Date: Sat, 27 Apr 2024 08:24:13 PDT

Hi All,


I just picked up the Yamaha FGP30 Finger Drum unit that was mentioned here recently, and am pretty pleased with it so far.


The thing being entirely voice guided is clearly a boon for us, even if it was not designed as a deliberate accessibility feature,but to get around the fact that this model does not have a display, I noticed a couple of sighted users not being enamoured by the voice guide, so just for once it's nice to have something go the opposite way in our favour!

For those wanting to use it with various drum libraries that are Kontakt or Komplete Kontrol based, it is quite easy to remap the pads to match the many variations we find within all of those sample libraries that are out there.

From my perspective at least, I find it is simpler to do this as required on a per library basis, rather than me attempting to create JS remapped templates for individual products.

For example it was very straightforward to alter a few drum pads to work with the Native Instruments Abbey Road Drums series, and the changes were then consistent across  the different editions.

The recipe for the KK or Kontakt set up from scratch is as follows:

There is no need to install a driver out of the box, however a driver is available from Yamaha which I believe relates to when you wish to send the FG30's  own audio to your DAW, and in this example does not concern us.

First, Plug the FGP30 into the computer, and enable the Finger Drum Pad driver that appears in the midi devices menu in Reaper preferences, also enable it for control messages.

With your KK or Kontakt library loaded onto a track in Reaper, hit applications and go to input midi, set the Finger Pad to all channels, and map input to channel sub menu = source channel.

I think by default Reaper is set up to receive on all midi channels, so there may not be much to do here anyway.

Next, On the FGP30 itself, under the settings menu, navigate to the following items which will be spoken by the built in voice guide:

37 Trigger MIDI Channel 10 (this is the default and can be left unchanged as we have already set Reaper to receive on all channels)

38 Trigger MIDI note number
This is the item you will want to alter if your kit pieces do not match your FGP30 pads.

Tap the pad on the FGP30 that you wish to change, until it triggers the sound you want from the loaded sample library, for example you may be hearing a cymbal on a pad where you want a Hi-Tom, so keep tapping and changing the midi note number until you hear the Hi-Tom being triggered.

You can repeat this process on other pads until they all tie in with the currently loaded sample library drum kit.

41 Trigger note output on/off
This setting is entirely optional, but allows you to turn off any of the pads on your FGP30 that you may not wish to use, just tap the pad in question and set to off.

61 Utility Local Control On/Off
This option some users may prefer to have switched off, it stops the pads from triggering the FGP30 built in local sounds so that only your external sample library will be heard.

This is because the remapping we have done only applies to the midi note numbers being output from the FGP30, so the FGP30 kit instruments may not match with those of your sample library, which may be a distraction.


There are other options on the FGP30 which relate to velocity etc, these can be configured to personal taste.


The FGP30 will remember the changes when powered off, so the next time you turn it on, you will need to turn the local control back on again if you wish to hear the onboard drum sounds through the speaker on the unit, perhaps do this prior to turning it off while it is still fresh in your mind to avoid being unnecessarily spooked into thinking your unit is broken the next time you turn it on.

It is also possible to use the FG30 as the source sound, this is kind of the reverse of the above instructions.

For example my Alesis Nitro kit module inbuilt sounds are slightly lacklustre, so it is possible to map the kit pieces of the electronic drum kit to trigger the sounds from the FGP30.

In this situation, I would be tapping the pads of the Alesis drum kit, and changing the internal sounds to match those of the e-kit, I would also need to ensure that the midi channel that the Alesis kit is transmitting on matches that which the FGP30 receives on.