eDRUMin10+Abbey Road Drummer+Kontakt5+Logic ProX

[TMarsh]

Recently bought the eDRUMin 10 and as a unit it's a game changer as far as I'm concerned. I'd been using ddrum's DDTi for a number of years and while it served me well, I was reaching the end of my tether with its limitations and was super excited to learn that this new product was on the market.

My setup is as follows:

kick, snare and toms are all converted acoustic shells (14", 12", 13", 16", 22") and cymbals are Roland's VH-11 (on a hi-hat stand), CY-13R and CY-12C.

The eDRUMin triggers sounds from the Abbey Road Drummer pack, loaded as a plugin in Logic Pro X. Latency is great, toms snare and kick response is fantastic and the hot spot suppression...amazing job. I haven't managed to get a good response from the positional sensing but it's not really necessary for the moment.

While I'm so glad I can finally activate the hi-hat splash and 3 zone ride cymbal that the DDTi wasn't able to, I'm having a few issues on the cymbal side of things:

1. The choke on both the CY-13R and CY-12C sounds like someone with a metal hand is clasping the cymbal - it's not a natural sound at all. I was able to get a realistic choke with the DDTi so I know it's not an issue with the cymbals themselves or Abbey Road Drummer.

2. The VH-11 triggers the 'open control' articulation, but even with the hi-hat pedal pressed down creates an open hi-hat sound.

I've also noticed that although the Abbey Road Drummer pack is a series, each era (whether it be 50s, 60s or Studio) seems to react differently to drum modules, so the settings on the eDRUMin for one era won't necessarily sound any good on another.

Any advice, information or tips on the above would be appreciated. I'm still learning and as I've stated, I think the eDRUMin is a fantastic product and a viable alternative to the Roland/Alesis method.

Kind regards,

Tony

[Rob]

For issue number 1, you probably have turned on the 'choke note'. You probably don't want that. The device will send aftertouch for choking. You turn it off and on by clicking on the 'choke' label.

Not sure about issue two, but it sounds like a MIDI assignment issue. Hopefully someone who uses that software will be able to provide some insight.

[lalo]

I have modern drummer and there is no way to trigger the closed hihat articulation, in the get good drums library also for kontakt you can invert the cc notes and there it works but such feature is not present in abbey road. As for the choke, I asked native instruments many years ago and they told me I’d need to upgrade to the full kontakt to have more control over midi aftertouch.

[TMarsh]

[quote="Rob"]For issue number 1, you probably have turned on the 'choke note'. You probably don't want that. The device will send aftertouch for choking. You turn it off and on by clicking on the 'choke' label.

Hi Rob, the same thing happens whether the choke note button is on or off. Here's a short video demonstrating the issue:

https://youtu.be/ZREXH9kb6Vg

The first cymbal is the CY-12C and the second is the CY-13R. Notice how the last 2 chokes actually sound correct but all the others don't?

[TMarsh]

I'm also having problems with the hi-hat splash. I can hear the splash fine, but there's also a full velocity 'hi-hat close' note triggering before it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMxe0BRRdBA

What do you think is the cause?

[Rob]

Does Logic let you edit the aftertouch data?

eDRUMin sends aftertouch for each articulation. For your first cymbal in that video, it's going to send two sets of aftertouch messages. For the second cymbal it's going to send 3. Perhaps it doesn't like these additional sets of aftertouch messages.

I suggest trying to edit out some of the aftertouch data to see if that's the problem.

[Rob]

I'm also having problems with the hi-hat splash. I can hear the splash fine, but there's also a full velocity 'hi-hat close' note triggering before it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMxe0BRRdBA

What do you think is the cause?

That's the way it is. First the device see's that the pedal has been fully closed and sends the 'hihat close' note and then if pedal is released quickly enough, it sends the splash.

As you reduce the 'sensitivity' of the splash, the time between the close pedal and splash notes is reduced and it'll sound much more natural.