Configuration of Yamaha PCY155

[Kokomo]

Hi everyone!

I recently finished my ARM STM32-based Megadrum-module with the positional sensing add-on board (Bought the full kit plus PS-board, assembled the housing myself). I managed to setup my drum-tec Diabolo snare (Positional sensing not quiet working yet). I received a brand new Yamaha PCY155 in the mail and since have been trying to get this 3-zone cymbal to work, without much success. I've read the threads on the forum since some people also had problems with that cymbal. I tried troubelshooting with those tips in mind and also performed the configuration as advised on the Megadrum homepage for yamaha style pads -without success. I'll try to explain how I start setting up the pad and the problems I get:

1) First, I plugged the pad into input 6, the Ride input on my module using a stereo cable. I do all configs using the MDM-programme. In MDM, I choose Ride and set it to "Dual/Yamaha 3way" and set the edge type to "Switch". First trying to get a separation between edge and bow, I disabled the 3rd zone by setting the 3rd zone threshold to 0 (I guess this parameter is sometimes called BThreshold in this forum?!?).

2) Using the Bow-Auto-High level, I see that my pad is very cold, by turnind Bow-Threshold to 30 and Edge and 3rd-Zone-Threshold to 0. I hit the bow with the velocity that I use maximally while playing and then read the settings from the MD. It says 106 with a gain setting of 1. So I upped the gain on the bow to 8 to end up with a high level value of ~ 400. I then disabled the auto high level button. To clarify, the adjustment trim pot on the cymbal is set to the highest gain the entire time.

3) Now I lowered the Bow threshold until I just get an separation between real hits and random hits from piezo noise. This the case at a threshold of 10 on the bow. At this time all other thresholds (edge and 3rd zone) are set to 0.

4) I now raise the Edge-threshold one by one while striking the edge until I see green or gray bars appearing in the "Visual Midi" dialogue. At the following setting I can get choke on/off behaviour (when touching with my hand) and trigger green bars upon striking the edge really hard. When striking the edge medium, I get a blue bar/Bow trigger:

Bow-Threshold: 10
Edge-Threshold: 24
3rd zone-Threshold: 0 (Note: I have to set all notes on the 3rd zone dialogue to zero, otherwise the color of the bars in the "Visual Midi" dialogue get changed around)

5) When I up the Edge-Threshold by one to 25 I get either a edge or bow trigger not depending on wether I strike the edge or bow. So effectively MD decides randomly which trigger to play. I can get good choke on/off behaviour upon touching the pad.

6) When I up the Edge-Threshold by one to 26 I get random choke on/offs without touching the pad at a rate about one message per second. I also get no zone separation between edge and bow. It seems random whether a hit is registered as edge or bow.

7) When I up the Edge-Threshold to 27 I still get random ghost choke on/offs. Now it is really rare that I get bow triggers. I mostly get edge triggers - not dependant on where I hit the pad!

8) When I up the Edge-threshold to 29 I get many choke on/off ghosts at a rate of ~3 ghosts per second, and mostly edge triggers - not dependant on where I strike the pad.

9) When I up the Edge-Threshold to 30 I stop getting choke on/off ghosts. I also loose the ability to trigger choke on/offs with my hand completely. when I strike the pad anywhere I get orange bars corresponding to the 3rd zone always followed by a choke on/off. I get absolutely no edge or bow triggers.To sum it up, I cannot find any setting which allow separation of the bow and the edge. In that parameter region in which I start getting edge triggers, the triggers seem to be random (not dependent on the position which I strike). I also start getting choke on/off ghosts while at the same time I can get wanted choke behaviour with my hand. The choke ghosts disappear but I also loose wanted choke ability and get only the disabled 3rd zone triggers upon striking the pad anywhere.
I cant make much sense of this behaviour.
Here is some additional info: I use input6 on the MD. The tip goes to pin31, the sleeve to pin32. The input jacks have a connection to the metal chassis (non-isolated jacks). I connect the Md via MDM using the MD-USB connection. I trigger Superior Drummer via Midi 1 of my RME fireface UCX audio interface. Superior drummer runs in standalone mode. I disabled the "Live Update" option in MDM as this sometimes semmed buggy. Attached is a screenshot of the last settings in MDM (Section 9 of this post).
Since I spent most of my time yesterday and today on that problem without much success, I really appreciate your help! If I did a newbie mistake, please point me to a relevant post. I searched the forums and read all I could find. If you need more info I'm happy to provide that.

Thanks for your time!

[angr77]

Hi!

Have you tried mylords.wars PCY150 config? You can download it from my library in syx file format. (the format you can use by load/save on each pad in MDM.

Link
http://powerhell.wordpress.com/about/zo ... d-library/

Angr77

[dmitri]

I suggest you to raise Gain on the Edge. This way you widen the working Threshold range for the separation between Bow and the Edge. You will also have to use higher Thresholds on the Edge for the separation.

[Kokomo]

Hi angr77, Hi Dmitri,

thanks for your replies! Yes, I tried mylords.wars PCY150 config and also the one from Dmitri if I'm not mistaken (PCY135) posted somewhere in this forum.
I will try to raise the edge gain more and concomitantly raise the edge threshold. I'll do this tomorrow and will post the status then.

This whole threshold thing is still not so clear to me, though. Let's look at the threee way yamaha cymbal. There is one piezo registering the velocity of a hit, and two switches - one for the bell, one for the edge. In a perfect world, when one hits the bow, the piezo registers the velocity of the hit and the AD-converter of the megadrum reads the voltage. I guess MD will read the voltage across those two switches quasi-simultaneously. The two switches will be open, so the MD will assign the velocity to the Bow-zone. If I now hit the edge, the the edge switch will the closed and the velocity read from the piezo will be assigned to the edge zone, triggering the edge note. The same is true for the bell. Is this correct?
Now, since the switches used in e drums are not perfect (or any mechanical switches for that matter), I guess they make/break contact upon a hit. So, the switch will not read open/closed (binary) but some arbitrary value while bouncing somewhere between the on/off state when being read by MD's AD-converter. So this is why one must introduce a threshold to be able to say above value x the switch is being read as closed, and below x the switch is open. Is this how the thresholds for Edge and 3rd zone are to be understood (Independant of each other)?
How does this work for the choke on/off? Is it correct, that the same threshold as for the edge is used in making the decision between switch open/closed? That means that in my case with all the ghost chokes appearing I should probably also raise the bow threshold, correct? I guess I will try it. However, I really like to set the bow threshold as low as possible, to be able to register very light hits. Well, anyways, I'm trying to get a good understanding what the parameters really do so I can solve my problem. If the above holds true, then I guess I could also explain the problems I'm having with a strong mechanical coupling/and or bad switch in the cymbal.
I'll keep you updated on the progress.

Again, thanks a lot for your help and time!

Chris

[dmitri]

Thresholds on switch inputs are there to measure voltage. 3way Yamaha cymbals have 10k resistor on the edge input and no resistor on the bell. Based on the voltage measured on the edge input against the Threshold and BThreshold MegaDrum decides if a hit is on the bow, the edge or the bell.
The switches on the e-cymbals are not perfect indeed in terms of sensitivity/hit position and require some force if it's on the edge or, especially, on the bell. If you get perfect on/off chokes when you press the edge or the bell switch but unreliable bow/edge or bow/bell hits separation it may in fact be mechanical problem. The bell switch is more susceptible to this mechanical problem and you can even find some DIY guides on internet about how to repair/improve bell triggering on 3waw cymbals.

[Russ15]

I have 3 pcy135's and the settings are pretty close to this on all 3.

bow:
xtalk:7
Curve: linear
Threshold:34
highlevel:974
retrigger:1
dynlevel:3
dyntime:36
minscan:40

edge:
xtalk:4
Curve: linear
Threshold:41
highlevel:940
retrigger:11
dynlevel:8
dyntime:36
minscan:40
bthreshold:12

The pot setting on the cymbals are all right in the middle. Hope that might help you out.

[Kokomo]

Hi,

just wanted to say thanks for everyone trying to help out. I finally found a setting which allowed an "ok" separation of edge and bow. The bell had to be hit really hard to make it sound, in fact too much for my liking. I've read some threads that this is to be expected from 3-way cymbals though.
Well, after all I sent the PCY-155 back. Maybe I'm expecting too much from the Yamaha...I don't know. I just wasn't very happy with it. It could've been a somewhat faulty unit, too. It seems like other users don't have problems with their PCY-155.

Cheers,

Christian

[dmitri]

Bell problem on 3 way cymbals, both Yamaha and Roland, is a well know issue. There are guides on Internet on how to fix it mechanically.