DIY "digital" pads and Megadrum

[ignotus]

Hi,

I don't know if you've been following the upcoming release of Roland's new flagship module and kit, but one of the new features are these new "digital" pads that can sense when you place your hand on the mesh head to do rimclicks and thus send out a different note to a rim hit or rimshot. Right now, with Megadrum, you can have 3 articulations; i.e. head hits, rimclicks/rim hits (you have to choose one or the other) and rimshots (hitting head + rim). It seems apparent that the "magic" sensor in the pad is just a capacitive sensor plate that gets activated when your hand gets near it.

Of course, I've been looking up how one might make such a switch and it looks like it can be easily and cheaply done with an Arduino Nano or even an ATtiny chip. The capacitive sensor would act as a switch that closes when you rest your hand on the mesh head, and you can then trigger the 'Dampened note' - a rimclick. But here's the rub: such a pad would be piezo/piezo/switch, and I can't see how, with current firmware, we could get these four articulations working properly. It would require using two stereo inputs of the module, say head and rim (piezo/piezo) going to one input, and the capacitive switch (plus the rim piezo again) to the other. Say you configure each input as piezo/piezo and piezo/switch, if you activate the switch with your hand and tap the rim for a rimclick (dampened note), you'd also be getting the rim hit note from the 1st input. The only way I can think of to resolve this is that, when the dampened note is activated in input 2, the rim note of input 1 is cancelled. This would require a firmware change that links 2 inputs to specifically produce this result for this specific type of pad...

It's a bit of a long shot, but if we could get a working pad using this and post a mini tutorial on how to do it, I think it would be a great selling point for Megadrum - just saying it supports the ability to mimic Roland's new "cutting edge" pad features would be a huge feather in its cap.

So, Dmitri, do you reckon this could be a possibility? And fellow Megadrummers, would you like to see this happen and have a go at building one of these pads?

[dmitri]

I'll read it over later when I have a bit more time to understand what you are suggesting.

[fankelomia]

As a side note - there is a possibility to achieve 'cancelation' inside the VST/DAW.

At least in BFD3 there is a 'choke'-articulation available for every snare (that i used so far). To fiddle around with a solution for a 'zone-sensing' (not really 'positional-sensing') snare that is not utilizing a center-cone-trigger solution i use two instances of BFD3 inside Mainstage.

One instance has hit-, rim-, rimshot- and choke-articulation of a snare mapped to individual midi-notes and the other instance has the same snare but only the half-edge-articulation mapped to the same midi-note as the choke-articulation in the first instance.
This gives me the possibility to take an otherwise perfectly set-up snare and add an extra trigger for the half-edge articulation. The 'fiddling' comes down to finding the sweet spot where i want the extra trigger to actually pick up the hit, completely disregarding if that hit is also being picked up by the head- or rim-trigger, since they will be cancelled out by the choke-articulation being the same as the half-edge articulation in terms of triggered midi-note.
Of course this also depends on the VST preferring the choke-articulation over any other articulation of an instrument.

I am far from done figuring this out and am also keeping the possibility in mind to have every articulation of the snare in the first instance also being the choke-articulation of the snare in the second instance (BFD3 lets you map multiple notes to one articulation).
This might be BFD3 specific - it's the only VST i own - but since i am short on time and it might take a while till i can 'publish' my final solution in the forum, maybe someone can use this info sooner (and better) than me.

[Jkrummri]

Hi
This is what I am working at putting together.
I'm using BFD3 and SD2 as my main sound source. And getting a Megadrum 56 full kit.
I am going to use a Arduino not sure what board will go in the case I have about 5 different ones to use.
But I am going to use capcative touch to midi note to trigger the mute note artuclation on drums and symbols.
I am converting my tama star classics and am selling a ton my Meinl symbols and changing to Zildjain L80s
I have a 3 d printer to make custom mounts for the triggers and capcative touch for the symbols and
Drums.

I am doing the Roland center mount standard and rim activated touch for the toms
and rim and center with a extra trigger to the snair and touch on the rim to mute the other 2 articulations. Once it is up and running going to play around with the head touch but I know the rim will work
I am doing this in the mid mapping in BFD3 and SD2 so not worrying to much about Megadrum upgrades

My crashes and toms are single zone so I should be able to do one plug
With a break out in my inclosure. 2 plugs for 2 zone ride and snair
I am using the pearl tru trac kick pad for me it has the best feel.
Sorry I kind of got on a roll explaining this

I Am going to create a build post but wanted to give you a idea how I am useing capcative touch

[Jkrummri]

have a look at this
https://www.adafruit.com/products/1362

it is a very little stand alone board it will tale 5 capacitive inputs and pass through to a switch on a ground
I ordered all 3 of there capacitive boards 2 that use Arduino and one stand alone
the stand alone will do 5 contacts and I think it was like 6 dollars.
The Roland choke is a switch so I cant wait to see if this will work also on there white paper it said if you raise the sensitivity
it can be used as a proximity sensor so I might be able to mount it right under a drum head
so if you are using metal symbols ( Zildjain L80) like I am no ugly choke ring
2 of the stand alone boards and the hall effect sensor for the high hat for under 20 dollars crazy control with the Megadrum
thank you YouTube and thank you Megadrum

[maru_engineering]

I am supporting this request as well; see thread:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3084

[dmitri]

I will look into adding support for piezo/piezo/switch cymbals.

[maru_engineering]

And I will provide info regarding the capacitive sensor I found to be usable for snare...

[jungleb]

And I will provide info regarding the capacitive sensor I found to be usable for snare...

Hi there! Looking forward to your results as I want to do a similar project

[Sharkuel]

Hello, old post I know, but is there any development?