ok thanks.all. To be honest I haven't used the x drum yet so as you say I expect it will become clearer when I play with it.
However the reason I love toontrack is it is so easy to use and although have good with computers I have spent too much of my life messing around with them. These days I struggle adding up the captcha sum at the bottom of this page
I do feel this ought to be simpler, after all in the real world it is very simple for a drummer to change velocity of the snare and sidestick.
Thanks again I will let you know how I got on and will probably need rescuing.