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PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:21 pm
by chunkyfatboy
Okay so I have had my MegaDrum built by Dmitri himself (Thanks BTW!) for over 4 months now. I just recently purchased Yamaha 3 Zone + Choke PCY 135 and PCY 155 cymbals.

I am having major trouble getting beyond one sound produced by each cymbal, it seems not to detect any of the other 2 zones or the choke whatsoever.

I have tried alterin5g Dmitri's settings posted by himself: (heres the post)

dmitri

Here are the settings for the Ride input to load with MDM:
Attachment:
pcy135.zip [760 Bytes]
Downloaded 14 times


I only set HighLevels, Thresholds and Notes to get separation between 3 zones. I didn't touch any 'dynamics' settings and of course you may want other notes set to trigger desired sounds.

Also, I have tried his 3 way zone cymbal support file and searching through the forums only to find answers that don't quite suite my needs. I am running Addictive Drums and am trying to get the edge bow and bell plus the choke working on my ride. I need the notes to be (since default MegaDrum is two octaves higher) C4, C#4, D4, D#4 respectively for the edge, bell, shaft, and choke.

CURRENT SETTINGS:
The same ones that Dmitri had posted for his PSY135 cymbals

Head/Bow
Note 53 F3
Channel 10
Function Normal
Curve Log 1
Compression 0
Level shift 0
Xtalk level 4
xtalk group 0
threshold 30
gain 4
high level 386
retrigger mask 8
dynlevel 12
dyntime 24
minscan 20
type dual or 3way yamaha

Rim/Edge
same as above only difference is the note output and switch as specified

Note D#3
Type Switch

3rd Zone
Note 58 A#3
Alt Note A#3
Pressroll Note A#3
Dampened Note D#3
Threshold 10

the only thing I can think of is that my previous set up which needed really high crosstalk and low gains etc because they were WAY To hot (constructed single piezos I attached to pots n pans) and mayyybee those settings transferred over in such a way making it impossible to detect nearby vibrations.

I am assuming I am doing something wrong and i hope it is not my cymbal and I know it is not the MegaDrum because dmitri built it, but I am patient and willing to listen to any advice Dmitri or anyone else has! thanks! If you post your settings also Id be willing to try them!

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Fri Dec 21, 2012 11:29 pm
by dmitri
Raise Threshold on the Edge until you get choke when you press the edge switch.
Also, see http://www.megadrum.info/content/settin ... one-cymbal

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:42 am
by chunkyfatboy
I am trying the posted settings now, I will post an update very soon with the results, I appreciate the fast reply and will respond quickly!

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:17 am
by chunkyfatboy
I have tried the settings in http://www.megadrum.info/content/settin ... one-cymbal. It is still only receiving one signal total despite the difference in notes of edge, bow and bell notes as well as a different dampened note for the specific choke.

What i am trying to do is set lets say my PCY135 Yamaha Cymbal to Addictive Drums Crash 1. I want the edge and the bow to be the same note to act as a normal crash sound, then the pressed choke note will stop this sound. Also I want the bell to trigger a completely different note that will sound a tambourine because addictive drums does not have a bell for a crash.

Currently I set it up as so:

CH08: CrashB
MNote: F5 77
Note: F5 77
ANote: F5 77
PNote: F5 77
Channel: 10
Function: Normal
Curve: Log1
ComprLvl: 0
LvlShift: 0
Xtalk: 0
XtalkGrp: 0
Threshold: 30
Gain: 4
HiLvlAuto: Yes
HighLevel: 992
Retrigger: 8
DynLevel: 12
DynTime: 24
MinScan: 20
Dual Head: Yes

Ch09 CrashE
MNote: F5 77
Note: F5 77
ANote: F5 77
PNote: F5 77
Channel: 10
Function: Normal
Curve: Log1
ComprLvl: 0
LvlShift: 0
Xtalk: 0
XtalkGrp: 0
Threshold: 10
Gain: 4
HiLvlAuto: Yes
HighLevel: 427
Retrigger: 8
DynLevel: 12
DynTime: 24
MinScan: 20
Type: Switch
MBNote: B2 47
BNote: B2 47
ABNote: B2 47
DBNote: F#4 66
PBNote: B2 47
DualMidPoint: x
DualMidWidth: x
BThreshold: 8

I am trying this current setup on a PCY135 running through the MegaDrum USB Midi through Reaper into Addictive Drums. These are my settings, any advice on what I am doing wrong would be helpful, I tried the website advice and did the SetAllEdgeSW and SetAllBellSW.

I am very patient and hope that dmitri or another avid MegaDrummer could help me out, Thanks guys!

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 12:29 pm
by dmitri
1. Don't try to do 2 things at the same time. First make sure you have a separation between bow and edge zone before setting them to the same note.
2. If you don't get choke when you press the edge switch or you don't get edge triggering then you have to raise Threshold on the edge just as I advised you in the previous post.

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:06 pm
by chunkyfatboy
Okay I will start raising the threshold here as soon as I get out of work to start trying to detect the Edge switch. Also I will try to start making a separation, I guess this is where I get confused.

I read in one of your other posts concerning a similar problem to use differences in HighLevels, Thresholds and Notes to get separation between 3 zones. I know what the notes are, but is the threshold the lowest point to activate and is the high levels the highest point it will reach?

Again, thanks for responding so quickly! I will try messing with those settings as soon as I get home and post right afterwards.

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:29 pm
by dmitri
I suggest you to read http://www.megadrum.info/content/megadrum-configuration carefully to understand what the different settings are and what they are for.

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 7:54 am
by chunkyfatboy
I have used the advice in http://www.megadrum.info/content/settin ... one-cymbal. and read the configuration settings. I have now resorted to using MegaDrum Managers MIDI Log, and its starting to shed some light on what the megadrums thinking. I still don't understand how my Dbnote manages to override absolutely everything. Its been about 4 hours straight of messing with settings and I am determined to figure this out. What i have figured out is that my dampened note overrides everything despite if its on 0 (disabled) or not and with 0 threshold on the bell zone. I read somewhere that PCY155's don't even have a 3rd zone hit but I am triggering this constantly in my midi log with no rim head or choke on offs. I have also raised the threshold on the edge to no avail (this was advised to start detecting choke). Only when I lower the threshold on the bow to 1 do I start reading anything, when I raise it nothing happens either when i clamp the choke. I am trying these settings on both my PCY135 and 155 and receiving the same problem of constantly getting the DBnote even if it is disabled or set to the default Head/bow note.

In short, everything is still only registering in my Addictive Drums as one single produced note. Everything shifts to the DBnote despite it beings disabled or set to a note with a variety of thresholds. Wherever I hit it, the dbnote overrides everything and is the only constant note produced.

I have read multiple threads on this subject and still I feel I am missing something as to why my cymbals are only registering one note (in my case I set the 3rd zone to bell). I am trying to make a ride have a Shaft, tip, choke, and bell. At this point I don't mind giving up on the choke if the rest would work properly.

Biggest problem is getting anything beyond one signal even with the dual / 3 way yamaha and switch settings on with different notes in each head/bow rim/edge and 3rd zone. I have also used the set all edgesw and setallbellsw multiple times to no avail.

Any advice is greatly greatly appreciated.

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 12:15 pm
by dmitri
You're again doing multiple things at the same time.

Set BThreshold to 0 to disable 3rd zone triggering/get rid of Dampened note triggering.

Re: PCY135 and PCY155 Help Please, Thanks!

PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:07 pm
by chunkyfatboy
I set the Bthreshold now to 0 to disable the 3rd zone/dampening, I had tried this before and now it only reads rim hits or head hits depending on which on threshold is lower, if the head/bow is lower threshold it will play that note only on all three parts of my cymbal, if i lower the threshold of the rim/edge more than the head/bow that seems to take over the whole thing and only produce rim hits. If I happen to raise the thresholds to the recommended 42 for bow 30 for the head/edge and 0 for the third zone, then I am only left with rim hits on all three parts, again.

I am using a a system file that dmitri had used for his PCY135 on my PCY155, i found it in an old thread meant to support PCY155/135's

Also only a setting of 1-5 threshold for my head/bow seems to be the only way I can produce any sort of choke notes on my MIDI log. I have also done the extremes of really high thresholds as well.

Zone separation is where I am at now it seems.

Thanks for your assistance and quick reply