fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

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bkmsx
Posts: 59
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:16 pm

fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by bkmsx » Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:53 pm

Hi,
Just getting up to speed with aerodrums, looks to be just what I needed in limited space compared to my complex Diy ekit setup. Pretty clever! Though the looking a bit silly factor is still fresh with me, Thanfully i am not watched v often. ;)

Seems a big benefit of using aerodrum's internal sounds is the L and R distinction, giving v natural snare rolls etc .
However when using midi, the difference is v noticable that even addictive drums which is pretty good re machine gun avoidance, isn't doing as good a job.

if we had optional separate midi notes for e.g lefthand snare, righthand snare, in addition to the gm standard note, a user has the ability to then assign those to either 2 distinct snare elements or use 2 instances of the drum vsti or sample etc. and benefit from the left/right Independence and improved sound.

Seeing as you detect L &R separately, associating them with a Midi out each should be straight forward and pretty useful!

---
Quick secondary point/question :

I have real pedals from my Diy ekit, and have attached the foot reflectors to them and this is almost great, however due to the fact that there is no beater hitting an almost solid surface to stop the pedal movement, and its a sprung system, I am getting a bounce/oscillation on the kick which normally in a standard ekit is fine as no contact with trigger is made , but aerodrums is picking up these small bounces as hits.

Assumptions so I make sense:
1: ad detects hit-like motion in a particualr region/zone rather than detects stick reaching point x to trigger a hit.
2: it calibrates pedal on the fly/regularly/everytime
This had me wondering if there could be a setting to tell ad I am using a pedal and to additionally factor in where the reflector is in relation to its last calibration so it only triggers at the end of that range. E.g last few percent of recent range.

When a reflector is attached to a pedal the movement/range is predictable so AD can learn that and then ignore hit-like shapes/motion if they occur above the learnt hit threshold (in space).

Hope that is clear ! And it may be that AD does this and I am just not got sensitivity dialled in, but currently using a pedal is less satisfying than no pedal
Chess for reading all that!

JesDes
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by JesDes » Tue Dec 09, 2014 10:23 pm

I just got Aerodrums 4 days ago and have been fine-tuning it since, so maybe I can help since I'm using it for triggering Addictive Drums as well:

For the snare, have you adjusted the sensitivity for it in the Aerodrums software under "Adjust Drums" in the drum menu? I have mine set at 10% sensitivity, and have no issues with AD triggering the same samples per velocity (I.E. the "machine-gun effect"); at 10%, the snare has a great amount of dynamic range, and responds pretty much almost 1:1 with what I intended the hit level to be using the "expert" setting in the latency menu. Wish it could go to 1% to be honest, but I've found 10% to be pretty amazing nonetheless. When I first started messing with it, I found I was hitting too out in front of me to trigger it, which also caused the camera to perceive my hits as harder/faster than they actually were; this caused a considerable loss of velocity dynamics since it seemed to always hang around the middle using soft/slow hits, and max for anything a bit harder/faster. If you use snare drags or any kind of grace notes, it might benefit you to adjust the note filtering in the Midi menu as well so you don't get any extra notes that weren't intentional.

As for your problem with the kick pedal, I was having the same issue until I adjusted the sensitivity, adjusted the note filtering, and adjusted the pedal range.

Hope any of the aforementioned adjustments help.

bkmsx
Posts: 59
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:16 pm

Re: fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by bkmsx » Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:18 am

hi. cheers
i got as far as adjusting some things in addictive drums for the kick but not the snare, will get round to it. i have adjusted midi settings in aerodrums a bit, but didn't get a sweet spot as yet.
the amount of tweaking my ekit took to get sweet was crazy so the fact that with zero i'm almost happy is a good sign.

btw have improved the kick pedal situation by having a bump-stop underneath the foot plate so have a firm stop representing a hit, this helps to some extent, though my suggestion still applies i think.

from the manual i think the pedal range only affects the hihat, although it appears to adjust kick its just that - 'gui' only, so your other tweaks are the winners there!

been getting the camera mounted in a decent position as my little studio heater was messing with aerodrums and drumming with it off meant geting v cold as it's been a bit parky here in south wales.. think better now.


anyway - the handedness midi out is what i'm after!

there is a recent free release of drumkit samples, see reaper forum, http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=150924
ha 127 velocity layers, 4 round robins, bot mic, top mic and stereo overheads for snare for example. = 2 thousand+ samples, that would be perfect for seperate left and right hit midi notes, e.g 2 round robins assigned to each hand.. that would play like a beast.

Richard
Posts: 1014
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:45 am

Re: fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by Richard » Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:50 pm

You're correct that the pedal range screen only affects the behaviour of the hi-hat and not the kick. We plan to make some changes to the interface here to make this clearer.

The main reason we decided not to output MIDI notes for left and right hand hits is that, from looking at many of the popular drum VSTis, the only one we found that distinguished between left and right snare hits was Native Instruments' Studio Drummer. But you're probably right that other VSTis are configurable enough that you could set up two separate snares to sound slightly different for the left and right hands. In any case, we do agree with you that it is a good idea to split left and right and we will likely change this.

As for your pedal suggestion, we did think about it before and decided it wasn't easy to do since we allow the pedals to be repositioned as you're playing (e.g. if your foot slides). However, this isn't needed if you're using a physical pedal so we could add a setting to say whether or not a pedal is fixed in place and then support your suggestion. We will definitely consider it.

bkmsx
Posts: 59
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:16 pm

Re: fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by bkmsx » Wed Dec 10, 2014 6:03 pm

Hi Richard,

That all sounds great about L&R midi and a fixed pedal option, thanks for considering, and glad i made some sense.. ;)

on a side note, i will likely end up trying to have reflectors on my old sticks that are robust enough to take being hit on a mesh head, and it seems your description of the potential 'fixed pedal' option, could also apply to a fixed *drum* for ultimate realism, yes?
i envisage having for example one mesh head for use as a snare and the other elements 'air'.

doing soft little rolls with the aerodrum sticks on my mesh head showed how impressive the tracking is so am encouraged to bodge something together, have some small bits of retroreflective tape that i got for my scooter helmet years ago, so been playing around...

thanks again for response ,

Ben

bkmsx
Posts: 59
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:16 pm

using ad on a real head

Post by bkmsx » Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:58 pm

As I mentioned in previous post was interested to see if a modified pair of sticks would allow hitting a real surface for rebound and feel benefits, for when portability isn't a big issue, ( rather compactness)

I made reflectors using very light shaped foam, same size as stock stick reflectors but instead of having them on the end of the stick, placed them on top and set back from the tip, meaning I can still hit a surface/drum with drumstick tip..

Using just one mesh head I have a kind of hybrid surface/air kit that plays extremely well and this is just about perfect for my needs as never had the room to drum in my small dedicated space.
Now I can choose to bring in the mesh head or not and can practice (needed!) Or input midi ideas very quickly. *pleased* ;)
Short vid showing how this works.

Aerodrums working with modified sticks & mesh head: http://youtu.be/Pa_BvfZHrlY

BTW French drummer chap had achieved similar by using practice tips covered in reflective material which seems to work well too, but I really wanted to try to get 'stick tip on drum' action.

Thanks guys.

Richard
Posts: 1014
Joined: Wed Feb 26, 2014 1:45 am

Re: fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by Richard » Thu Dec 18, 2014 4:51 pm

That's awesome Ben, very nice demonstration!

We had similar ideas about placing the marker above the stick tip but were concerned that the stick would naturally rotate too much in your hand to make this practical without modifying the stick in other ways. Do you find that it's a problem to keep the sticks oriented so that the markers are always in the right place?

bkmsx
Posts: 59
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:16 pm

Re: fr: separate midi out for left hand and right hand hit

Post by bkmsx » Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:32 pm

Thanks ! Think is a potential option for those that can't get over the natural rebound issue and might have steered away from ad.
Good to show what can be done with a little bit of blue peter'ing!

I had that concern and even considered little feet/stabilisers sticking out to stop any rotating, (such ideas kept me amused trying to sleep..) but all I have done is mark the 'top' of the stick as a reference and have had very little trouble keeping things lined up, and that's me being a very out of practice half-drummer. ;).
Until I tried it I couldn't be sure the response would still be accurate but aerodrums doesn't mind at all!

The reflectors I made can withstand the odd hit, but they are also light there is little momentum to pull them to the side. Also as they sit astride the stick, some reflective material underneath gives the camera a full spherical view whatever angle stick is at.



Switching from a regular grip for best rebound on the head to one that is more air optimised is bit tricky at the moment!
Only other thing I found is sensitivity on head hits is touch less than air hits, so a slight increase compensates.

Sticks are 7a seem a bit heavier than stock sticks but total weight is 50grams .

Cheers again

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