Pad sensitivity not that great for medium and hard hits

[ignotus]

I think the foam in those side-mounted triggers you show is too soft; what's more, the column you have on top of the piezo is way too thick, .e.g in the last pic of the triggers. None of them look like they'd trigger very reliably.

Do you recalibrate high level and threshold each time you change the trigger setup? What about after installing the pots? This is very important, otherwise the results are meaningless.

As you say, yes, I had similar problems with mid-range to strong hits, and they were solved (night and day in my case) by installing a trimmer or pot. I use 10k and 50k trimmers. Yeah, sensitivity goes down, but that's why it's important to recalibrate high level and threshold. If your piezos are exceptionally hot for some reason, it's nothing a trimmer can't solve.

[drumsdibums]

what's more, the column you have on top of the piezo is way too thick

By thick you mean high i guess? > Distance from Piezo to the mesh..?

I had made like 7 different triggers designs...like I said all behaved quite similar... Of course I adjusted the settings if needed... especially high level.
Threshold I could leave at 4 usually and have quite sensitive Pads (they only missed the very lightest hits) If I raise threshold above 10 the Pads get less sensitive and will miss soft hits... so that is not a good option. With the Pot installed. If I remember correctly, when I turn the pot down (without changing the settings first) the pad gets quiter and less sensitive. The "window" moves to the middle ground. Shouldn't the pot affect only the hard hits but leave the sensitivity for soft hits intact? If I adjust the settings afterwards I need to lower high value. It gets harder to hit high levels...but the result is still not that great and I really need to hit hard to get softer hits registered.

The response and behaviour of the various triggers differ only very slightly...the main Issues about no reliable dynamics and easily reaching max value as well as the issue with the squashed notes remain unchanged... even with the rubber pad design...

I used no foam (piezo directly to mesh), very dense 3-5mm thick black foam (harder than a mouse mat) the 3M Sandingblock Foam middle density, soft kitchen sponge foam. I don't see or understand what should be totally wrong with these triggers? If you have a look at my settings posted at the beginning of this thread...do they look ok? I think I had many values except threshold quite a bit higher (dynlevel 12 dyntime 16 minscan 20) but this did not really change much for the sensitivity as well the squashed notes issues I had.

If your piezos are exceptionally hot for some reason, it's nothing a trimmer can't solve.

this is what I have guessed....If you have a look at the numbers, could that be the case? That this piezos are simply to hot/wrong for this application?
I might have misunderstood your statement...Did you mean I could cool down ANY Piezo...? (english is not my first language)
Would be cool if I could get a Feedback from Dimitri since he will know what voltage level etc the megadrum modul wants to see.
I posted the piezo to audio interface results in my last post...I'am pretty sure that these values dBu etc are correct.

How the megadrum reacts... it looks like it overdrives with any value of a hit with a force of around 30%.

To put it in other words:
If I could make it/have it in a way that the triggers are a tiny tiny bit more responsive (1-5% more responsive) for soft hits AND especially have them in a way that a full force hit (100%) would result in what I have now with a hit of around 20% and then scale that evenly to a MIDI Value of 1-127 then I would have reliable and evenly distributed dynamics.

[ignotus]

By thick you mean high i guess? > Distance from Piezo to the mesh..?

That's right. For side-mounted triggers you want it to be about 0.5 - 1 cm thick to be more sensitive. Also, a stiffer material than sanding block foam improves sensitivity.

Shouldn't the pot affect only the hard hits but leave the sensitivity for soft hits intact? If I adjust the settings afterwards I need to lower high value. It gets harder to hit high levels...but the result is still not that great and I really need to hit hard to get softer hits registered.

In my experience pots also affect lower sensitivities too. If it's too hard to reach the highest velocities and soft hits aren't picked up, you just need to raise gain and adjust high level and threshold accordingly.

.Did you mean I could cool down ANY Piezo...?

I should think that any normal 27 mm piezo, yes.

If I could make it/have it in a way that the triggers are a tiny tiny bit more responsive (1-5% more responsive) for soft hits AND especially have them in a way that a full force hit (100%) would result in what I have now with a hit of around 20% and then scale that evenly to a MIDI Value of 1-127 then I would have reliable and evenly distributed dynamics.

In my case, pots (trimmers) solved this. I think a 250k pot is waaay too high a value. The slightest turn will crank it up by several tens of kOhms, and what's needed here is much more gradual increases to fine tune it. I think a 10k to 25k pot would be best. When I use 10k trimmers, I'd say the sweet spot is somewhere in between 4k and 8k, depending on the pad. Using a 250k pot is like stabbing in the dark. And just to clarify, I wire mine like this: lateral pin to input, wiper pin (middle one) to piezo, 3rd pin to ground.

[drumsdibums]

I will try out the suggestions of the last post:

- try to find some other foam (are generic Mouspads good?) and make them less high (thick)
- buy some 5k / 10k / 25 k potentiometers
something like these?
http://www.reichelt.com/ACP-Trimmer-6mm-SMD/ACP-6-L-10K/3/index.html?ACTION=3&LA=2&ARTICLE=110218&GROUPID=5259&artnr=ACP+6-L+10K&SEARCH=%252A or these? http://www.reichelt.com/Praezisionstrimmer/64P-10K/3/index.html?ACTION=3&LA=2&ARTICLE=2683&GROUPID=3129&artnr=64P-10K&SEARCH=%252A

Buy some different Piezos, different sizes, different specs...

But still:
-> What would be other areas i could look at?
It seems that no one think that there could be something wrong with my modul (or with the settings) that would cause these issues, and that all my issues might relate to each other???

I am asking this (again) because it kind of works... but never right. And all the various trigger designs I tested behaved really similar despite beeing quite different.

Even with the rubber pads which needed more/different adjustments I had the same problems.
Since I could have many settings (like threshold, dyntime dynlevel) quite low without any after hits or other problems... I suspected the trigger design to work quite good/correct... but maybe the piezo was just not suitable for megadrum?? and overdriving the inputs of the module?

What about the Volt measurements and +dBu Values I did in my previous post? Doesn't that seem to by way to high?
What Voltage peak to peak does the megadrum modul want to see?

I wire mine like this: lateral pin to input, wiper pin (middle one) to piezo, 3rd pin to ground.

I had the piezo to the left pin, middle to the jack(module) and both ground wires (from module and from piezo) to the right pin.
Do you think it makes a difference?

[ignotus]

try to find some other foam (are generic Mouspads good?) and make them less high (thick)

I suppose they might do. The material should be a little stiffer than the sanding block foam.

something like these?
http://www.reichelt.com/ACP-Trimmer-6mm ... ARCH=%252A or these? http://www.reichelt.com/Praezisionstrim ... ARCH=%252A

I'd get the first ones, multi-turn ones might be a bit of a pain; then again, they are more precise. So, whichever you prefer.

But still:
-> What would be other areas i could look at?
It seems that no one think that there could be something wrong with my modul (or with the settings) that would cause these issues, and that all my issues might relate to each other???

I am asking this (again) because it kind of works... but never right. And all the various trigger designs I tested behaved really similar despite beeing quite different.

Even with the rubber pads which needed more/different adjustments I had the same problems.
Since I could have many settings (like threshold, dyntime dynlevel) quite low without any after hits or other problems... I suspected the trigger design to work quite good/correct... but maybe the piezo was just not suitable for megadrum?? and overdriving the inputs of the module?

As I've said before, when you're DIYing all the parts of the trigger system, it can be very, very hard to hit the right combination. I reckon you got similar results out of several different setups because yes, your piezos are hot, but I also think that a properly tuned trimmer can sort that problem out. If after setting high level and threshold the dynamics are still all over the place, there isn't much you can do about that with other settings other than maybe adjust a custom curve - but there's still an underlying problem that is better addressed physically or with a pot; then you can fine tune things with the settings. I doubt there's a problem with the module. I'm no expert, but I think the module inputs are designed to scale down the voltage coming from the piezos to usable values. If your piezos were insanely hot enough to overwhelm the module, you'd be getting maxed out high levels all the time.

My suggestion is that you get the trimmers, redo the trigger with the stiffer foam and see how it goes and work on from there.

[drumsdibums]

Thanks Ignotus for all your helpful advises so far!

It will take some time to get the stuff here and try different parts out... hopefully this (potentiometer, probably different piezo and redo of the triggers) will solve my issues. Will report here later on...so stay tuned

[drumsdibums]

Update:

I tested out some triggers with different foam > 2-3mm Mousemat medium density and a second time with a piece of a Yoga Mat ca. 8mm relatively dense.
I used a 10k potentiometer with them, these worked as they should... > If I turn them down (with same settings) it gets quieter.

I had the Impression that it was maybe a bit better... but the Issues where still there.
But also: when I turn the trimmer the PAD gets really insensitive... I need to hit relatively hard so the modul registers a hit.
I need to have the Threshold at around 4 to have my Pads sensitive. Do I miss something or is Threshold the ONLY parameter that adjusts how sensitive for soft hits the Pad is? (I am talking about the sensitivity of the Pads...not what gets transmitted as 1-5 MIDI value)

However it might be that the culprit is not the trigger design but the handdrums I used.
Like I said earlier (here or in my other thread) the meshhead does not fit right on the handdrum.
I am not sure about this... I think I will buy a 10" Tom and check it out. > will update here:

Here is what I wrote in the other thread:

I am not sure... but it might be that using the handdrums for building meshpads like I suggested before is not such a good idea and could create issues with triggering...

The reason for that might be that the mesh heads do not fit well onto the handdrum since the rim is quite a bit thicker. Also the Tuners are quite weak and a pain in the xx... for tuning...

1) You can probably get some very inexpensive new Toms or source some old Toms on ebay and cut them in half > this might be only so slightly more expensive than the handdrums I suggested earlier.

2) You have already one mounting bracket.

3) most importantly...The Mesh will fit perfectly and you can properly tune them.

[CainArg]

Hi!

I'm new to this forum, I got a MD from Dimitri, awesome job!!!!!, recently and I'm doing a DIY for my 12 years old child.

Thanks Ignotus for your posts, I'm reading them careafully 'cause I'm having same issues here as drumsdibums has...

I think this one in particular is a great source for DIY triggers, fully explained. The most interesting part is that I realized that the piezo must bend a bit... Thanks for sharing this!!!

[sbonasuk]

A lot of my settings advice came from the ignotus posts, however have a read of this article

http://www.v-drumtips.com/piezos/

[drumsdibums]

Just want to point to here: Pads way too hot?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3315&start=20

similar topic and question than what i started here...with some images and graphics