Cymbal triggers fine, then suddenly doesn’t

[GaryKatz]

(Using Aerodrums 2) I’ve noticed a small issue recently and I’m not sure if there is an adjustment I can make. I have a kit with a china cymbal on my right side by the floor tom. It will trigger just fine for many songs, but then suddenly in the middle of a song…it’s gone. In other words, when I hit the space where I’ve placed the china cymbal, I get no sound. If I edit the kit, and move the cymbal a bit, and save the kit, it comes back. But then it happens again a few songs later. Looking at the kit from the top view, the cymbal is far on the right side, is it missing hits because it’s so close to the cutoff area? Is there a setting I can tweak to fix this?

[Richard]

It is unlikely that the china cymbal can be hit one minute and the next it can't be. If you are confident about that let us know because it would suggest a bug we haven't seen before. I think you will find that once you locate a position to hit the air that triggers the china cymbal then that same position will consistently and reliably trigger it.

The way we determine which piece was hit is by looking at which piece is closest to the drumstick tip when the hit was detected. The closest piece is the one whose "hotspot" is closest to the drumstick tip. Every drum has a hotspot which is a 3D point that indicates where it is normally struck. For drums, this is always in the centre of the drum. For cymbals, it is usually offset and will be somewhere between the centre and the edge of the cymbal. In the Settings panel there is a Hotspot Cutoff value that defaults to 0.35m. This value determines how close your hits need to be to the hotspot to trigger the piece. I would suggest increasing this value to see if that helps with the missed hits. There is also a Show Hotspots checkbox that will show you how close the drumstick tips are to the closest hotspot. You can use this to locate the optimal position where the china needs to be hit to trigger it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you have been using the VR version of the Aerodrums 2 app a lot. In that case, we still use the hotspots to determine which piece was hit and then means that the size of cymbals is not taken into account. For this reason, it can sometimes look like you're hitting one piece but a different piece is being triggered. In addition, if the VR headset's understanding of the 3D space is not perfectly aligned with Aerodrums 2's understanding of the 3D space then you can also have a situation where it looks like you're hitting one piece but it's either missed or a different piece is being triggered.

We have implemented some improvements into the VR app recently that fix this. We now send data over WiFi from the VR headset to the Aerodrums 2 device so that the piece you expect to trigger based on what you see in VR is always the piece that will trigger. This isn't released yet but it will very likely be released in the next VR app update.

One last thing - if you have cymbal choking enabled from the Configuration panel and you reach too far when hitting a cymbal then it can activate the choke which will make the cymbal sound fade quickly. It's probably not related to your problem but in case you notice this then you can try to disable cymbal choking and see if it helps. If it does help then the solution is to move the china cymbal further away to prevent choking when you didn't intend it.

[GaryKatz]

Richard,

Thanks for the quick reply. I have the choke cymbals turned off, but I will look at the hotspot cutoff setting and see if that makes a difference. I don't use the VR app all that much, but I'm glad you are still updating the app. I am using the Meta Quest in this video, I really wanted people to see how cool it is to see the drums in VR while air drumming. Also, here's a link to the video, I hope you can add it to your user videos section. Take care, and I'm really having a blast with Aerodrums 2.
https://youtu.be/cGvgR0yPOjs

[GaryKatz]

Richard,

I upped the Hot Spot settings, and that does help the whole kit a bit, but the cymbal still seems to disappear sometimes. What's interesting is when I look at the app, the hot spot line doesn't draw on the cymbal when it doesn't trigger. I'm going to completely move my setup and see if that makes a difference.
I sometimes use sticks that have a resin coating on them that's a bit shiny. Would this in any way cause it not to trigger? Because they seem to trigger just fine for a few songs, and then suddenly they don't.

[steull6163]

I have the same problem with the crash I put on the right side at the floor tom. It drives me crazy that I cannot rely on the stroke - will it trigger? Unlikely guess: can it be related to the cymbal being way right at the edge of the sensors view?
I will check the Hotspot Cutoff value, too.

[GaryKatz]

Richard,

I've moved the set to a new location, made sure the camera and motion sensors aren't dirty. All the drums trigger just fine for a while, then all of a sudden, the cymbals on the right side of the kit (ride and 2 china) just don't trigger. When I look at the live drum set on my phone, it's not seeing the stick on the cymbals when the sound doesn't trigger. The hand/stick just disappears on the phone only for those cymbals. This will happen for maybe 10-20 seconds, then all of a sudden they are recognized again. I've tried messing with the hotspot cutoff, reloading the set, reloading the app, power cycling the unit. It always seems to fix it, but then randomly it happens again. Also, I'm playing with headphones and the songs are playing off the unit. Any suggestions or other settings I could adjust?

[Richard]

steull6163:

It sounds like your problem may be different from the one GaryKatz is having. Are your sticks also disappearing? If not, could you try using the "Hit to Place" button in the top right corner of the drum kit editor screen to position your cymbal at the location that you expect to hit it. Then see if you can hit it reliably at that position. Don't worry about where the cymbal ends up in the 3D display of the drum kit. I'd just like to see if placing the cymbal this way fixes the issue you're having.

GaryKatz:

I'm sorry, I don't have an immediate explanation for this but we can try to figure out what's happening. When you say that the stick disappears only for those cymbals, do you mean that when the same stick is on the left side of the kit then it is always visible and there is no issue hitting pieces?

Did you check the Lighting tab in the Configuration panel (accessible from the app's home screen) to see if you can reproduce the issue there? Your markers will appear as coloured circles - I'm curious what happens to the right stick marker when it encounters the cymbals you're having trouble with. Could you try move the stick slowly around that region to see if the marker circle shrinks unexpectedly or disappears? If you're able to reproduce the problem there, could you describe what happens (or better record a video and share it).

If the problem occurs again, rather than power cycling the device could you hide your stick markers (e.g. behind your legs or your back) and then unhide them to see if the missing marker reappears?

[GaryKatz]

Richard,

What seems to happen is, I'll be playing and after a while, the 3 cymbals on the far right side of the kit, ride and 2 chinas, suddenly don't trigger. All other drums on the right and left side of the kit work fine, it just seems to be related to the far right side of my kit. I took a video to show what I mean by "the stick disappears on the app". One video shows me hitting where the 3 cymbals are, and the sounds are triggered and you can see the app shows the stick/hand hitting the cymbals. The other video shows what happens when the 3 cymbals stop triggering. The app doesn't show the hand/stick over the cymbals at all. (What that video doesn't show is that all the other pieces on the kit trigger fine, left and right hands, the ipad isn't locked up.) I didn't see anything in the lighting settings that seemed off. I'll look at what that shows the next time the cymbals cut out. What confuses me is that it's kind of a random thing, it works great more times than not. I played for 2 hours last night and it never had the issue. When it happens, I've found that loading a different kit, then reloading mine seems to reset it.

[Richard]

Thanks for sharing those videos. It is very strange. If you hadn't previously told me that you tried it in a different location I would have assumed that the issue was caused by a reflection from all the shiny drum hardware next to you. But as I understand it, it doesn't make a difference where you are set up and as well, the marker tracking and in-app visuals are fine when playing on the left side of the kit. So it's probably nothing to do with lighting.

It would be useful to know if it happens when you don't run the app at all. In other words, if you power on the Aerodrums 2 device and drum, does the issue ever occur?

And secondly, you mentioned that loading a different kit and then re-loading your custom kit seems to fix it. Have you seen the issue happen when using any of the preset drum kits or only with your custom kit? It would be useful to know if you can reproduce the issue with a preset kit because it might suggest there's a bug that has resulted in your custom kit ending up in a corrupt state. I think it would be worth trying to re-create your custom kit again to see if the problem still happens with the new version. Thanks.

[GaryKatz]

Richard,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll try a preset kit, and not using the app and see if that makes any difference. I'll also recreate the custom kit fresh if it continues.