Problems with Roland cymbals

[Ad0]

Thanks! I bought SSD5 so.... here I am. Anyway I am forced to use hihat on input 2-8 so I ran into the same issue. I think I solved it by dropping the threshold on the switch to 1.

[Madsonics]

I don't have a Roland 3 zone cymbal nor a mock up at the moment so this is from my memory.

Roland 3 zone cymbals use 2 consecutive stereo inputs. For this example say Aux1/Aux2.

1. Plug the Bow/Bell cable into Aux1
2. Plug the Bow/Edge cable into Aux2
3. For Aux1 Head set Type to 3way Roland
4. For Aux1 Rim set Type to Switch
5. For Aux2 Rim set Type to Switch
6. From http://www.megadrum.info/content/miscellaneous-settings use 'Set All EdgeSw' option to auto-set Threshold on Aux1 Rim and Aux2 Rim. After completing this procedure you will have Threshold on Aux1 Rim and Aux2 Rim set between 1 and 50. You may still adjust these Threholds slightly so that when you press/release either the edge or the bell switch you get MIDI Aftertouch On/Off messages. You can use either MegaDrum Manager or MIDI-OX to monitor for MIDI Aftertouch messages.
7. At this step you should have zone separation for all 3 zones and you will need to configure all other parameters (don't change Gain setting otherwise you will need to start from step 6 again). Bow settings are in Aux1 Head, Edge settings - in Aux2 Rim, Bell settings - in Aux1 Rim.

When I find my Roland 3 way mock up (lost somewhere) I'll check this steps again.

These topics also will be of help I believe:
http://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=889
http://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=376
http://www.megadrum.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=572

I'd like to make a more clear and precise guide for setting up a 3-way "Roland" style cymbal. Right now I'm struggling with a Jobeky Ride that is a PPS that they say to setup as a CY-15R in a Roland module. Their instructions say "for more sensitivity, set to 12-15, and for the bell adjust RIM gain from 0.8 to 2.4" They also suggest to "turn off 3-way triggering and posi"

All that said...A PPS cymbal is not really a "Roland" style 3-way cymbal as (I understand it at least) the "Roland" would be PSS.

I started to setup the ride by attempting to use the Ride/Crash inputs (6-7,8-9) but that didn't seem to want to work well at all. Not sure why and doesn't make much sense to me. After seeing a couple of forum responses that some pads just don't work right in some inputs, I moved to Aux1/Aux2.

So where I'm at:

1. Plug the Bow/Bell cable into Aux1 (CHECK)
2. Plug the Bow/Edge cable into Aux2 (CHECK)
3. For Aux1 Head set Type to 3way Roland (CHECK)
4. For Aux1 Rim set Type to Switch (Well...Being a PPS, I set this as Piezo. Switch here does not seem to work well at all.)
5. For Aux2 Rim set Type to Switch (Okay...But hold up, You skipped a step...What is Aux 2 Head set to??? That seems to be the Bow Piezo from the cymbal. Should this be disabled? What should the trigger input type be set to? Single piezo? Roland 3-Way?)
6. From http://www.megadrum.info/content/miscellaneous-settings use 'Set All EdgeSw' option to auto-set Threshold on Aux1 Rim and Aux2 Rim. After completing this procedure you will have Threshold on Aux1 Rim and Aux2 Rim set between 1 and 50. You may still adjust these Threholds slightly so that when you press/release either the edge or the bell switch you get MIDI Aftertouch On/Off messages. You can use either MegaDrum Manager or MIDI-OX to monitor for MIDI Aftertouch messages.

Well...For step 6...It doesn't look like you can do that from MDMFX and when I do that on the MD32 front panel, it just says "WORKING" and never does anything (running latest firmware 20200331) Perhaps a bug?

Anyway...In my mind it should be pretty straight-forward to get this dialed in. I would think it would go something like this:

Step 1, Plug cables in like this:
Step 2, set inputs like this: (Dual/3-way, Roland, Single/Switch etc)
Step 3, Disable the bell/switch inputs and calibrate the bow input.
Step 4, Disable Bow input and calibrate bell input.
Step 5, Turn bell/bow on and adjust X for zone triggering isolation.
Step 6, Enable edge switch, verify aftertouch for muting, adjust threshold for proper edge triggering.

You should be able to take one of these cymbals and get it dialed in and working right in about 15-20 minutes. I've never been able to get this right. In my latest attempt, I'm several hours in and while I can get close to getting things right...They never are. It seems like so much inter-dependency of settings between the four inputs (and who knows what's up with why this won't work right at all on the actual Ride/Crash inputs), that it's just maddening to get this right.

Here's where I'm at:

Bow_Bell.PNG

Bow_Edge.PNG

What do I get with these settings?

I get pretty good Bow/Bell triggering, I get muting when I squeeze the edge, I do not get edge triggering. When I hit the edge, I get both bow and bell...But no edge sound.

I think what's maddening for me is I don't understand the relationships between the various inputs in this style of setup. For instance, right now, when I hit the bow, I get both the Aux1H and Aux2H events in the MIDI log even though Aux2H is "disabled." I've tried so many things with so many unpredictable results I'm not sure what to think. The information scattered in the forum is somewhat useful, but so far has not resulted in good settings for me yet. This really shouldn't be as hard as it's been.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[dmitri]

From cabling/connections point of view, is the cymbal:
Cable1: piezo(bow)/piezo(bell), cable2 piezo(bow)/switch(edge)?

[Madsonics]

From cabling/connections point of view, is the cymbal:
Cable1: piezo(bow)/piezo(bell), cable2 piezo(bow)/switch(edge)?

That is correct. I removed the trigger box and traced out the connections to make sure I clearly understood how it was wired. Then I connected as specified in the beginning of this thread.

[dmitri]

Try this:
1. Enable Input 20 and set all settings on it equal to settings on input 18 including Notes.
2. Put all Inputs 18-21 into the same XTalk Group but separate from all other inputs.

[Madsonics]

I think this goes along with what I asked above:

5. For Aux2 Rim set Type to Switch (Okay...But hold up, You skipped a step...What is Aux 2 Head set to??? That seems to be the Bow Piezo from the cymbal. Should this be disabled? What should the trigger input type be set to? Single piezo? Roland 3-Way?)

I can duplicate 18 to 20...But what pad type do I set input 20 to?

[dmitri]

Try setting it to Dual first and then to Single.

[Madsonics]

Same results both ways...

An occasional bow double trigger, no edge trigger. Mute works great.

Going a step further, with input 20 set as "3-way Roland" it doesn't trigger edge. Bow and Bell work pretty good, mute works great. Edge fires off a combination of bow/bell.

Do I maybe just have a threshold wrong? I dunno...It's not quite clear why it doesn't fire edge but does muting right.

[dmitri]

No, it is not about thresholds. MegaDrum algorithms for for 3 zone cymbals (either Roland or Yamaha style) expect piezo/switch/switch cymbals. Yours is piezo/piezo/switch and any possible way to make it work with all 3 zones is a hack/workaround which may not work. Let me think about it to see if there is any other way to make it work.

[dmitri]

Can you try to configure inputs 18-21 as follows:
1. Configure inputs 18/19 as Dual piezo/piezo with input 18 (bow) as "Dual or 3way Yamaha" and input 19 (bell) as Piezo.
2. Configure inputs 20/21 as Dua piezo/switch. On input 20 set Notes equal to Notes on input 18, Notes on input 21 equal to input 19, Notes on 3rd zone for Edge sounds. Threshold on 3rd zone to around 5 and Threshold on input 21 to 0.
3. Set all 18-21 inputs into the same XTalk Group separate from all other inputs.