[tina m]

i dont know if any of you have listened to our song rock the neighbors but i was saying i wish our drummer could sound like our midi drums ... now he has an electronic kit & ive been told that if we connect him to our pc he can play our addictive drums vsti
trouble is we havent got a clue how we do it ... it took us 12 months to get addictive drums working! so if anyone can help we would be very grateful

[mihkay]

Firstly you have to check if you have a MIDI input to your PC. They don't tend to come as standard.

If not you need to get a MIDI to PC interface. They can start at £20 for a MIDI to USB piece of wire up to £100's for a specialist PC card. It's all down to latency ( the software delay between hitting a pad and the sound being played by the software )

Having got a MIDI input you then need to make sure your Drum software is being triggered by the external input. Also, but I'm sure it has, a MIDI output from your drummers kit. I don't know about your software specifically, but it will probably have something under a  "Settings" or "preferences" menu which will switch this facility on.

If all else fails, Google to the rescue. Almost certainly someone else has had the same issues as you and posted a solution somewhere.

[tina m]

many thanks for the info mihkay! thats the problem our soundcard hasnt got a midi in or out so i will look for this usb lead
we use reaper so the reaper forum will probly be the place to go after that trouble is its guys talking tech nical & i get easily lost

[mihkay]

Just google "midi to usb" and lots of shopping results pop right up.
I'd start with the cheapest option for proof of concept. 

[DailyDean]

This seems like pretty cool idea. Funny when electronic bands come to gigs with just desks or mixing and dj software and no visual drums. Kinda makes you appreciate the musicianship more.

I actually watched an interview with a metal band member and producer, who said he dreamed of a simple piece of hardware that could play Toontrack samples through whatever monitors and boards the gig would have (don't know if they've responded to that yet). I feel sorry for drum kits, people are even demanding acoustic samples live now.