review of Drum-tec pro 14" snare and Edrumin

[Rob]

I tried build 25 with my drum-tec 14" wooden snare. Your factory preset had way too much gain for me (4.3!)--even moderate hits were at 127 and turning down the gain and playing with HS and PS T, I still couldn't get HS working much. Also, maybe there is a bug or something because I could change the note assignments.

Ya, the gain might be out because my drum is second hand and I had removed and reinstalled the head about 10 times over the past week. Also, I removed that little tab on top of the cone, so the overall cone height is probably a bit lower. Mathias from drum-tec indicated that it's optional and didn't seem to know what function it's supposed to perform, so I very carefully cut it off using a knife with a brand new blade. I assume you meant "couldn't change the note assignments". That's because in the preset, the pad is set 'kit piece' and so draws its notes from the drum map.

[gkurtenbach]

Thanks, that probably explains the difference. Mathias should loan you a factory spec snare or does drum-tec have an edrumin?

Sounds like to detect a HS hit you look at some hi-freq info in the waveforms. Couldn't you just look at the ratio of the head peak versus the rim peak and clamp it when its over some threshold? That seems to be what's going on when I watch the input meters. Anyway probably way too simple, just curious.

[Rob]

Couldn't you just look at the ratio of the head peak versus the rim peak and clamp it when its over some threshold?

That's exactly what that 'R' control is doing.

[Rob]

I've got one more thing I can do. I can add an option to scale the HSS thresh value by the velocity of the hit. That should prevent HSS from kicking in when the hit is too far off center, but it will also make it less effective at dealing with low velocity hits on the center. I'll add it in the next build.

[Rob]

Okay, here's build 26 (UPDATE build 27). It has a new HSS control to scale the measured thresh by the velocity of the hit. This causes HSS to reject hits further away from the hotspot, but as a consequence also limits the ability to suppress low velocity hits directly over the hot spot.

The new control is on the inside of the thresh control. When the value is 0, there is no scaling by the velocity of the hit. I have it set around 90 and I'm getting pretty good results--to the point where I finally feel this snare is triggering better than my PD-125--which is quite an accomplishment as that pad triggers fabulously.

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I'm just posting build 27 here so I can get some feedback.

eDRUMin_Control_PC_2.0.0.27.zip

eDRUMin_Control_OSX_2.0.0.27.zip

[lalo]

Drum-tec snares users try the beta and let us know the results, although they use the same cone and electronics, the number of spokes is different in each of them, the 12” diabolo has only 3 spokes, the 13” steel hand hammered has 6 and all the pros wooden and steel have 10. Obviously Rob can’t try all of them so…

[gkurtenbach]

Tried out build 27 with "velocity to threshold scaling" on my pro wooden snare. Below are the settings that worked best for me. I did have a setting that strongly suppressed the HS but once in a while, I would get a hard HS hit that was way too quiet--sounding like a missed hit. So the settings below gently reduce the HS and really only kicks in when you hit the exact tip of the foam cone. It's definitely better than no HS.

[lalo]

great, how about positional sensing? did you try it?

[gkurtenbach]

Yes, it's working. I can't thoroughly test it because I use steven slate drums and it doesn't have PS. However, I downloaded the demo of modo drums and it has PS and it's definitely functioning. Since I don't use PS regularly I can really tell if its working "great" but seems to track across the whole snare. Maybe once in a while, it gets the position wrong but that is rare.

[Dadwrshpdrum]

Yes, it's working. I can't thoroughly test it because I use steven slate drums and it doesn't have PS. However, I downloaded the demo of modo drums and it has PS and it's definitely functioning. Since I don't use PS regularly I can really tell if its working "great" but seems to track across the whole snare. Maybe once in a while, it gets the position wrong but that is rare.

FYI you can change PS on eDRUMin from CC to note. Then map the PS midi note to the “snare side” articulation in SSD5.5. Then you will have PS in SSD5.5.