Hotspot and general triggering issues

[Piezo]

After a couple of months of research, work and an awful lot of swearing that I would never touch my drums ever again, I am proud to annouce my first diy-build.

It consists of handelsbu's (german company) trigger-mount-system (similar to drum-tecs design), roland cones, roland piezos and megadrum.


Here's the problem though: On the one hand I'm suffering from severe hot spot issues, on the other hand at the outer part of the mesh-head (near the shell) I don't get any signal at all. I've tried everything that came to my mind to solve this problem, that is finding a balance between enough sensivitiy (to get a signal at every part of the meshhead) and reducing the hot spot in the very centre of my drum.


The cone extends approximately 2mm above the rim of the drum. I've tried various mesh-head tensions....haven't been lucky so far, though.



I use almost exactely the same design as drum-tecs diabolo series do. How come they don't have any problems!! I even use drum-tec's design meshheads.


I haven't configured my megadrum yet, as I'm still into sorting out all possible trigger-issues. So I'm a real noob megadrum-wise. So please go easy on me





Thanks in advance,

Piezo

[ignotus]

I haven't configured my megadrum yet

You're not likely to get good triggering out of the box, particularly with diy pads. You definitely need to tinker extensively with the settings before concluding that there's something wrong with your hardware. Your problem with a hotspot and no signal around the perimeter *could* be a combination of the cone being pressed too hard into the head and a threshold value that's too high. You also might need to cool your pads down with a voltage divider.

While commercial modules may work pretty well before getting into tweaking (with their own brand pads), megadrum requires a certain amount of fine-tuning before getting the right response, and this in turn requires getting familiarised with what the parameters do.

I'd sort out the high levels first to see if you need to cool your pads down, and then work on parameters like threshold, retrigger, dyntime, curve, etc.

There are so many parameters that you could probably slap a piezo on a bacon sandwich and get it to trigger a smooth drum roll, from crumb to crust...

[dmitri]

I can't see how "severe hot spot issues" is related to MegaDrum settings so it does seem to me like a pads' issue. That said, because of range of settings in MegaDrum, it does require some fine tuning for perfect triggering.

[ignotus]

What I meant was that it's easier to iron out bad triggering/identify what's wrong with your pads with the help of the parameters in MD. Of course, sometimes the hardware needs adjusting (though my bacon sandwich 3-way ride thinks differently) but just focusing on that and leaving the module at default values is bound to lead to frustration. True, it's likely that the hotspot issue is hardware-related (hot piezo/cone pressed too tight/whatever), but unless you mess around -at least- with high level, you're just shooting in the dark.

[Piezo]

Hi,

thank's for your replies! I've followed dimitri's guidline on configuring a pad. (setting threshold to 80 etc.). However even with all the parameters set as dmitri recommended (with the goal of reducing the parameters until one gets a wrong note), I get a false note every 3 or forth hit - without having reduced one single parameter yet, though!

Whats wrong with my kit?

[dmitri]

Hi,

thank's for your replies! I've followed dimitri's guidline on configuring a pad. (setting threshold to 80 etc.).

However even with all the parameters set as dmitri recommended (with the goal of reducing the parameters until one gets a wrong note), I get a false note every 3 or forth hit - without having reduced one single parameter yet, though!

Whats wrong with my kit?

I thought your problem was a severe hot spot in the centre and bad sensitivity near the rim. What is your problem exactly?

[Piezo]

Well, both to be exact. On the one hand my drum suffers from a severe triggering-unbalance in terms of sensivity (strong hot spot, no signal near the rim), on the other hand I'm getting wrong notes every 3 or forth hit (C# instead of D if I remember correctly). I thought maybe these two things are connected in some way.

I just don't see how these problems could result from the hardware-components I used to convert my drum. The cone is Roland, the piezo is Roland and the mounting-platform so far has only received positive critics from its users.

[dmitri]

Well, both to be exact. On the one hand my drum suffers from a severe triggering-unbalance in terms of sensivity (strong hot spot, no signal near the rim), on the other hand I'm getting wrong notes every 3 or forth hit (C# instead of D if I remember correctly).

With the limited description of the problem I can only presume you have Alternate and/or Pressroll Notes different from Main Note.

[Piezo]

Thanks for your quick reply. No I don't. Everything's set to D2.

If you could tell me what specific information you need, maybe I can put some more light on the matter. So far I can only tell you about the "symptoms" of my drum. As to what might cause these problems I really have no idea.

[ignotus]

Aren't Roland piezos 35mm in diameter? I have 27mm ones and they were far too hot. I humbly suggest you first ascertain whether they need cooling or not using the highlevel parameter and then go about doing the rest.