MegaDrum questions

[Trommeltotti]

I tested it with 8" Pintech, 12" Roland and 14" Drumtec.

@dmitri: Do you really have a 14" "Diabolo" snare from the seriously Germany customer Drumtec? So if, forget about my posting above for donation for you.

Of course if you have this snare it would be very fine because this 14" Drumtec snare is IMHO right now looks as reference dual mesh drum out there! (And of course much cheaper than the ROLAND stuff!) But there are so many questions to this!

As you describe above for the new MD positional sensing feature you have to use a precision rectifier for this type of snare.

Do you use also a voltage divider for this 14" snare? Because this type of mesh drums are very sensitive or maybe to "hot" for the MD. I can't believe that this works with MD without a voltage divider!

I have a complete http://www.diamondelectronicdrums.com/ E-drum set (the gold glass glitter set is me) and I will use this for professional playing at stage together with the MD converter fitted in a secure 19" enclosure with a external "black box" for all those triggering connections fastens at my Pearl drumrack and of course with the famous Toontrack Superior 2.2 VST instrument at my new laptop for real-time E-drumming. (pictures are following here as soon as possible) The last things what I will use from ROLAND is the VH-11 Hihat, the CY-5 as X-Hat and a KD-7 X-Kick Trigger as a extra kick. And for sure I will never again use those terribly ROLAND TD-12/20 internal sounds from the 90th! No way

For this I built beside the MD a internal "voltage divider" PCB solution for my complete Diamond Electronics Drum Set for the first 32 trigger inputs.

[img][img]http://img8.myimg.de/PotentiometerPlatineoben6f8f5_thumb.jpg[/img][/img]

[img][img]http://img8.myimg.de/PotentiometerPlatineuntencc2ab_thumb.jpg[/img][/img]


But @dmitri, it is so hard to find the best triggering values at all in the MD! It takes weeks maybe months to tweak it for best results! Please help us!

More videos to the people dmitri!

Yes please! I read carefully over and over your descriptions but it is not easy to understand them at all!

If you take your drumtec 14" snare as reference and make at tutorial (maybe a video tutorial) and explains it step by step how to get the best/finest triggering results with modern dual mesh pads it would be so wonderful and surely helps to get your MD project more famous for a bigger community! It would also very helpful when you explain in detail why you implemented determined value settings in MD. What happened before to integrate them. What was the issue for this? To explain this for any important values inside the MD it would help every body here much more.

I know this could be a hard work for you but it is really time to deliver from the unbearably ROLAND Captivity with fanciful prizes and technique from the 90th!

And @dmitri I can you only recommend to try a modern VST solution like Toontrack Superior 2.2 with a professional audio interface for real-time playing like the new http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php Babyface from RME. You will not regret this! You will never switch back to a ROLAND module trust me!

So please @dmitri help us drummer to get this dream true!

With best regards

Trommeltotti
Germany

[dmitri]

I tested it with 8" Pintech, 12" Roland and 14" Drumtec.

@dmitri: Do you really have a 14" "Diabolo" snare from the seriously Germany customer Drumtec? So if, forget about my posting above for donation for you.

If you say so. To donate or not to donate is entirely up to you.
I don't think that anybody is interested to know but if you are, these TD-12, Roland PD-125X and Drumtec are all on a loan and will have to be returned.

Of course if you have this snare it would be very fine because this 14" Drumtec snare is IMHO right now looks as reference dual mesh drum out there! (And of course much cheaper than the ROLAND stuff!) But there are so many questions to this!

As you describe above for the new MD positional sensing feature you have to use a precision rectifier for this type of snare.

Not necessarily . The Pintech and DIY snares may work without the rectifier.

Do you use also a voltage divider for this 14" snare? Because this type of mesh drums are very sensitive or maybe to "hot" for the MD. I can't believe that this works with MD without a voltage divider!

The precision rectifier "cools" the signal sufficiently.

But @dmitri, it is so hard to find the best triggering values at all in the MD! It takes weeks maybe months to tweak it for best results! Please help us!

Create a topic with description of a problem and I, and I'm sure others, will help with it.

More videos to the people dmitri!

Yes please! I read carefully over and over your descriptions but it is not easy to understand them at all!

If you take your drumtec 14" snare as reference and make at tutorial (maybe a video tutorial) and explains it step by step how to get the best/finest triggering results with modern dual mesh pads it would be so wonderful and surely helps to get your MD project more famous for a bigger community! It would also very helpful when you explain in detail why you implemented determined value settings in MD. What happened before to integrate them. What was the issue for this? To explain this for any important values inside the MD it would help every body here much more.

I know this could be a hard work for you but it is really time to deliver from the unbearably ROLAND Captivity with fanciful prizes and technique from the 90th!

I really won't have any free time left then. May be others who already configured his/her kits will be willing to create such a tutorial?

And @dmitri I can you only recommend to try a modern VST solution like Toontrack Superior 2.2 with a professional audio interface for real-time playing like the new http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php Babyface from RME. You will not regret this! You will never switch back to a ROLAND module trust me!

So please @dmitri help us drummer to get this dream true!

I'm always trying to do my best.

[fuzzysnuggleduck]

I really won't have any free time left then. May be others who already configured his/her kits will be willing to create such a tutorial?

I agree! This is what a good community can offer. Dmitri can't do it all, and other's contributions from the likes of Synthex and elrules start to play big roles in growing these projects.

What I think is hard for a lot of drummers is wrapping their heads around the technical problems involved in piezo trigger detection and thus a lot of the settings, even with good technical descriptions, are not easily understood in the grand scheme of things. You can give a drummer a technical description of what MinScan means for instance, but until one fully grasps how that affects the "playability" of your pads in concert with all the other settings it's hard to understand.

I would love to make a tutorial video for configuring MD, but alas I myself do not understand everything 100% so I would feel a bit stupid trying to act as an authority on the subject. Which is why I just post about my experiences in the forum.

[Trommeltotti]

First thank you @dmitri for your always serious answering here in this forum. Some big companies which own big money should have this support as well!

Not necessarily . The Pintech and DIY snares may work without the rectifier.

Yes maybe but than you still need furthermore a voltage divider for "hot" DIY Pads. I' am right?

The precision rectifier "cools" the signal sufficiently.

Thanks for this information. You wrote this positional sensing feature is just at the snare channel available. But if like me you have a complete mesh pad drum set, you need also some voltage dividers for the Toms and Kick.

If you say so. To donate or not to donate is entirely up to you.
I don't think that anybody is interested to know but if you are, these TD-12, Roland PD-125X and Drumtec are all on a loan and will have to be returned.

I'm very much interesting specially for your experience with the Diabolo 14" drumtec snare and of course your completely value settings for this snare in MD! And also I like to know your experiences between using the ROLAND TD-12 as drum to midi converter with the drumtec snare directly comparing this to MD when using the same drumtec snare. Please post your complete value settings for the drumtec snare in MD here before you bring it back.

ROLAND modules are not only much to expensive the have also a big technical limitation for using them as drum to midi converter for VSTi libraries like Toontrack in real-time! (and of course they do not have enough trigger inputs each module) Just to convert the trigger signals to midi notes and controller data ROLAND modules takes around 4ms! This is to much for real-time drumming with VSTi! Because you have also some ms latency for the audio-interface and his ASIO drivers and so on.

The MD module have a latency setting in "Miscellaneous options" until to value "10" which means 1ms latency globally. But what is the result for this in practical using? What happens to this with other values like "Dynamic Level" "Dynamic Time" and "Min Scan Time" What are the relating things to this values? How can I set this settings practical for minimal latency without undesirable side effects? Which value I start to change first? Which second? And so on.

This is just an example how complicated the MD could be for making it efficient for using.

I would love to make a tutorial video for configuring MD, but alas I myself do not understand everything 100% so I would feel a bit stupid trying to act as an authority on the subject. Which is why I just post about my experiences in the forum.

@fuzzysnuggleduck

Thanks for understanding me. I'm afraid that just a few persons like @dmitri, @Synthex and @elrules really know what all the MD values are doing and how they are to configure the right way for best results.

But for successfully propagation MD needs a fast and clearly working configuration at start-up to to prevent early frustrations for new members.

That's why ROLAND is still able to sell antiquated products for horror prizes because they are just "plug and play" competent.

@dmitri: Do not misunderstand me. I'm limitless thankfully for you for this MD project but it is not really easy to realize this in practice and there fair bit of barriers to overcome.

So if there is outside anybody who can clearly explain step by step how to use successful the MD also with all dual stereo center trigger mesh pads this would be helping very much all existing and future MD users on this planet.

Thank you very much

best regards

Trommeltotti
Germany

[dmitri]

First thank you @dmitri for your always serious answering here in this forum. Some big companies which own big money should have this support as well!

Not necessarily . The Pintech and DIY snares may work without the rectifier.

Yes maybe but than you still need furthermore a voltage divider for "hot" DIY Pads. I' am right?

No matter how many times answered it I keep getting this question again and again. If a pad is too "hot" it must be "cooled" with a voltage divider.

The precision rectifier "cools" the signal sufficiently.

Thanks for this information. You wrote this positional sensing feature is just at the snare channel available. But if like me you have a complete mesh pad drum set, you need also some voltage dividers for the Toms and Kick.

If you say so. To donate or not to donate is entirely up to you.
I don't think that anybody is interested to know but if you are, these TD-12, Roland PD-125X and Drumtec are all on a loan and will have to be returned.

I'm very much interesting specially for your experience with the Diabolo 14" drumtec snare and of course your completely value settings for this snare in MD!

And also I like to know your experiences between using the ROLAND TD-12 as drum to midi converter with the drumtec snare directly comparing this to MD when using the same drumtec snare. Please post your complete value settings for the drumtec snare in MD here before you bring it back.

I'm not a very organised person, you probably saw my work environment in the positional sensing video. I work on MegaDrum developent all the time and so I change settings all the time as well for various software algorithms/pads/cymbals/voltage divider values/MUXers used and I just cannot keep the settings for all those various configurations. For Drumtec, I will try to post the settings although I'm not sure when I'll have time for this.

ROLAND modules are not only much to expensive the have also a big technical limitation for using them as drum to midi converter for VSTi libraries like Toontrack in real-time! (and of course they do not have enough trigger inputs each module) Just to convert the trigger signals to midi notes and controller data ROLAND modules takes around 4ms! This is to much for real-time drumming with VSTi! Because you have also some ms latency for the audio-interface and his ASIO drivers and so on.

Regardless of a module used I must point out: 1) the length of the first half wave for Drumtec is 4ms, 2) it takes 3ms for sound to travel 1m.

The MD module have a latency setting in "Miscellaneous options" until to value "10" which means 1ms latency globally. But what is the result for this in practical using? What happens to this with other values like "Dynamic Level" "Dynamic Time" and "Min Scan Time" What are the relating things to this values? How can I set this settings practical for minimal latency without undesirable side effects? Which value I start to change first? Which second? And so on.

This is just an example how complicated the MD could be for making it efficient for using.

I understand that anything in http://www.megadrum.info/content/pads-settings can be not completely clear. Create a separate topic, quote what is unclear from the documentation and I'll try to clarify to the best of my ability.

I would love to make a tutorial video for configuring MD, but alas I myself do not understand everything 100% so I would feel a bit stupid trying to act as an authority on the subject. Which is why I just post about my experiences in the forum.

@fuzzysnuggleduck

Thanks for understanding me. I'm afraid that just a few persons like @dmitri, @Synthex and @elrules really know what all the MD values are doing and how they are to configure the right way for best results.

But for successfully propagation MD needs a fast and clearly working configuration at start-up to to prevent early frustrations for new members.

That's why ROLAND is still able to sell antiquated products for horror prizes because they are just "plug and play" competent.

"plug and play"? In vdrums.com post only success stories? I guess "plug and play" is true mostly for Roland modules with Roland kits/pads. No surprise. E.g. try to use Yamaha PCY-135 with a Roland module.

@dmitri: Do not misunderstand me. I'm limitless thankfully for you for this MD project but it is not really easy to realize this in practice and there fair bit of barriers to overcome.

So if there is outside anybody who can clearly explain step by step how to use successful the MD also with all dual stereo center trigger mesh pads this would be helping very much all existing and future MD users on this planet.

MegaDrum is DIY in first place. Secondly, it was developed to be used with very wide range of pads/cymbals/HH controllers. As a result it can take considerable time to configure it initially and I said it many times. Once a complete MegaDrum(R)(C)($)(£) kit is on sale I promise it will be a complete "plug and play".