Beginners Confusion

[Bzuk]

Hi there, this post is basically a cry for help for anyone who is knowledgeable and feels willing to do so. I'm 18 and have good coding knowledge and can usually work around a computer effortlessly which leaves me feeling utterly stupid when using my megadrum because I just cant crack it.

I have had my mega drum module for around 2 years that Dimitri built me. It has 56 inputs, 2.4 inch colour LCD and positional sensing chip. I bought the module because as an upgrade to my Alesis DM10 because it was no a great module for my kit anymore. However, I have not been able to get my Mega drum module running properly so just end up with both of them plugged in with most of my drums plugged into the DM10

Kit: 5 acoustic Piece kit with 4 drone triggers and just a piezo basically stuck on my bass drum head. Jobecky 3 ply mesh heads. Alesis DM10 cymbals + VH 11 hi hat + CY12R/C ( I shall provide a few pictures )
VST: Addictive Drums 2 and Ezdrummer

I have tried getting various things working using the MegaDrumManager FX but it seems as soon as I get one thing working I break something else.
I have also tried using the preset rom maps and kit as well as loading in varius configs for my vh11 which did eventually start working however, I am now thinking I just want to start again fresh. As ideally I want to have everything working with positional sensing however I am a LONG way away from this goal.
Could someone point me in the direction of what I should do first.
1.For example does it matter what drums I plug into each input on the back of my megadrum?
2.Should I start with a pre-set Rom kit / map? And should I try use the VH-11.sys file I have although I'm not sure how I obtained this because it was a over a year ago.
3.What should I go about configuring first?

Pictures of my equipment: https://imgur.com/a/s8uT3d4

[tigerveil]

Hi I have been using Megadrum for a few weeks now and have a couple of tips.

The Forum here has answered nearly all my questions so far in one way or another just by digging around old posts. FIRST TIP - I would save the link or export to PDF anything you find useful to make it easier to refer back to later.

Don’t underestimate ANY of the settings, just when you think you have a handle on something, as you said in your post you can easily end up breaking something.
For example I found when trying to get a good velocity range for a drum I have always had to find a good combination between CURVE, LEVELSHIFT, THRESHOLD, GAIN and HIGH LEVEL.
To combat mis triggering yet to keep fidelity I have found a combination of THRESHOLD, GAIN, HIGH LEVEL, RETRIGGER MASK, DYNLEVEL, DYNTIME and MINSCAN all have to be utilised to properly dial in my drums. It’s still daunting now and I would say I am 80% towards my target after 4 weeks on this project.
SECOND TIP - I found it useful to change one thing at a time and in small increments so as to learn what each setting did and stop myself getting too lost. Remember to hit send for that section every time you make an adjustment in MDMFX otherwise your Megadrum unit will not receive the change you have made. (It will have blue text if there are settings unsent to MD)

THIRD TIP - I found saving the individual pads as different versions as I went along helped, it allows me to always having a working, although perhaps inferior bunch of settings to go back to should I do something wrong or get lost in all the settings when trying to improve something.
I also use a dedicated slot just for testing.

To answer your questions:

1. Yes absolutely. There’s an inputs list on the page you may have used to buy your megadrum: https://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1393
It’s important as only certain inputs can have a HiHat pedal input or positional sensing.

2. They are certainly a good place to start, however the settings for my Yamaha cymbals ended up being wildly different than the .sys files I found online. If you are not getting any sound at all they can be a good way to troubleshoot and get you back to a good start point.

3. I would start with something simple, it does not help to get bogged down early in the process. (I have nearly given up 3 times and so far every time I have eventually figured out what was frustrating me)
I would say in order of difficulty for myself it was kick, cymbals, toms, snare and finally HiHat.
I initially started with this page - https://www.megadrum.info/content/megadrum-configuration - and worked my way down, when I got to pad settings I went through and set up my first pad (Kick) before coming out and continuing with this initial page.

Other stuff I found helpful:
https://powerhell.wordpress.com/about/zourman/poor-mans-td-20/megadrum-pad-library/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz50gYdkN9eFem1pb2dBczFmVk0/view


Hope that helps get you started.

[Bzuk]

Hi I have been using Megadrum for a few weeks now and have a couple of tips.

The Forum here has answered nearly all my questions so far in one way or another just by digging around old posts. FIRST TIP - I would save the link or export to PDF anything you find useful to make it easier to refer back to later.

Don’t underestimate ANY of the settings, just when you think you have a handle on something, as you said in your post you can easily end up breaking something.
For example I found when trying to get a good velocity range for a drum I have always had to find a good combination between CURVE, LEVELSHIFT, THRESHOLD, GAIN and HIGH LEVEL.
To combat mis triggering yet to keep fidelity I have found a combination of THRESHOLD, GAIN, HIGH LEVEL, RETRIGGER MASK, DYNLEVEL, DYNTIME and MINSCAN all have to be utilised to properly dial in my drums. It’s still daunting now and I would say I am 80% towards my target after 4 weeks on this project.
SECOND TIP - I found it useful to change one thing at a time and in small increments so as to learn what each setting did and stop myself getting too lost. Remember to hit send for that section every time you make an adjustment in MDMFX otherwise your Megadrum unit will not receive the change you have made. (It will have blue text if there are settings unsent to MD)

THIRD TIP - I found saving the individual pads as different versions as I went along helped, it allows me to always having a working, although perhaps inferior bunch of settings to go back to should I do something wrong or get lost in all the settings when trying to improve something.
I also use a dedicated slot just for testing.

To answer your questions:

1. Yes absolutely. There’s an inputs list on the page you may have used to buy your megadrum: https://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1393
It’s important as only certain inputs can have a HiHat pedal input or positional sensing.

2. They are certainly a good place to start, however the settings for my Yamaha cymbals ended up being wildly different than the .sys files I found online. If you are not getting any sound at all they can be a good way to troubleshoot and get you back to a good start point.

3. I would start with something simple, it does not help to get bogged down early in the process. (I have nearly given up 3 times and so far every time I have eventually figured out what was frustrating me)
I would say in order of difficulty for myself it was kick, cymbals, toms, snare and finally HiHat.
I initially started with this page - https://www.megadrum.info/content/megadrum-configuration - and worked my way down, when I got to pad settings I went through and set up my first pad (Kick) before coming out and continuing with this initial page.

Other stuff I found helpful:
https://powerhell.wordpress.com/about/zourman/poor-mans-td-20/megadrum-pad-library/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz50gYdkN9eFem1pb2dBczFmVk0/view


Hope that helps get you started.

Thanks so much great tips especially the first one as I find myself getting lost I a million tabs at once

[ignotus]

This is a copy/paste from an old post of mine to set up a single-zone drum pad/cymbal:

First you need to set the note you want for the pad, then follow these steps:

1.- Set HighLevel Auto to 'yes' and whack the pad hard 10 times. Look at the number you get in 'HighLevel'. If it's between 500 and 1000 move to step 2. If it's below 500, raise gain and repeat the process. If it's above 1000, reduce gain and repeat the process. Ideally it should be around 800-900 but if it's at around 500 it's still fine. When that's done, set HighLevel Auto to 'No'.
2.- Reduce Threshold until the pad starts auto-triggering. Raise it by 2.
3.- Set Retrigger to 1 and Dyntime and Dynlevel to 0. You'll probably get loads of double triggers. Raise Dyntime to 24 and then raise Dynlevel one number at a time until double triggers go away. Don't go higher than 4 or 5 (I find it starts missing hits if higher than 5, YMMV). If you still get double triggering start raising Retrigger until they go away.
The pad should now be triggering fairly decently. Fine-tuning involves tweaking the above parameters, there's not much else to it apart from choosing a curve that suits the dynamics you want.

This will basic triggering going - next comes fine-tuning. Once you've got the hang of setting up a single zone pad, move on to dialling piezo/piezo, piezo/switch pads and positional sensing. We can carry on with more tips when you get there, but the above should give you a good starting point.

[Bzuk]

This is a copy/paste from an old post of mine to set up a single-zone drum pad/cymbal:

First you need to set the note you want for the pad, then follow these steps:

1.- Set HighLevel Auto to 'yes' and whack the pad hard 10 times. Look at the number you get in 'HighLevel'. If it's between 500 and 1000 move to step 2. If it's below 500, raise gain and repeat the process. If it's above 1000, reduce gain and repeat the process. Ideally it should be around 800-900 but if it's at around 500 it's still fine. When that's done, set HighLevel Auto to 'No'.
2.- Reduce Threshold until the pad starts auto-triggering. Raise it by 2.
3.- Set Retrigger to 1 and Dyntime and Dynlevel to 0. You'll probably get loads of double triggers. Raise Dyntime to 24 and then raise Dynlevel one number at a time until double triggers go away. Don't go higher than 4 or 5 (I find it starts missing hits if higher than 5, YMMV). If you still get double triggering start raising Retrigger until they go away.
The pad should now be triggering fairly decently. Fine-tuning involves tweaking the above parameters, there's not much else to it apart from choosing a curve that suits the dynamics you want.

This will basic triggering going - next comes fine-tuning. Once you've got the hang of setting up a single zone pad, move on to dialling piezo/piezo, piezo/switch pads and positional sensing. We can carry on with more tips when you get there, but the above should give you a good starting point.

Thank you working on it now and it seems to be going smooth ish for now, if I run into a problem should I make a new post about the individual problem or just carry on here?

[ignotus]

You can carry on here I suppose.

When I have some spare time I'm going to try and put together a more detailed guide on how to set up various types of pads. It's all been explained a zillion times before but always ends up getting buried in the forum and is understandably hard to find.

[dsteinschneider]

I also have been squirreling away good answers here on the forum into Microsoft OneNote. Sometimes when I was reading some other subject here in the forum I would stumble across a great explanation for something I was previously trying to sort out. The discussion threads can get pretty long and the answers are buried sometimes way down in the thread. I guess because there are so many different pads and cymbals people plug in.

[Bzuk]

This is a copy/paste from an old post of mine to set up a single-zone drum pad/cymbal:

First you need to set the note you want for the pad, then follow these steps:

1.- Set HighLevel Auto to 'yes' and whack the pad hard 10 times. Look at the number you get in 'HighLevel'. If it's between 500 and 1000 move to step 2. If it's below 500, raise gain and repeat the process. If it's above 1000, reduce gain and repeat the process. Ideally it should be around 800-900 but if it's at around 500 it's still fine. When that's done, set HighLevel Auto to 'No'.
2.- Reduce Threshold until the pad starts auto-triggering. Raise it by 2.
3.- Set Retrigger to 1 and Dyntime and Dynlevel to 0. You'll probably get loads of double triggers. Raise Dyntime to 24 and then raise Dynlevel one number at a time until double triggers go away. Don't go higher than 4 or 5 (I find it starts missing hits if higher than 5, YMMV). If you still get double triggering start raising Retrigger until they go away.
The pad should now be triggering fairly decently. Fine-tuning involves tweaking the above parameters, there's not much else to it apart from choosing a curve that suits the dynamics you want.

This will basic triggering going - next comes fine-tuning. Once you've got the hang of setting up a single zone pad, move on to dialling piezo/piezo, piezo/switch pads and positional sensing. We can carry on with more tips when you get there, but the above should give you a good starting point.

Okay so I tried this today on my kick drum and as I'm raising the retrigger the double triggering still happens, past 11 the initial note starts to become quieter and the double triggering still doesnt go away.
https://imgur.com/a/lO7JAG8

[ignotus]

What kind of kick drum is it? Raise MinScan to 40, leave retrigger at around 8 and raise DynTime and DynLevel. If you raise these too much with snares or toms you start to miss hits with fast rolls but with the kick that's not an issue, unless you can play double bass at 2000 bpm

[Bzuk]

What kind of kick drum is it? Raise MinScan to 40, leave retrigger at around 8 and raise DynTime and DynLevel. If you raise these too much with snares or toms you start to miss hits with fast rolls but with the kick that's not an issue, unless you can play double bass at 2000 bpm

Its just a piezo that sticks to the head with double sided tape, cant remember what brand