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So, I finished building my (first) MD. Everything went relatively smoothly -with the exception of some stupid questions I had to ask, which were all replied by Dmitri and Synthex in no time, (most companies could be very happy with this level of support).
My setup:
As I wrote it in a private email to Dmitri earlier, I owned most trigger-to-MIDI converters (from Casio, Roland, Yamaha, Alesis and Clavia) in the last 20 years and found it really strange that their evolution seems have got stuck in the early 90's, which is why I'm still using 2 Yamaha DTS70's from 1992 (cost me 1200 USD each). It offers the most comprehensive control set over the triggering characteristics, but it takes 2U rack space and it has only 12 inputs. When I wanted to reduce the size of my digital gear MD seemed like the only choice to replace the Yamahas.
Today I only use acoustic drums for acoustic drum sounds, but all of them are triggered for digital sounds and there are a lot of additional drumpads in the kit, too. The link below shows my first performance on MD. (I had a trusted old Yamaha in the rack as a backup just in case, but nothing went wrong with the MD, so I didn't need it). Otherwise this setup is the old one, where all seven drums are triggered with Roland RT-3T triggers (the only ones that don't touch the drumheads at all) and I have a Hansen Fütz pedal, a Dauz Triple 6 set, a 10" self-made pad and an old Roland SPD-11 (for triggering external sounds only).
The project that I'm working on requires much more electronic sounds, so the new setup will have 21 more pads than the old one on the video by the addition of 2 Alesis Control Pads, 3 Dauz Rim Mount Pads and 2 Millenium cymbal pads. The core drumkit will be a Yamaha Recording Custom, so I can replace the Roland triggers with the B-Band UKKO (it was not possible to mount them on the Peavey Radial Pro 1000 kit on the video), which will be used as both drum mics and triggers (through the mixer channel inserts). It's nearly completely done now, I'll post some pics and more videos on this new kit soon.
My first MD video:
This little solo was taken from a gig with my band, The 9:30 Collective. All sounds are triggered in real time, no sequencer or pre-recorded loops were used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WdMSnWhppk
My MD:
Because I'll use most inputs to connect individual pads, I didn't use any TRS jack sockets, all of them are TS ones (except the HH input, of course). It was one of the main challanges to find enough space for all these sockets on the back of a 1U rack house (It got even more congested this morning, because I put a Hi/Lo selector switch next to the HH input, but this picture was taken earlier):
I guess it's not surprising what's inside:
And the front panel:
I attached a zip file with the front panel design in Corel v11 and Adobe Illustrator v5 format, it can be used as a starting point and freely modified in case if any of you likes the layout:
My wishes:
If I could ask for one feature only, it would definitely be that the selection of DrumMaps could be remotely controlled by program change messages. (I might be wrong but I couldn't find any indication that it can). In my old setup I use a MIDI pedal board to change between setups and this controls everything: trigger-to-MIDI converter, sampler, mixer and fx settings. It is the ONLY convenient way to change the triggering setup during a song, which I do need sometimes, but even between the songs there are so many things to handle, so it would be great to forget about MD and do everything from one command center. What makes this even more desirable is that the MD display would normally placed out of sight. I'd be willing to spend some on a new firmware that makes this possible. Dmitri?
Conclusion:
Apart from this, MD is a great project that fills a niche and I think it's a pity that Dmitri has no intention to turn it into a commercially available off-the-shelf product. I appreciate his views on giving people the opportunity to "to create" themselves, but I wish I could have spent all these long hours of drawing, drilling, filing and soldering on practicing and composing instead , which is no less creative I guess
Thanks for the support,
Endre Huszar
