Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

perceval
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by perceval »

Hi Vince,

couple of questions...

- what size piezo does Dave use for the kick? 26 or 35mm?
a 35mm will have a hotter signal than a 26mm.

- To equalize between the two pedals, you would have to either:
relocate the crossbar to something like 4 and 8 o'clock lugs, and place the piezo in between the two beaters.
or
split the output of the piezo, use one input of the eDRUMin as dual stereo inputs, click on the separate tips and ring inputs to adjust their levels.

Another thing you could use to amplify the signal, is finding a harder density foam to place instead of the, what I can see, softer foam that Dave used.

Finally, and this would be actually the first thing to do... check your cables and wiring, solder.
90% of the time I have triggering issues is due to a faulty cable (swap with a known good cable) or a loose wiring somewhere in the chain.
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Rob
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by Rob »

While it's possible for me to make changes in the firmware to increase the gain past 7, that's pretty extreme. That's seven times quieter than a typical Roland pad, and yet you are saying it's still not enough. I think that merits looking into a possible wiring / installation issue. For now, you could use some extreme velocity curve setting (imaged below) to compensate, but I suspect you have some other underlining issue.

Also, consider that with high gain values, you're losing dynamics. eDRUMin internally does 10bit sampling, which gives 1024 velocity layers. Once you increase gain past 8, you are already getting less resolution than MIDI provides (127 velocity layers).
extremeVelocityCurve.jpg
extremeVelocityCurve.jpg (16.51 KiB) Viewed 1173 times
jacko
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by jacko »

I know it' s not the mixer setting in SD3 (I havent' played with them yet) because if I click on the bass itself in the SD3 UI it is fine and at a good volume level.
I’m not suggesting there’s no other issue, but what you describe here (ie. mouse click in sd3 software registers louder than pad hit on midi controller) is typical in sd3. Probably not to the extent you’re describing here but it’s worth being aware of this.
evh0u812
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by evh0u812 »

Can you post a picture with the batter head off? I'd say something's not physically right.
perceval
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by perceval »

my guess is hardware related.

Anything from cable, bad contact in some of the soldering, the foam not touching the head correctly, etc....

Take off the head and inspect things. tap with your fingers on the foam directly, wiggle the wires from the piezo to the cable... is it better?
Finding gremlins is unfortunately the lot for e-drummers! :)
Mylo
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by Mylo »

When you say a low level are you saying that you are not seeing a 127 in the SD3 MIDI monitor? What values do you see?
Mylo
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by Mylo »

Ok... yeah, I’m like a couple of others, I’d want to see Dave’s design. I use a Jobeky AI bar trigger in mine, same as all my toms. I have it center-mounted so that it lands right between the two beaters. It works great. I little too good sometimes as I get double triggering if my feet get lazy.
Mylo
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by Mylo »

The only thing that I see to be an issue with that curve is you may lose some dynamics with the bass drum. If you’re a straight ahead, one velocity kind of guy on the bass then no problem. But if you go looking for ghost notes on the bass they may be hard to find.
Mylo
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by Mylo »

May I offer some other perspectives...

Maybe Dave’s design is somewhat flawed. If the trigger needs that much more gain then maybe the design of the trigger system needs to be evaluated. The Jobeky AI trigger I have in my 22” bass works without any adjustments to gain. It is very sensitive.

Another possibility is the piezo may be bad. My 12” tom never seemed to work well, similar issue to what you are seeing. I took the trigger out of the 10” tom and put it in the 12”. It worked great. After more troubleshooting I eventually replaced the piezo and it has worked great since.
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Rob
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Re: Seem to need Gain >7.0 for bass trigger

Post by Rob »

The reason I am reluctant to change my gain settings is because I am not convinced, nor are any of the other people talking in this thread, that your issues are't related to some electrical or installation issue. We've been trying to help you, but you refuse to investigate.

At very least, open the Control Application and give the kick a good hit so I can see the waveform. Then I would at least be able to see how much more gain you would require.
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