V-Drum (Dual Trigger, Etc) Questions.

[lowlights]

After trying to mic drums in a small basement studio with some "boxy" success - I picked up an Alesis v-drum kit being sold at Costco (similar to DM6 USB) as an "experiment" in MIDI-to-EZDrummer fix. It had a dual-zone snare pad (rim + head), but the kick, toms, cymbal, ride and high-hat were all velocity only triggers.

Amazingly - it worked like Plug and Play. EZ Drummer recognized everything right off the bat (as did Strike - once I caught onto the Strike-Channel 2 trick).

With my Playback engine set at 64 samples, couldn't feel any real delay at all (nor could a drummer friend).

So - I think I've found my happy answer. But I had a few questions, as I'm thinking of sinking a few more dollars (more than the $279) into a slight e-drum upgrade.

The Roland TD-4 offers dual-zone toms and ride and crash - with choke ability. The kick-pedal has velocity-sensitivity (right now it's simply on/off).

My question is - would EZ or Strike recognize this additional dual-zone information? Does it just translate into MIDI and get used for improved "feel" (authenticity, if you will)?

I know EZ wasn't necessarily designed for e-drumming, so would I be wiser to use Strike or crossgrade to Superior Drummer for additional "sampling" for generating a more "real" audio track?

[albee1952]

The short answer is YES....and NO. Yes that ezdrummer will follow trigger velocity so you will retain the real drummer's dynamics(whadya mean dynamics....I'm playin' as hard as I can!!!!). The dual zone snare does work for side stick and rimshot, but my toms(when I had dual zone) didn't really offer anything worthwhile on the rims(but maybe I needed to work more with midi note assign). As for cymbal chokes, I can't get mine to work with ezdrummer or SD2, although it works fine with Addictive Drums(go figure). My solution is to just play it as if it choked and then move the midi note to the choked cymbal sound on the piano roll. As long as you can edit the midi in the drum brain, I see no reason why you couldn't assign the rim(which is its own midi note) to play any sound available in ezdrummer(different toms, cowbell or whatever). For me, I just wanted a standard kit with either a cowbell or side stick on an extra pad(it just took me a while to find the editing section on the TD10 brain and to step thru midi notes till I found the one that triggered the sound I wanted). Once you get all this sorted out, then get your head around multi-track assignment and you will get killer drums with no microphone hassles(plus it saves a bunch of audio tracks if you commonly use toms of tracks). Your next step might be to use a real hihat and mic(ezdrummer misses a lot of nuance).

[lowlights]

Set up the Roland TD4-KX2 and ran it through a MIDI USB Uno into PT 9 and EZ Drummer. Two slight "problems":

(1) the "volume" of EZ Drummer seems low (as opposed to when I drag it's own "grooves" in. The drum trigger, while working, is quieter. Is this just a matter of gaining up EZ Drummer or gaining up the MIDI coming in somehow? Is this set in the TD4 module?

(2) the CY-5 hi-hat trigger is off - the front rubber wedge barely triggers at all, unless hit very hard, while hitting the hard back of the pad triggers the hell out of it. Thoughts? I've heard talk that 9.0.5 PT has some midi issues? Is this one of 'em?

Rex

[albee1952]

Can't speak for 9.0.5 as I have avoided it, given all the rants about its problems here. As for the rest, it maybe as simple as increasing sensitivity on all the pads within the Roland brain

[lowlights]

And here I was sure you'd put quotes around the word "brain"

I'm gonna attempt this troubleshoot tonight. I'll post on my result. I've also posted to vdrums.com forum - so if I get an answer there, I'll also post that.

[albee1952]

Good luck. I just got a little......................"lazy"

[lowlights]

Well - I am much happier today than yesterday. The sensitivity of the CY-5 was set fairly low (out of 1-32, it was set at 8. The rest of the kit was set at about 14. I dialed the CY-5 up to 17, along with everything else (except the kick KD-9, which was fine at 10), and then I was getting solid sounds - both MIDI levels were better and all the pads/cymbals were more responsive.

So, it seems just to be a simple sensitivity issue. I am not a true drummer, so I'm having a "real" drummer come over and bash away and we'll see what he thinks of my settings.