Another Program to Use Your Drums on a PC

[toastedspleen]

Hey everyone,

Someone beat me to it, but I might as well give away my hard work :)

It's another drum kit app to use your drum controller as a drum set.

This one is written in C++ (source included) using the Allegro game lib (http://www.allegro.cc) Feel free to modify and improve.

Just download, unzip, and run dkit.exe. It's pre-configured for the PS3 controller, I don't have an X-Box 360 controller so you may have to play with the button mappings to get it to work.

Features:
Map any pad to any drum type
Save Drum Kit setups
Tons of drum samples included
An incredible user interface (just kidding, it looks like junk)

Let me know what you think.

Download here:
DKit (http://www.mediafire.com/?fpht1bhxkc5)

[SoulScreme]

Heh. I'm considering doing this as well. Except, for a few things.


Do it in Java, give the Mac and Linux users from love.
Nicer interface.

Drum pads that light up when hit.
Drag and drop clips/samples onto drum pads.
Record sessions and play them back. (Not the first version).

[toastedspleen]

Allegro is cross-platform, you could theoretically recompile for any OS with only minor changes to the source. I just don't have a Mac or Linux machine to do it.

[SoulScreme]

Allegro is cross-platform, you could theoretically recompile for any OS with only minor changes to the source. I just don't have a Mac or Linux machine to do it.

Yeah, I also prefer Java. Java will make it easier to make the system robust.

[Bakkster]

Yeah, I also prefer Java. Java will make it easier to make the system robust.

How quickly does JAVA update? I know that the reason it can be fussy in .NET is that Windows only checks back on idle processes every 35ms (I think, might be longer). You'd probably run into a problem where you could either take the entire processor all the time, or get an unacceptable drum delay.

I'd be interested to see it work, but I think an app like this requires a lower level language. Let us know your results

[SoulScreme]

How quickly does JAVA update? I know that the reason it can be fussy in .NET is that Windows only checks back on idle processes every 35ms (I think, might be longer). You'd probably run into a problem where you could either take the entire processor all the time, or get an unacceptable drum delay.

I'd be interested to see it work, but I think an app like this requires a lower level language. Let us know your results

I've done similar stuff with the Wii-mote and used it in Java. There are a few options.

1) Use a Java library to access the USB.
2) Build a small C# or C++ app to access the USB, use lightweight messaging between Java and C#. (Did this for the Wii-mote).

The thing to keep in mind is that 35ms delay is noticeable, 10-15 is not. You find a middle ground between it being slow and it eating up the processor by implementing these small amounts of delay to give the processor some breathing room. My wii-mote stuff had no noticeable delay and it was even using the messaging method, which introduces a bit of its own delay.