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[Jason Runyon]

ORIGINAL: bitfodder

Has anyone put mesh heads on an acoustic kit, then used off the shelf triggers like the DDrums triggers? I need to be able to do a “quick” conversion for triggering.

Thanks to any input.

Exactly what I do.  My old Pearl exports, Hart Dynamics mesh heads, some rubber trim from McMaster-Carr, Ddrum triggers, Ddrum module, TMC-6, Paiste 101 hihats made into crashes (Parts from Radio Shack), Roland FD8 hh pedal, Roland Cy-5 HH pad.

Works great, I filled the drums with foam about 3/4 full and then have a strip that comes up and gently muffles the mesh heads.  I found that this improved tracking and also cut down on the bounciness of the mesh.

Pictures:

[Jason Runyon]

ORIGINAL: royalletones

by converting USB game pad into module

 
How are you going to adjust settings like sensitivity, Xtalk, etc.  I have my doubts that this will work, maybe with a single zone, but a 3 zone?
 
More info would be good.  I would buy yourself a Roland TD-3 or the TMC6 to use as a trigger to midi converter.
 
J

[Jason Runyon]

ORIGINAL: royalletones

just a  PC based. VSThost + ezdrummer

any idea?

 
What are you using for a trigger to midi converter?  Module?  You can’t just plug pads into your computer…
 
J

[Jason Runyon]

Hi Dave,
 
Unfortunately, there aren’t any Firewire interfaces that I have seen that have midi in and analog outs that don’t have some type of preamp/analog ins.  I am using the M-Audio Firewire 410 with a macbook pro, and it works great.  I have read some things about Dell laptops having issues with some interfaces when connected to their integrated firewire port.  If your laptop has an expresscard or PCMCIA slot then this can be overcome, but try it first on the integrated port.  Are you planning on recording with this setup in addition to live playing?  Any specific DAW you are using?  This might affect your choice of interfaces, I had to go with an M-Audio because I wanted to use Pro Tools (it just seemed easier since the guys in the band had PT-LE).
 
Some ones to try:
 
FW410 – people seem to be quite polarized on this unit, I am happy with mine.
Firebox – a thought I remembered hearing people gripe about midi latency with this unit, and a quick google search kind of points that way, but I don’t own it and coudn’t tell you.
Yamaha GO46 – Neverheard anything about it, but cheap and Yamaha usually makes good stuff.
E-Mu – I’ve heard good things about these, too but never used them.
There are a bunch of others too: Edirol, Tapco, Saffire, etc.

[Jason Runyon]

ORIGINAL: Rogue

Hi – as an intro I must point out that EZdrummer is not edrum optimized and with a ddrum I doubt you will get the hihat to respond in any useful fashion. So I’ll assume that your HH is plugged in the TMC6 instead. You will also need to use Toontrack solo to trigger the sounds and choose the ‘edrum’ option in the Controller menu.

1) the default should be fine as far as you use the module entry labelled ‘Trigger 5’ and the ‘Memory 1’ factory program. If the TMC6 is not triggering the right stuff try to assign manually as follows:

HATS TIP CLOSED 42
HATS TIP OPEN 46
HATS EDGE CLOSED 22
HATS EDGE OPEN 26

well I haven’t got a TMC-6 at hand but I believe you should have access to enough notes on that pad. Anyway you’ll have to look up the correspondence table for your module but I believe note C1=36.

2) Xtalk will be dependent on your setup, especially what frame you are using so it’s not really something anyone can advise you on. The rest I’m not qualified to advise on either.

3) yes, as above use solo and select the ‘edrum’ preset. You can use any other hosts but then the CC data will take no part in the triggering and in fact could even degrade the rendering.

Note that the FD-8 is as non linear as it can be so if you are serious about edrums I would strongly recommend a better foot controller or of course upgrading to Superior 2 when it comes out as this will be edrum oriented to a much greater extend than EZdrummer is and you should in fact be able to correct the response from an FD-8 (or at least make it a lot better).

Best Regards,
RM

 
Hi Rogue, 
 
Thanks for the Reply.  I managed to get most of this figured out since I posted.  I do have the hihats connected to the TMC-6 now, and they work much more fluid than when they were connected to the Ddrum module, thought that did work for at least open and closed but no dual zone functionality.
 
1) I got the hats working great, though I think that I changed the open sound to 60 for full open and maybe one of the others, too.  I can’t remember off the top of my head…but it is working.
 
2) Got all the Xtalk and setting dialed in, no problems.
 
3)  I have been using pro tools (with no problems other than the 128 buffer) as my host, since Solo will only let you select 1 midi source at a time, and with the Ddrum and TMC6 there is no way to run one of them thru the other.  Right now the Ddrum is going to my M-Audio fw410 and the TMC6 is being passed thru my Axiom controller.  It would be fantastic if Solo simply had a midi “ALL” option…..
 
Yeah, I am not that happy with the FD-8, and I do plan on getting Superior 2.0 when it comes out, so maybe it will be more usable then.  Eventually I will upgrade, but since I just got the TMC6 it’ll have to wait.
 
Thanks, J

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