.

JunXion lets you assign specific sounds to all the pads on your fake plastic drums. (Click to embiggen.)

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4. For those about to rock...

You've done it. Switch over to GarageBand and give it a try—virtually no lag! Just don't forget you've only got 20 minutes until the JunXion demo quits, and you won't be able to save your patches without buying the full version. But $95 is a small price to pay to turn a toy into a functional electronic drum kit, isn't it?

Once you see how cool this is, you'll want to pony up for the full JunXion license—we did. (Click to embiggen.)

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5. Go avant-garde.

We've talked about the Rock Band drum kit here because it's the most like a real instrument. But the exact same procedures can be followed for any USB guitar controller. You'll only get six notes (five buttons plus the strum bar), but you'd be surprised at what you can do, especially if you set buttons to trigger multiple notes simultaneously. Experiment, have fun, and enjoy your virtual rock-stardom.

Want to use the guitar controllers too? Go ahead, write a five-note pop masterpiece. (Click to embiggen.)

COMMENTS: 8

TAGS: Garageband, awesome, Rock Band

COMMENTS

Rock Band 2 drum kit?
Submitted by stoosepp on Wed, 2008-10-29 09:06

This has been working for a while with the RB1 kit, anyone know of a way to get it to work with the RB2 kit?
Symbols would be sweet!

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Rock Band 2
Submitted by Joe Rybicki on Mon, 2008-11-03 08:57

The wireless kit adds an extra hurdle, but it's not insurmountable: If you're using the PS3 or Wii version, you should be able to get a Bluetooth-enabled Mac to recognize the device through normal BT channels. For the 360 version, you need the Wireless 360 Receiver, which the 360 Controller Driver will recognize as soon as you pair it with the drum set (tap the button on the receiver, then hold down the sync button on the drum set). I haven't tried the optional cymbal attachments yet, but I suspect they'd work just fine with either method. The real trick is getting the velocity data recognized...haven't been able to figure that one out yet.
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RockBand
Submitted by kevkevallen on Tue, 2008-11-11 13:52

While I don't have a RockBand drum set myself (Its on the Christmas list, trust me!) I can definitely see the benefit of having one of your favorite games also be an input device for GarageBand. While I'm no recording artist, I have a ton of friends who will be egging to come over and try to create their mix at my house in GarageBand.

Good job Mac|Life, keep up the good work. :)

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___suspect they'd work just
Submitted by fujiyato on Mon, 2008-11-17 00:26

___suspect they'd work just fine with either method. The real trick is getting the velocity data recognized...haven't been able to figure that one out yet.
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Latency Isuues
Submitted by ANvi1 on Mon, 2009-03-09 12:50

Hey everyone, people on other sites have already figured this out but I've tried it and it works. If you do it the cheap way as described above, and download a program called midikeys you can get rid of the horrible latency issues with musical typing. It also lets you play notes simultaneously. It works very well to be honest. If you want to record into garageband all you have to do is hit record in GB and then switch to midikeys. It will play the drum kit that you loaded from GB but without the latency. You will have to re-map the keys to midikeys controls but it's just an issue of hitting the keys on the keybouard until you figure out which key is set to which sound you want. Enjoy!

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