Toontrack Hi Hat Setup Question

[ibanman555]

I've got a VH12 and all edge and bell midi notes are set to 19 and 20 respectively. I'm trying to solve the long standing issue of notes changing while the pedal moves. For instance, if I play open, and begin to close, the sound steps through the closing of a hi Hat but in an undesirable way (jittery). Playing half closed sounds like it can't decide which sound to play, just not right. The CC4 meter shows jitter, not solid and I've gotten it as good as I can.

Is there a way to only allow megadrum to send it's specific midi note based on hi Hat position when the pad is actually struck? Maybe it's an issue with Superior Drummer 2...

[dmitri]

Did you try to raise 'CC Reduction Lvl'?
When the pedal position changes, MegaDrum sends Note On/Off messages without the HiHat being hit only for Chicks/Splashes. If you use SD2 to generate Chicks/Splashes the set Notes for Chick and Splash in MegaDrum to any notes unused for any sounds in SD2.

[ibanman555]

Yeah I've got CC Reduction Lvl set to 3. I do have Chicks and splash set to notes matching SD2 so I will change them to zero...or something unused as you mentioned and give that a try.

[ibanman555]

Ok so that didn't really solve anything other than eliminate the chick/splash sound. It still changes throughout pedal movement. I really feel like it's in SD2, and I see why it does this but it doesn't sound natural and very poor when playing hard, so here is another question that would solve this;

Is it possible to add an option for CC4 message to only be sent when the hi Hat is struck? Or when a chick/splash occurs? I'm curious how that would improve the play/sound relationship of the hi hat in my particular situation.

[dmitri]

Hm, there really should be some SD2 setting to deal with it.
If MegaDrum would send CC message only when the HiHat is hit then SD2 would not know how to calculate pedal velocities and positions for producing Chicks and Splashes.
If using CC is not working as desired with SD2, you can actually configure MegaDrum to send different notes for various pedal positions when the HiHat is hit in Pedal Notes and set Pedal Type to 'Pot' so that it doesn't send CC messages.

[ibanman555]

Ahh ok so this method with the pot is basically what I was looking for. I could try this. I have it set up now where a foot chick or splash sends a note independent of the edge or tip... The specific notes for those. Should I assign splash and chick to the same notes as edge and tip for the hi hat as well?

[dmitri]

Chick and Splash are for the whole of HiHat (generated from pedal movements) so they don't have separate notes for cymbal zones.

[ibanman555]

So there is a specific thing happening with SD2 and other drum programs don't cause this issue. Moving away from SD2, had enough.

[ibanman555]

Well, ok....one more attempt.

So please help me understand if I can use this method to get the results I am looking for. At this point, if I hit the hi hat, and slowly move the pedal down, I can hear the hat samples change from open to closed. Other samplers don't do this.

With that said, I would like to remove SD2 from reading CC4, but using the options in MD, I would like to configure the appropriate notes to be sent when hit, depending on the pedal position.

If MD is still set to Foot Controller (CC4), and I set open levels under the pedal Levels tab to appropriate levels...ok that's done. Now I'm looking under the pedal Notes tab, and I will assign these to the notes SD2 wants to see for their respective sounds. In theory, when I hit the hats at whichever level they are at, they should send the note for the sound to be triggered.

So, what do I assign the notes to under the Pads window for Hi Hat?

Will this configuration work like I hope?

[dmitri]

So, what do I assign the notes to under the Pads window for Hi Hat?

To the notes for the open HiHat cymbal sounds.