After working solidly for several months, I finally have 2 days break from all my lovely clients. When I have free time, I do so many things that I am interested in such as learning new technologies, updating web design trends, updating web development skills, doing rock climbing, playing Playstation games, training on my DIY tension board, watching movies and playing guitar. Recently I just adopt another new hobby which is playing a drum. In the past, I played the guitar and bass guitar in the brand but I never had a chance to play the drum. Twenty years go by, now it is time.
Table e-Drum with 7 Pads
There are so many drum kits in the market with various prices. I decided to buy a table e-drum with 7 pads from Medeli DD315. The reason I bought it is because it saves space. I can put it on a chair or TV table. It is lightweight, portable, voice adjustable, and easy to use. The sound is good if you use the headphone. I really don’t like the built-in speaker. What I like the most is the layout of the pads. It is similar to the real drum kit. The two features that are important for playing Clone Hero, are MIDI output (MIDI USB or MIDI PIN interface) and MIDI note adjustable. Yes, this drum has them.
Medeli DD315 issue
I have been learning to drum for a few weeks and I found out the foot switch that comes with the drum, is giving me double hits on a single stroke of my foot. For example, when I play the fast song, I kick the foot pedal only once but the drum gives me a double-hits sound. Because the foot switch is too sensitive. So I bought the foot pedal upgrade version (see image above) and no issue since then.
What is Clone Hero?
If you are a gamer like me, you probably played the rhythm games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, or Rocksmith. With Rocksmith, you can use the real guitar with the game. I have one by the way. Rocksmith is really fun playing. For Guitar Hero and Rock Band, only real drums can play with these games. You can not use real guitar or real bass guitar in these games as far as I know.
So you probably guess what Clone Hero is. Yes, it is a cloned game of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Clone Hero is a PC game and it is free.
Here is what it looks like when you play Clone Hero with your drum kit.
What we need to set up our drum kit for Clone Hero
E-drum kit
Obviously, you need an e-drum kit that has the MIDI output and MIDI note adjustable function. We need the MIDI note adjustable because we need to map the note from your drum with the clone hero controller.
MIDI USB cable or MIDI PIN cable
Basically, the MIDI USB cable is a printer USB cable. You may already have it at home. If not, here is the cheap one from Amazon. We will use it to connect the e-drum kit to our computer.
For the MIDI PIN cable, you will need to find the USB converter in order to connect to the computer. Here is an example of the MIDI converter.
Clone Hero
We need to install the Clone Hero application on our computer (I installed it on the second computer that I don’t use for working to avoid the application corrupted and breaking my computer). We will use the public test builds version for playing the real drum. I don’t think the download version from the Clone Hero website will work with a real drum (2019 version). Currently, for the download version that works with real drums, you need to download the installer from Discord. Read on.
Install Clone Hero
- Go to the Clone Hero website
- Click on the “Join Our Discord!” button then follow the instruction on the screen. Basically, you will need to register your account and join the Discord community. For me, I need to verify the new registration with my phone number.
- Once you get into the CloneHero Discord community, you will look for “ptb-opt-in” under the “PUBLIC TEST BUILDS (PTB)” channel on the left side.
- Then you need to read the message and verify following the message. Once you verify, you will see more channels appear under the “PUBLIC TEST BUILDS (PTB)” channel.
- The new channel you are looking for is “ptb-info-and-dl“. Click on it, you will see the download link for the Clone Hero installer and instructions. Just follow the instructions. See the screenshot below.
Config Clone Hero
After successful installation, we will do some configure which are updated to the last public test builds version, and set the path of the songs directory.
- After launching Clone Hero on your computer, click on the Settings icon menu.
- At Launcher Settings, enable “Public Test Builds” then go to the “Updates” icon menu.
- At Game Manager, click on the “VERIFY FILE INTEGRITY” button to get the last public test builds version. Wait until the update is done.
- Lastly, go to the “Config” icon menu. Then click on the “DIRECTORIES“. You will find the “SONG PATHS” section there. Click on a plus icon and then click on the file icon next to the trash icon in order to browse where you want to save the downloaded songs for playing the game. I created a new songs folder inside the Clone Hero Launcher folder where Clone Hero was installed on my computer. You can store the downloaded songs anywhere you want.
- Now the Clone Hero is all set. Go ahead, and click on the Play icon to open the Clone Hero game. See the screenshot below.
Keyboard controller configuration
- At the Clone Hero game screen, you will notice you can not press anything on the keyboard and make it activate. Because you need to press space for controls first. See the “Press Space For Controls” message on the bottom of the screen.
- Once you press the space bar, you will see the controller remap as screenshot shown below.
- At the controller remap, you will see you don’t have any controller assigned yet. We will do it later. But now you see the default keyboard mapping here. It uses the letter A for the green color which is the confirm button in the game. Letter S for the cancel or go back in the game. The Enter key is a start button in the game.
- Just remember which keyboard keys will use in the game. Now click on the Done button to close the controller remap screen.
Hook E-drum kit to Clone Hero
- Next, hook your e-drum kit with the MIDI USB cable to your computer. If your drum kit is the MIDI PIN, you will need the converter to the USB port on your computer.
Assign your e-drum kit to the Clone Hero controller via Profile
How to navigate, confirm, and cancel the menus by keyboard
- Use the letter A key for selecting the menu
- Use the letter S key for going back or canceling the menu
- Use the arrow key up and down to select the options for each menu.
This keyboard set can be found by pressing the space bar.
Create your own profile
- In the Clone Hero game, hit the Enter key to popup the Profile menu. In the Profile menu, you will see the Guest as the default profile there.
- Click on <Create Profile> to create yours.
Select Drum type for your profile
- Once your profile is created, at your profile, you want to select the Controller as <Drums> type. I don’t use <5 Lane Drums> but I leave the link on how to set up any MIDI drum kit for playing <5 Lane Drums> here.
Select Input Device
- After selecting <Drums>, you will go to MIDI Settings.
- Note that, you will see the hi-hat icon when you select Drums type which shows as number 1 on the screenshot below.
- At the MIDI Settings, select Input Device. Choose your drum kit. Mine is <e-drum>. In this step, if you don’t see your drum kit in the Input Device list (only <None> available), you need MidiDrumHero to help, go to the “E-drum kit (table e-drum)” section for MidiDrumHero installation and note mapping.
Drum note mapping guide (Mappings menu)
- Then you will do the note mappings at Mappings. There is a drum mapping guide in Discord you can refer to. In the Clone Hero Discord, you will look for “CLONE HERO DISCUSSION” channel and then the “clone-hero-talk” channel. In this “clone-hero-talk” channel, you want to search for “drumcontrols”. So in your chat box, you will type “!drumcontrols” then hit enter. You will see the bot message with the manual link. Click on the manual link you will see the guide as shown below.
- We will look at only the MIDI e-kits guide only. Here is my note mapping as a screenshot below. Your drum kit may have some different MIDI note numbers than mine. You just have to map your note number to the Clone Hero controller color.
Youtube link on How to set up your drum kit for Clone Hero
This youtube link guides you to set your e-drum kit on Clone Hero if you prefer to watch the video.
E-drum kit (table e-drum and other e-drum kits that can be detected as Input Device list)
The issue that I have with my table e-drum is Clone Hero can not detect my drum. When I select <Input Device>, I see only the <None> option. It should see my drum kit name in the <Input Device> list.
Checking why your computer doesn’t detect your drum kit
You will need to check two things. First, does your computer detects your drum kit? On Windows, you will go to Devices and Printers as shown below. If you don’t see your drum kit here, you may need to find and install your drum kit driver for your OS (Windows, Mac, Linux). Secondly, you need to check the MIDI USB cable or MIDI PIN cable is working or not.
Install and Create note mapping in MidiDrumHero
MidiDrumHero is a bridge between e-drum kits and midi keyboards to Clone Hero. Most of the full drum kits that have MIDI output will be fully supported by Clone Hero public test builds version out of the box. No need to install MidiDrumHero. However, my table e-drum is not that case. My Medeli DD315 can not be detected in Clone Hero Input Device, so it needs MidiDrumHero (come with vJoy driver). If your drum kit doesn’t be detected in the <Input Device> list, you should try MidiDrumHero.
- Install MidiDrumHero – It is straightforward, just go to the MidiDrumHero GitHub then download and install the MidiDrumHero (come with vJoy driver).
- Create note mapping in MidiDrumHero – After installing MidiDrumHero, we will set the note mapping. Go ahead, and launch the MidiDrumHero.
- On the dashboard, select your drum kit (number 1 and number 2 in the screenshot below)
- Then go to Monitor (number 3). On the Monitor page, hit each pad on your drum kit, you will see the note number and velocities there. Just write it down somewhere. For example, the snare is 38. We will use this number to create the mapping on the Dashboard page. We will use only 8 pads regarding MidiDrumHero usage.
- Back to the Dashboard page, click on the “New Drum Pad” button and add the Midi number you wrote down, set the trigger velocity and button number as you like. The button number must be unique for each midi number and will start from 1 to 8 based on MidiDrumHero usage. See the screenshot below.
Select Input Device after note mapping in MidiDrumHero
Now, your table e-drum or your e-drum kit should be detected in Clone Hero. Make sure your drum kit is tuned on. Then go check the Input Device at your profile in Clone Hero again. If you still don’t see your drum kit in the Input Device list, you should go to Clone Hero Discord for more help.
Once your drum kit is selected, you will go to the Mappings menu. In your Mappings menu, you will see Red pad, Yellow pad, and so on. Select each pad and check the note number again. If the note number doesn’t match your drum kit or you want to change the mapping, you can change it here. See the screenshot below.
And that’s it. Your Clone Hero and drum kit are ready for fun!
How to add songs in Clone Hero for Drum
There are a ton of songs you can download and play in Clone Hero. For playing drum, you must find the songs that can play with a drum such as all Rock Band, all Guitar World Tour.
Where to download songs for Clone Hero
- Here are Clone Hero Songs for downloading to your songs path.
- You can also search for the specific songs from this chorus site.
Below is how to check which song can play with the drum. You just need to see the hi-hat icon at the song.
How to update songs list in Clone Hero
Once your downloaded songs are in your songs path, you will need to launch the Clone Hero game and scan the list of the new songs. If you have a lot of new songs list, the scan songs process will take a while. See where to scan songs in screenshot below.
Useful links that I use as a reference
I leave the useful links I use as references in this post here. Thank you to those people who share useful information. So I did the same to return back to the public.
- “How to get Drums on Clone Hero (Quick Version)” link
- “How to set up your own drum kit on Clone Hero” link
- “Setup Any MIDI Drum Kit as a Guitar Hero World Tour PC Controller” link – This link includes how to set up 5 land drums as well.
- “Playing Clone Hero with real drum in Youtube channel” link – I like to watch this youtube channel for seeing which song I like to download. This guy makes me want to play the Clone Hero.
Useful links for a beginner drummer
If you are learning to play drum by yourself and you are a beginner like me, you may be interested in these youtube channels. I started to learn from zero and now I am able to read the drum notes and play along with the drum scores following these guys. Just sharing.
- DRUMMATE channel
- At The Drum channel
- Drum Machine Studio channel
- SKILL ZOURCE channel – Drum, Electric guitar, Electric bass guitar and keyboard
Wrap up
It seems a long post here but it gives your information and hopes it is helpful and saves your time. If you feel, my post saves your day, please consider buying me some beer. Yah!
