Missing notes on my Kick Drum

[causticveritas]

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[airflamesred]

Hurrah! Set Alt note and Pressroll note to 24 as well.

[causticveritas]

Thank you for the suggestion! I gave it a try but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

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[dmitri]

1. What is wrong with the triggering which we should see in the MIDI Log?
2. Why did you set Gain to 2 when you have HighLevel only 200? You don't get good dynamic range with this HighLevel.

Set Gain to 4 (which is default Gain).
Set HighLevel Auto to Yes
Set HighLevel to 64.

Hit the kick a few dozen time very hard. What level do you get in HighLevel after that?

[causticveritas]

1) I'm hitting the kick with roughly the same intensity and the velocity is all over the place. Seems like a problem to me. It's frustrating when I'm playing a song and I hit the kick with plenty of intensity and it triggers a low velocity note... i basically can't hear it when it's that low.

2) The reason is, I dunno... I was trying to get consistent behavior out of my kick drum. When the gain is too high i start getting false triggering on other inputs. I had to turn the gain down across all channels to resolve the false triggering problem.

I tried as you suggested, but that seems to have made it worse. When the high level is set too high (per the auto leveler), then most kicks are too low velocity-wise, and the inconsistency problem related to the velocity still exists.

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[dmitri]

1) I'm hitting the kick with roughly the same intensity and the velocity is all over the place. Seems like a problem to me. It's frustrating when I'm playing a song and I hit the kick with plenty of intensity and it triggers a low velocity note... i basically can't hear it when it's that low.

2) The reason is, I dunno... I was trying to get consistent behavior out of my kick drum. When the gain is too high i start getting false triggering on other inputs.
I had to turn the gain down across all channels to resolve the false triggering problem.

No surprise as I can see that you set XTalk level to zero meaning no ctosstalk suppression.

I tried as you suggested, but that seems to have made it worse. When the high level is set too high (per the auto leveler), then most kicks are too low velocity-wise,

Relation between hit strength and signal level is not linear and this is what the Curves are for. E.g. set the Curve to MaxCustom12 and all the hits will be the same high velocity. In reality you either use one of the higher level Log curves, e.g. Log4Custom5 and lower HighLevel slightly and don't forget to disable HighLevel Auto once you found what is the real HighLevel.

Btw, did you read through http://www.megadrum.info/content/pads-settings or you just randomly try various settings?

[causticveritas]

No surprise as I can see that you set XTalk level to zero meaning no ctosstalk suppression.

Not sure I follow your meaning here. The kick drum is mechanically/physically isolated from the rest of the kit. So I put it into a group by itself and reduced the xtalk to 0 to remove any possibility of unwanted suppression. Are you saying I should increase the xtalk level? Also, I should clarify my comment about false triggering, when I say that setting the gain too high causes false triggering, I don't mean false triggering due to cross-talk, but rather notes are firing/triggering when i'm not hitting the kit at all. It only happens on inputs that are connected to a pad/cymbal. I'm using the correct cable, it's not a case of using a stereo cable connected to a single zone pad, and I do not have cables connected to inputs that aren't connected to a pad/cymbal. But like I said I was able to get that issue under control by reducing gain on several of the inputs.

Relation between hit strength and signal level is not linear and this is what the Curves are for. E.g. set the Curve to MaxCustom12 and all the hits will be the same high velocity. In reality you either use one of the higher level Log curves, e.g. Log4Custom5 and lower HighLevel slightly

Ok thanks for the tip, I haven't really messed with the curve setting, I'll experiment with this and see what the outcome is.

don't forget to disable HighLevel Auto once you found what is the real HighLevel.

Ya understood, I turned this off across the board after playing several hits on each trigger.

Btw, did you read through http://www.megadrum.info/content/pads-settings or you just randomly try various settings?

Ya I've read through a few times and printed out a copy as a quick reference. There's a lot to take in though, so admittedly I may be missing something or not understanding correctly.

Do you think this is a hardware issue, ie a piezo issue as Ignotus suggested?

Btw thanks so much for your help and feedback!

[airflamesred]

I think the problem. May lie with the piezo. If your feeling is that the output velocity (as shown in the log, not the audible sound) does not match your input velocity it is probably a physical issue.

[dmitri]

No surprise as I can see that you set XTalk level to zero meaning no ctosstalk suppression.

Not sure I follow your meaning here. The kick drum is mechanically/physically isolated from the rest of the kit. So I put it into a group by itself and reduced the xtalk to 0 to remove any possibility of unwanted suppression. Are you saying I should increase the xtalk level? Also, I should clarify my comment about false triggering, when I say that setting the gain too high causes false triggering, I don't mean false triggering due to cross-talk, but rather notes are firing/triggering when i'm not hitting the kit at all. It only happens on inputs that are connected to a pad/cymbal. I'm using the correct cable, it's not a case of using a stereo cable connected to a single zone pad, and I do not have cables connected to inputs that aren't connected to a pad/cymbal. But like I said I was able to get that issue under control by reducing gain on several of the inputs.

I've only seen the XTalk level on the Kick input so I presumed you set it similarly elsewhere and it is not clear if you have a crosstalk to Kick, from Kick or among other inputs. Also, besides mechanical crosstalk, there can be some electrical crosstalk between inputs especially if you set Gain/Threshold very close to the false triggering level.

[causticveritas]

Just want to round back and say that I was able to solve this problem by replacing the piezo. Getting nice meaty kicks now.