DIY E-snare with 4 zones +2 muted zones+ pos sensing

[sylco]

Hi guys,
just wanna show you how S2 can be used with a diy snare to get 7 sounds : center, edge, rim shot, side stisck (=cross stick), rim only, muted center, and muted rim shot.

two videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojXcOWung-0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eevF091kJrg

hope you like it, more info on the V-drum forum here : http://www.vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?69758-4-zone-position-sensing-snare-drum

Topic

[Damian Blunt]

Excellent work! Shows what can be achieved with some ingenuity….I really like the way the cross stick and mute work.

Damian Blunt - Toontrack
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[sylco]

Thanks, the thing I prefer is the rim shot, it’s exactly like on a real snare drum, I need to hit simultenaously the rim and the head to get this rim shot sound. It’s very useful to work the technique. To my knowledge, on every Roland, yamaha, alesis modules, hitting the rim is enough to get the rim shot sound (and so there’s no rim only sound).

[Damian Blunt]

I attempted a similar thing a while back with a standard TD-20 kit and posted a preset on the drums forum. I used the cubase input transformer to make the different articulations work.

http://www.vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?61321-Cubase-5-preset&highlight=positional+sensing+toms

Damian Blunt - Toontrack
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[sylco]

Sound really interesting, I also use the input transformer of cubase.
Reading your post, I will try to get the rim shot on my single zone toms with the pos sensing since SD2 haven’t pos sensing available on the toms.

How good your kit works ?
The snare you used was a PD-125 without mod ?

I’m a bit confused with one sentence you wrote on the vdrum forum :

I also mapped the hardest velocity snare head hits (which are rimshots) to the Rimshot articulation.

You mean that on a real acoustic snare a hard hit on the center give the same sound as a rim shot ?

[Damian Blunt]

The kit works well – you have to be fairly accurate to consistently get the rimshot on the snare, the same as you you have to play head and rim together to get a rimshot. The toms work really well.

In S2 the snare centre articulation uses a rimshot at the highest velocity (in most libraries),. The rimshot articulation in S2 is usually a shallower hit than a conventional rimshot, so what I did is use a MIDI node to move the louder centre hits (conventional rimshots) to the highest velocity rimshot articulation and then removed those hits from the centre articulation using the velocity control ‘out’ slider.

Damian Blunt - Toontrack
Quality Assurance
Betatesting

[sylco]

The rimshot articulation in S2 is usually a shallower hit than a conventional rimshot.

I find the rim shot very realistic on the avatar library !? I just raise the velocity to get it consistent.
Check the second vid on my first post, doesn’t it seem realistic ? I must admit that I don’t own an acoustic sanre drum but I thought it was realistic…
I haven’t open yet the cubase file you provide on the Vdrums forum but I could only imagine that you get the rim shot on the snare by using the pos sensing and the velocity of the snare rim note, am I wrong ?
I’ve try to get the rim shot on my single zone toms using the pos sensing and it works very good. I’ve still got some issue on the tom Bass where a flam on the center of the head give me a head note followed by a rim shot, I will try to improve it.

Can you tell me if there’s other articulations available on some SDX : dual zone crash, rim only note on the toms, or even pos sensing on the toms ?

[Damian Blunt]

Yes – I use positional sensing by hitting the head and rim simultaneously to trigger the rimshot whilst hitting the rim only triggers the rim click.

The ny series of sdx’s all have tom rimshots and rim only hits. The funkmasters and jazz ezx’s also have those articulations. Music City and funkmasters also have bow and bell articulations available for the crashes.

I think the response on your videos looks fantastic

Damian Blunt - Toontrack
Quality Assurance
Betatesting

[sylco]

OK, the way my snare works is different. Since I can’t get pos sensing on the rim with my TD-10, I’ve had to wire head piezo and rim piezo on two different jacks to get two notes each time I hit simultaneously the rim and the head.

Do you work for Toontrack ? I asked because I think S2 (or S3?) should have a feature that allow this kind of midi manipulations, it will be great to be able to have all these articultations available without Cubase, just using Toontrack Solo.

Last question, just because you seem to be well informed : is Tonntrack solo able to run other VST, like one made in Synthedit just to make the same thing we’ve made with Cubase?

[Peter Wildoer]

Sylco!

Your videos is EXACTLY what I want to achieve. I’m a total newbie to e-drums and bought a Roland TD-20 with the expanded module TDW-20 little more than a week ago. Right now I can’t get my snare to trigger in a natural way with head strokes with center and rim shot. Also if I hit a hard center stroke I get a rim shot. Is there any way you could describe your modules MIDI send settings and the SD2 settings to achieve what’s in your videos?

Cheers,
Peter Wildoer

[Peter Wildoer]

Hi Damian!

As I wrote, I’m totally new to e-drums but I just need one thing to work and that is center hits and rimshots on my snare. I have done factory reset on my Roland TDW-20 module and I have a TD-20 kit (pads). That is a Roland PD125 as snare. As you wrote I get rim shots when I hit the center hard, something above 110 in velocity. I DO NOT want that. I want center hits when I play center hits and then rim shots when I play rim shots. I downloaded your Cubase project file and saved that as a MIDI mapping preset. I just have Metal Foundry installed but perhaps your Cubase project won’t work with that library? I’ve searched this forum and the Vdrums forum and googled but nowhere I can find how to set up for proper realistic snare response with center hits by themselves and then rim shots by themselves. I want my snare to work as a real snare.

Cheers and any help appreciated! Please, if you know a forum thread with answers to my questions, please give me the link. I’ve searched the forums but can’t find anything yet I know it must be there!!!

Peter Wildoer

[mguerette33]

Can you contact me , i need more info on how you did it,

[herby anzinger]

hI Sylco,

Could you pleas sende me Information absolut the Settings on SD2 , Roland Module and pad espacially the Second triggeryou might use.

Thanx from Germany

[Russ Miglicio]

Hi Slyco,

Are you still active on this forum?

MacbookPro 2.2Ghz i7, Logic X, RME UCX, Superior 2, 2 ddrum 4s with Cast Precision pads n cymbals, Alternate Mode DITI, DrumKAT 3.8, EMU E5000, Alesis D4, Dauz pads, Roland PD-31, Pintech Spikes, Pintech SE-102s, Hart Dynamics ACUPAD...

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