Megadrum settings and what they mean

[estregan]

Hey Dmitri,

I'm happy to say that we've completed the 22 channel input version of Megadrum and are now preparing to do a demo video of it. But now were faced with a new challenge...tweaking the settings to get the best playability out of our diy pads. Which leads me to ask what each setting is for, and what they do like threshold and retrigger. What effects will it do when I raise the value or lower them. Also, I'm puzzled about the levels setting, if I set the levels to auto levels, does that bypass the high level and the low level settings? Meaning they are only being used when the auto levels setting is set to "NO"? Why do we have levels from 0 to 1,023?

May I also suggest that there be crosstalk setting for each channel and not a global one?

Sorry for the many questions, its just hard to dial in on a particular setting when I really don't have any clue what they do.

Thanks!

[dmitri]

All input signals are measured between 0 and 1023.
Threshold level - signals above this level will be registered and, depending on how strong and how long ago previous signal was (some call it dynamic threshold) and crosstalk settings, produce MIDI signal. Any signal with this level will produce MIDI Note On with level 1(provided Curve type is not set to Max or Strong).
Retrigger - at least this number of milliseconds has to pass from previous hit for a new signal to be registered (to prevent machine gun)
Max level auto - if set to Yes, MegaDrum will set Max Level automatically when it detects a new strongest signal. Useful to quickly start playing with a new kit where you quickly want to find what max level signal every pad produces. For day to day use with the same kit/pads it's better set it to No and set Max Level manually.
Max Level - any signal with this level or above will produce MIDI Note On signal with level 127
Gain - if set to 0 signals are measured between 0 and ~+5V corresponding to 0 - 1023 in digital representation. If set to 8 signals are measured between 0 and ~+2V. All other settings are in between those two.

[dmitri]

About crosstalk setting per each input.... good idea, I will do this.

[estregan]

Thanks for the quick answers. Still a little bit confused but at least I got some ideas. I'm sure I'm going to get it as I tweak the megadrum more.

[estregan]

Hey Dmitri,

While you're at it implementing the crosstalk per input. I'd like to take the opportunity to ask for 2 more feature requests, hehe.

1. My TD12 and edrum both has scan time (per channel on TD12 and global on edrum). Maybe you can also add this per input channel. Here's the description of scan time from my TD12 manual.

scan time.JPG

2. Another feature of TD12 is mask time. Please add this too per input channel if you have time and if its not too much of a hassle.

mask time.JPG

These features helped me get the best playability on my diy pads. Thanks.

[dmitri]

Mask Time on Roland is the same thing as Retrigger on MegaDrum. Setting it too high will make it impossible to do very fast rolls.
To be honest I don't see real benefit of per input scan time.