Drum maps & kit swaps

Every drum part Vibrai generates — kick, snare, hi-hat, percussion — has to land on a MIDI pitch that triggers the right pad in your drum rack. Vibrai resolves that pitch automatically, but two things let you take control: a per-project drum map to override the resolution, and retarget to move notes you already wrote when you change kits. Both work on either surface.

How drum-pitch resolution works

When Vibrai writes a drum note, it resolves the part’s pitch down a ladder, stopping at the first rung that answers:

Project drum map — an explicit part → pitch override you set (below).
Pad name — if the loaded rack has a pad named like the part (e.g. a Snare pad), use it.
General MIDI — the GM percussion pitch for the part, if that pad is populated.
Snap — the nearest populated pad (ties resolve downward).
GM floor — a last-resort default (36 for drums, 39 for percussion).

An empty drum map means fully automatic (rungs 2–5). You only reach for a map when a kit lays its pads out unusually, or you want a specific sound.

Pin a part to a pad

Inspect the current map

A fresh project has an empty map — everything is automatic.

vibrai drums map show --project song.vibrai

{
  "tool": "get_drum_map",
  "arguments": { "project_path": "song.vibrai" }
}

Set one or more overrides

Entries are part=pitch, merged into any existing map. Valid part keys: bd, snare, hi_hat, hi_hat_plus, percussion, crash, fill, roll, drums. Pitches are 0–127.

vibrai drums map set snare=40 hi_hat=42 --project song.vibrai

{
  "tool": "set_drum_map",
  "arguments": {
    "entries": ["snare=40", "hi_hat=42"],
    "project_path": "song.vibrai"
  }
}

Mapped pitches win over pad-name matching the next time you generate. To move notes you have already written, retarget them (below).

Clear overrides you no longer want

Pass part keys to remove just those; omit them to clear the whole map.

vibrai drums map clear snare --project song.vibrai

{
  "tool": "clear_drum_map",
  "arguments": { "parts": ["snare"], "project_path": "song.vibrai" }
}

Swap a kit without re-generating

Loading a different drum rack usually moves the pads around, so notes you already wrote trigger the wrong sounds. Retarget re-resolves every drum part against the current kit and moves the already-written notes — in both session and arrangement clips — from their last-generated pitch to the new one, server-side.

Preview the change (dry run)

A dry run reports how many notes would move, per track, without writing anything. Always look first.

vibrai drums retarget --track 2 --dry-run --project song.vibrai

{
  "tool": "retarget_drums",
  "arguments": {
    "project_path": "song.vibrai",
    "tracks": ["2"],
    "dry_run": true
  }
}

Omit --track / tracks to retarget every drum track in the project.

Apply it

Re-run with the dry-run flag off to remap and save.

vibrai drums retarget --track 2 --project song.vibrai

{
  "tool": "retarget_drums",
  "arguments": {
    "project_path": "song.vibrai",
    "tracks": ["2"],
    "dry_run": false
  }
}

Notes & limits

Retarget only moves notes Vibrai generated with this feature. A track with no recorded per-part pitch (hand-authored notes, or notes from before pad-resolution shipped) is skipped with a warning. Move those with vibrai note remap / remap_pitch, which rewrites a specific pitch to another and preserves every other note field.
The map is per project. It lives in the .vibrai file, keyed by project, not by wire position — reopening the set keeps your overrides.
Map, then generate; or generate, then retarget. Setting a map changes future generation; retarget fixes existing notes. They compose — set an override and retarget to apply it to what’s already there.

See the Drum maps reference for every flag and parameter, and Notes for note remap.

​How drum-pitch resolution works

​Pin a part to a pad

​Swap a kit without re-generating

​Notes & limits

How drum-pitch resolution works

Pin a part to a pad

Swap a kit without re-generating

Notes & limits