Velocity curve

[thenewdrummer]

I was wondering what you guys are using as velocity curve for your snare?

Is it really a small adjustment like in the videos and it's almost linear or you do bigger adjustments? Please post some pictures of it.

I'm not sure if I should set it as I do. Example the hits go from too gentle to too loud without much force (gain at 1) so I kind have to boost a lot at beginning and then reduce it a lot from 1/3 to almost the end of the curve.

So I'm wondering how others set it up.

Thanks.

[Rob]

The velocity curve can't fix a signal that is too hot. What pad are you using?

[thenewdrummer]

The velocity curve can't fix a signal that is too hot. What pad are you using?

It's a A2E but I've been messing around quite a lot for a while (months) with different head tensions, trigger positions, different piezo sizes 35, 27, piezo brands(cheap and not}, different trigger brands, quartz, Jobeky and I always get the same results, almost always too hot. I managed to get something but never satisfying. I'm starting to think that it's just me that don't know how to calibrate it correctly. Others on the forum use the same head and same trigger brand with succes so I'm lost.

Just to validate, I should only get 127 if the hit is really hard? Not just on a small accent?

[monospace]

Just to validate, I should only get 127 if the hit is really hard? Not just on a small accent?

That's true regardless of your specific trigger setup. Low Gain is your friend. If the Gain is too high, you'll hit 127 even at soft strokes, effectively killing your dynamic range. I'd suggest starting Gain at 1, or 1.5, and bringing it up from there. You only want to adjust the Curve to get a more even response from soft to hard, but it all starts with proper Gain.

[thenewdrummer]

Just to validate, I should only get 127 if the hit is really hard? Not just on a small accent?

That's true regardless of your specific trigger setup. Low Gain is your friend. If the Gain is too high, you'll hit 127 even at soft strokes, effectively killing your dynamic range. I'd suggest starting Gain at 1, or 1.5, and bringing it up from there. You only want to adjust the Curve to get a more even response from soft to hard, but it all starts with proper Gain.

Yeah thanks for the input. I'm already at the lowest which is 1. For small hit it's ok but if I go to a normal hit, it jumps to 127. Like there's not a big range in between. That's what I'm trying to fix with velocity curves but I had a feeling that was not the way to do it.

I'll try to install the beta version tomorrow to be able to go down to 0.5 and see what happens.

[Rob]

Try putting a resistor in series with the piezo. Something between 10K and 30K.

[perceval]

An A2E is always messy... so many variables.

Especially the combination mesh/cone.
Took me many years to finally settle on Roland mesh, plus a cone made from 2 stacked foam, minicel and sanding block foam.

[thenewdrummer]

I managed to get a pretty good response with those settings.

The only thing that doesn't work well now is when I do flams. It tends to spike. Even if they are not that hard.

Is this something common or is there something to do ?

flam.png (64.47 KiB) Viewed 1087 times

[Dadwrshpdrum]

I managed to get a pretty good response with those settings.

The only thing that doesn't work well now is when I do flams. It tends to spike. Even if they are not that hard.

Is this something common or is there something to do ?

flam.png

That velocity curve looks very similar to my Roland PD-125BK, and it generates the best results for me. The scan and hold time is not similar though, but we have different pads. Compared to my Roland pads the scan and hold time is large. I know from watching some videos too much scan and hold time can impact rolls so I guess that would be true for flams????

I do not have an issue with my flams. Could your get a screenshot of the flam? I don’t know what it is called but the little white dots on the left hand side scrolling window should show a low velocity note followed immediately by an accent note. If the spike is there maybe the screenshot will give some clues. Also have you tried a flam with and without hotspot suppression?

Not exactly a flam, but...... Rob recently posted a troubleshooting post on hot spot suppression. Before this post I noticed my hot spot suppression was taking away my dynamics. For example I would play light sixteenth notes roll with my left hand for a song I was practicing and then hit some accent back beats with my right hand. The accents were just really, really suppressed. No dynamics. My accent notes were the same velocity as the sixteenth ghost notes. If it was a flam maybe I would think there was a spike, since whacking an accent and playing a ghost note produced the same velocity.

Anyways I followed Rob’s guide (setting amount to zero, dial in thresh and then slowly increase amount till it was good) and the snare dynamics improved a lot. My wife got really annoyed trying to read a book on the couch next to my ekit while I dialed it in, but I noticed very small tweaks of thresh and amount was necessary for the dynamics I was looking for. It was pretty repetitive. I also made some compromises in these small tweaks such that there was balance between hot spot suppression and dynamics.

[Sly]

@thenewdrummer

Wow ! 7ms of scan time ? You could at least decrease it to 3 or 2.5 without problems. That's 4ms or 4.5ms of latency that are won. Some are able to pay 2000$ on a sound card to win 2ms !