Multiple chick triggering

[macca2004]

Just got back from holidays today...bit jet lagged, but must tinker with my megadrum!!!

I'm setting my hihat pedal at the moment. Its a Jobeky controller.

The two problems I am having is..

1. When the pedal is depressed halfway down I get multiple chick notes..
2. When I press down on pedal (for chick) I get two (or more) chicks rather than one.

It seems like a problem with the pedal (short/long) threshold levels but much twiddling does not completely remove the problem.

Help needed on correct setting of the threshold setting..pls

Otherwise pedal action is pretty responsive.

Not sure if I should post setting questions in hardware or software sections??

[dmitri]

There was a whole saga about this - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=716. Multiple chicks in half depressed position has to do with implemented "soft chicks".

[macca2004]

Yes I did read that but ......

I'm not talking about a single chick being sent when the pedal is partially raised, what is happening is multiple high velocity chicks being sent as the pedal passes thru the half position.. I was wondering if there is a setting such as retrigger which stops a chick being played so soon after a previous chick. Or even better an option to turn it off altogether. Generally drummers don't play chicks very fast anyway....a maximum of maybe 4 in a second...

This effect of a "soft chick" being sent when the pedal is half open is not natural in my opinion. I sometimes like to play with the the hi-hat partially open, but these involuntary soft chicks are just spoiling the whole effect for me.

Also is there a reason why 2 chicks are sent on a standard pedal stomp?

*EDIT Just to clarify...If the pedal is half open and is then closed quickly then a lower velocity chick should be sent...what is happening at the moment is the chick is sent while the hihat is still in the half open position...this is not a natural operation of a h-ihat....the cymbals have to touch to make a chick...and how can they if they are still half open?

[dmitri]

Yes I did read that but ......

I'm not talking about a single chick being sent when the pedal is partially raised, what is happening is multiple high velocity chicks being sent as the pedal passes thru the half position.. I was wondering if there is a setting such as retrigger which stops a chick being played so soon after a previous chick. Or even better an option to turn it off altogether. Generally drummers don't play chicks very fast anyway....a maximum of maybe 4 in a second...

I'll look into it.

This effect of a "soft chick" being sent when the pedal is half open is not natural in my opinion. I sometimes like to play with the the hi-hat partially open, but these involuntary soft chicks are just spoiling the whole effect for me.

Can ask you, gabriel1712 and anyone interested to discuss it and come up with a set of scenarios how a HH pedal is usually being played and what types of CC messages/chicks/splashes should be produced?

Also is there a reason why 2 chicks are sent on a standard pedal stomp?

No, unless the pedal produces out of sequence readings, just like gabriel1712 had in the before mentioned topic.

*EDIT Just to clarify...If the pedal is half open and is then closed quickly then a lower velocity chick should be sent...what is happening at the moment is the chick is sent while the hihat is still in the half open position...this is not a natural operation of a h-ihat....the cymbals have to touch to make a chick...and how can they if they are still half open?

Did you play with LngChckTh and ShrtChckTh settings?

[macca2004]

I played around with the short/long threshold level...and although there was some improvement...the playability of chicks was still pretty poor.

I don't know how the cc values are allocated, but in my opinion the hi-hat should react like this.

Consider fully open as 127 and closed as 0 midi values. The velocity level should equal the open level. If the pedal is fully open (127) and then stomped closed the velocity level of the chick should be 127...if the pedal is half open (64) and then quickly closed the velocity of the chick should be 64. In anycase the chick should never fire unless the pedal value = 0 (+/- a predetermined amount).

You will probably need some sort of speed threshold level to define how fast the pedal is closing.

[dmitri]

I played around with the short/long threshold level...and although there was some improvement...the playability of chicks was still pretty poor.

Can you make a screen shot from MIDI-OX for these 4 situations?
1. Stomp the pedal from fully open to fully closed so that I could see intermediate CC messages.
2. Same as above but when pressing the pedal not too fast.
3&4. Same as two above but from half closed position.

I don't know how the cc values are allocated, but in my opinion the hi-hat should react like this.

Consider fully open as 127 and closed as 0 midi values. The velocity level should equal the open level. If the pedal is fully open (127) and then stomped closed the velocity level of the chick should be 127...if the pedal is half open (64) and then quickly closed the velocity of the chick should be 64. In anycase the chick should never fire unless the pedal value = 0 (+/- a predetermined amount).

My guess is that gabriel1712 will not agree with you.

[macca2004]

OK, I will post midiox screen grabs...in the meantime i have set the short/long chick thresholds to 0&127 which in effect switches off the soft chicks....I do still get the occasional random chick when the pedal is in or passing through the half open point but i will look into that later.

The "double chicks" were due to my hi-hat cymbal triggering a very low hit when closing as I have a moving hi-hat rather than a fixed pedal. I had to increase the threshold level on the cymbal to combat this.

[gabriel1712]

Yes I did read that but ......

I'm not talking about a single chick being sent when the pedal is partially raised, what is happening is multiple high velocity chicks being sent as the pedal passes thru the half position.. I was wondering if there is a setting such as retrigger which stops a chick being played so soon after a previous chick. Or even better an option to turn it off altogether. Generally drummers don't play chicks very fast anyway....a maximum of maybe 4 in a second...

You're describing exactly what I experienced. The double chick issue is as far as I'm concerned a 'false' soft chick followed by the 'real' chick. Mind you the first is unwanted, not the second. The 'false' soft chick is caused by the CC values momentarily reversing when you depress semi-softly on the pedal (probably what you refer to as half). The normal CC value of read-out would climb steadily like: 1-23-43-68-82-95 and result in a soft chick. The 'false' soft chick occurs if there is even a slight decline in the CC value chain like this: 1-23-43-68-67-82-95. In this case a double chick occurs.

Mind you, these reversed values are NOT a result of uneven depression of the pedal. It's has to do with the way the same input can return slight different output.

I think the problem can be reduced if the soft chick production was more reluctant, eg. using a delay to 'listen' if it's a genuine soft chick or just a passing freak of math. Also, only a reversal of CC values above 50 will produce the 'false' soft chick. Raise the CC border so only values above 80 can pull a soft chick.

This effect of a "soft chick" being sent when the pedal is half open is not natural in my opinion. I sometimes like to play with the the hi-hat partially open, but these involuntary soft chicks are just spoiling the whole effect for me.

Acoustic hihats have a tilted bottom cymbal and soft chicks are made, not just by gently closing the two half all together but also by making semi-open contact between the tilted bottom cymbal and the straight top cymbal. But I agree soft chick in the current coding is much too strong and therefore seems brutally out of place ether way.

I don't know how the cc values are allocated, but in my opinion the hi-hat should react like this.

Consider fully open as 127 and closed as 0 midi values. The velocity level should equal the open level. If the pedal is fully open (127) and then stomped closed the velocity level of the chick should be 127...if the pedal is half open (64) and then quickly closed the velocity of the chick should be 64. In anycase the chick should never fire unless the pedal value = 0 (+/- a predetermined amount).

My guess is that gabriel1712 will not agree with you.

Like Macca, I think speed is the all important parameter with distance (Open-close) only acting as a ceiling. And I do agree soft chicks are too strong in the present code. But I also believe it would be a mistake only to make soft chick possible near 0 (CC=127). We've been there and it was impossible to chick playing with heel down. Have you ever attemped a soft chick with heel up without ending on the floor, legs up? To make heel down soft chick possible you need atleast CC-range 80-127. I really think the solution is to change the soft chick range from the current 50-127 to 80-127 and also aim at cutting the velocity return from soft chick in half. (Half the present punch).

[gabriel1712]

By the way, I eliminated most of my double chicks by raising the LowLvl setting. My 'naturale' values was Lowlvl: 29 HighLvl: 159. I changes Lowlvl significately to 90 and that took care of 90% of the double chicks. Dunno why but give it a try.

[macca2004]

I don't know how the cc values are allocated, but in my opinion the hi-hat should react like this.

Consider fully open as 127 and closed as 0 midi values. The velocity level should equal the open level. If the pedal is fully open (127) and then stomped closed the velocity level of the chick should be 127...if the pedal is half open (64) and then quickly closed the velocity of the chick should be 64. In anycase the chick should never fire unless the pedal value = 0 (+/- a predetermined amount).

I just get the feeling we are over complicating things a little bit here. I understand that on "normal" hi-hat the two cymbals touch before the zero point....which is why I said in my previous post that there should be a setting similar to Closedlvl which determines at which point the cymbals are considered to be in the closed region. In fact I wonder if Closedlvl can also be used for this purpose.

Obviously we are not going to get an exact replica of a hi-hat cymbal as there are other factors as well as pedal start position or speed to consider, such as the weight of the cymbal and player technique which cant be easily emulated..

Most sample banks are very poor in providing correct samples for these articulations anyway.

On another note..I switched from my Jobeky controller back to my Roland FD8...The Jobeky's output is all over the place compared to the Roland....how's yours?