Latest approach to virtual drum kits?

Say I have a synth I would like to use as a bass drum, and a synth for snare etc all the way through a proper kit. The best way I can think to set this up is a "master" track with midi routed to all of them, and then each track has a midi note filter as well as the synth configured. To record, I have to arm/disarm all the tracks individually. Is this the best way to accomplish this? I'm not interested in sampling (rs5k) as the synths behavior might change with pitch/modulation etc.

If you want to record all drums simultaneosly, then play the whole part with some generic plugin and then expolode recorded midi item to separate items containing single pitch notes and drag those items to your synths. Or if you're plnning to use this setup later, you can use some midi routing plugins and separate input midi by channels.

Ah I didn't think of the channel concept... that's not bad at all, I could make a template in my drum controller just for this concept... Hm, something to think about. Thanks I think I will try that next time!

You can set multiple synths on a single track that read different MIDI channels, as an additional option (if you want to keep the MIDI all in one piece for example). Depending on the synths, you can then route out to individual audio tracks for mixing as desired...

With midi drums it is generally not necessary to use separate Midi channels for each drum. The deciding factor is what the synth requires. Some have a single type of drum (conga for example) mapped all the way up and down the keyboard as a single program. If you have the each drum mapped that way in the synth, then, yes, each drum sound will need a separate Midi channel. But the more common way, and the way defined in the General Midi standard, is to have the different drums on different midi notes within the same program. The standard channel for this setup is having all these drums (notes) on Midi channel 10. This presents a bit of a problem for mixing the drum levels though. There is one and only one midi volume control for each midi channel. So if you turn up one drum, all the other drums on that same channel 10 also are turned up. There are 2 possible approaches to solving this problem. One way is to feed the audio returned from the synth from each drum into different separate Reaper channels. Once it is audio, it is mixed just like any other audio channels. This works well for virtual synth drums and for hardware synths with multiple audio outputs. The other way to use velocity scaling on the Midi signal before it is sent to the Synth. The is the only reasonable option if using a hardware synth with only 1 or 2 audio outputs. Here's how I do it: In my setup I record Roland E-Drums to a single midi track. From there I create sends to several different midi tracks, one for kick, one for snare, one for hat, etc. I use a Midi note-filter plugin on each of these tracks so only the correct note(s) for that drum get into the track. Then I use a velocity scaler plugin (with the vel. controls shown in the mixer) to set the level of this drum. All these submix midi tracks are in a folder. The parent folder then routes the midi from all the child tracks out to the hardware synth. The volume fader for this parent track can be mapped to be a Midi volume control if you wish, so it will act as a master volume control for the entire drum kit. Anyway, the hardware synth returns stereo audio drums, which I mix and tweak using the velocity controls mentioned above. Once it's sounding right, I simply record the stereo drum mix into a new track, then mute and hide all the midi drum tracks discussed above. Virtual Synths are *SO* much simpler. But at least this should give you an idea of some ways to deal with drum mixing...