Any danish users from Copenhagen that made their MD work?

[Theblackcat]

Hi Dmitri

Thanks for all the support, you are the greatest!!!

Think I finally made one of the headtriggers work on one of the toms. I had to play around with HighLevel to make the MD register all of my hits - and that of course made me have to work hard on getting the velocity curve just right. - It´s pretty darn close to perfect as it is!!

I must say it´s brilliant machine you´ve designed!!

I find it a bit hard to make it the right amount of sensitive so that it catches all of my hits and have a broad velocity curve at the same time - but I´m probably doing something wrong?

How do you find the numbers on the screenshot??

Very best regards from Reno

[dmitri]

I find it a bit hard to make it the right amount of sensitive so that it catches all of my hits and have a broad velocity curve at the same time - but I´m probably doing something wrong?

How do you find the numbers on the screenshot??

A few notes about settings from the screenshot:
1. On any input with the LinearCustom1 as in the screenshot you will not be able to reach maximum MIDI velocity unless you also use LevelShift as on the input 12.
2. With the settings on the input 12 as on the screenshot you will not be able to get MIDI velocities less then 8. Normally, it is better to use zero Compression and LevelShit and make "hit strength/MIDI level" relation by adjusting a Curve if none of the default Curves are suitable.
3. It seems like with Gain 1, Threshold can be set lower then 28, which should improve picking up light hits.

[Theblackcat]

The reason for not getting maximum midi velocity is by choice - I found it to harsh sounding with values above 230.

The reason for using compression was to lower the velocity of the harder hits - the result of that was lower max velocity, and to compensate for that I used levelshift!

I find it a bit challenging to get velocities between 40ish and max that work. It seems to be explosive in between those numbers. And even though I only hit low to medium hits when I hit dead center on the drum it puts out max velocity, and if I hit hard hits 3cm next to the center for the drum, I get medium velocities. Tried working on the velocity curves, HighLevel, compressing, and levelshift, tried tightening the drumheads to even out the load/transfer of energy to the piezo, tried lowering the foam to lessen the compression on the cone, and thereby hoping to transfer pressure/vibrations more evenly to the piezo. Nothing has helped to even out the strongly progressive nature of the triggering? Maybe it´s the foam that´s too hard on the piezo? The piezo putting out a too hot signal? Some other physical factor that I haven´t been thinking of?

So when I make the hard hits end of the velocity curve work, I still get low velocity playing that works, but it´s hard, or almost impossible to gradually and realistically playing from soft to hard and get the velocities that match my playing.

Any suggestions?

Thank you so much for your help!!!

[dmitri]

I cannot advise on mechanical pads build adjustment.
On the settings side I can suggest to customize one of the curves to smooth velocities where they too "explosive". As a staring template for such curve I would suggest to use S1Custom8 - move the central flat area up/down and make it less flat if it makes to much effect to suppress explosiveness.

[Theblackcat]

So, I´ve gotten so far that my snaredrum works pretty neat by now, only thing is that no matter how I tension the head, lower or raise the trigger I get max velocities when hitting with 40% strenght and upwards. I´ve tried all velocity curves and this one seems to be the best I can come up with. Any suggestions?

Screen Shot snare.jpg

Next up, I´m having problems figuring out what´s going on with the kick, SD is playing flams, but, MD isn´t registering 2 hits, could it be down to some sort of aftertouch (wich I still don´t really understand what is all about, or how/where to alter it)?
I tried switching cables around, and tried connecting the cable from the bassdrum to the snare - same result. I tried going to max on retrigger mask and dynlevel and dyntime, and nothing helped. I tried maxing out threshold, playing around with minscan, but I just can´t make it stop playing flams? Hope somebody can see what I´m doing wrong here.

Screen Shot kick.jpg

Very best regards
Reno

[dmitri]

So, I´ve gotten so far that my snaredrum works pretty neat by now, only thing is that no matter how I tension the head, lower or raise the trigger I get max velocities when hitting with 40% strenght and upwards. I´ve tried all velocity curves and this one seems to be the best I can come up with. Any suggestions?

You're still using Log type Curves, not an S type curve as I suggested.

Next up, I´m having problems figuring out what´s going on with the kick, SD is playing flams, but, MD isn´t registering 2 hits, could it be down to some sort of aftertouch (wich I still don´t really understand what is all about, or how/where to alter it)?
I tried switching cables around, and tried connecting the cable from the bassdrum to the snare - same result. I tried going to max on retrigger mask and dynlevel and dyntime, and nothing helped. I tried maxing out threshold, playing around with minscan, but I just can´t make it stop playing flams? Hope somebody can see what I´m doing wrong here.

Most likely SD configured to listen on all available MIDI interfaces. MegaDrum by default sends MIDI data through both USB MIDI interfaces. You either configure SD to listen on only one of two MegaDrum USB MIDI interfaces or set 'MIDI2 for Sysex only' in MegaDrum in Global settings.

[Theblackcat]

Well, to me it seems like the max is the same (still when I´m hitting the drum with 40% strenght) no matter what curve I use, but the way the drum is responding untill max (at 40%) differs! - dunno what, if I´m doing something wrong here......?

Tried running the signal from the trigger through me mixing desk, to either coolen the signal, or amplify it. Ended up with a highlevel around 300, and don´t know if that was the reason, but dynamics response was far more realistic, sensitivity wasn´t though. But, I suppose with a highlevel of 300 I cooled the signal compared to when I had a highlevel of 600? If so, I´m considering building a voltage divider for each drum.

Don´t know why, but Protools hadn´t saved my setting of only listening to MD.... THX!! - that solved the flams on the bass drum.

Very best regards from Reno

[airflamesred]

You've run the trigger signal, from your pad through an audio mixing desk, Is that correct?

[Theblackcat]

airflamesred - it is correct that I ran the trigger signal from a couple of my pads through an audio mixing desk to see if I could reach more realistic dynamic levels compared to what I play on the drum by varying the strength of the signal, yes! I´m reaching max velocity when I´m hitting the drum with approx 40% strength, and it would be less than ideal to adapt my playing style to that.
So trying to work around this challenge with whatever I can come up with - will build a voltage divider today and see if that has the same effect as (assumably) cooling the signal in the audio mixing desk. (I actually soldered a 100k linear trimpot to one of my drums when I first ran into this problem, but it was impossible really to monitor/adjust what was going with the huge spread of the 100k trimpot.)

Any ideas?

[airflamesred]

Turn the high level up. 571, as above, is potentially only half way.