DrumIt Five cymbals

[Sam H]

Hi guys,

To those of you who've had a chance to try out the kit, what do you think of the cymbals?  How do they compare to the Roland and Yamaha cymbals?  I like the sound of them, but I was wondering what they are like in terms of feel and quality.

Cheers.

[puttenvr]

The sound is much better than those Yamaha and Roland cymbals
The feel is not 100% okay, but the software update certainly will improve it.
The choking is very good. Ride and bell positions do separate good
but sometimes there are some irregularities when playing a fast pattern

[Nussbaum]

puttenvr, you can't question taste. Sound has nothing to do with the reliability of the hardware itself.
I find the cymbals fischer-pricy, yet less durable.
I doubt that software will solve most of the downsides these cymbals have.

[UC]

I think puttenvr is right - in that it's not the cymbal sounds themselves that will be updated (they're already great), but the way the drum-brain handles the input.

Imagine for instance playing a midi keyboard to trigger a really good grand piano soft-synth or rompler or whatever...If things like the latency of your soundcard or the keyboard's velocity handling isn't handled right, the 'feel' of the piano won't be good.

So if the responsiveness and consistency of the drumit triggering is improved further, it will definitely have a big effect on the 'feel' - ie how your brain perceives what's happening when you hit the cymbal and what your ears subsequently pick up and process and feed back in...

In terms of the cymbal hardware, have you broken one yet Nussbaum? (honest question about you saying they're less durable - I'm not trolling ).

I know there have been one or two reports of bad cymbals, but I think those individual cases have been resolved by good customer service, sorting out replacements. I think it's unfair to call them 'fisher pricy' - the Yamaha and Roland ones are every bit as rubbery, it's the nature of the e-drum beast - I guess most people don't want their triggers to have their own acoustic properties. I think the Drumit cymbals have a good weight to them. That's just my taste though!

The sounds themselves are (in my opinion) better than Yamaha's and Roland's, and anyway if you don't like them, you'll be able to upload your wavs or aiffs come the new software release

[puttenvr]

puttenvr, you can't question taste.

The first question was: what do you think of the cymbals?
The second question was: but I was wondering what they are like in terms of feel and quality

I think my reply is a good mix of answers to both questions and agree what UC says

[Calimero]

I think puttenvr is right - in that it's not the cymbal sounds themselves that will be updated (they're already great), but the way the drum-brain handles the input.

Imagine for instance playing a midi keyboard to trigger a really good grand piano soft-synth or rompler or whatever...If things like the latency of your soundcard or the keyboard's velocity handling isn't handled right, the 'feel' of the piano won't be good.

So if the responsiveness and consistency of the drumit triggering is improved further, it will definitely have a big effect on the 'feel' - ie how your brain perceives what's happening when you hit the cymbal and what your ears subsequently pick up and process and feed back in...

In terms of the cymbal hardware, have you broken one yet Nussbaum? (honest question about you saying they're less durable - I'm not trolling ).

I know there have been one or two reports of bad cymbals, but I think those individual cases have been resolved by good customer service, sorting out replacements. I think it's unfair to call them 'fisher pricy' - the Yamaha and Roland ones are every bit as rubbery, it's the nature of the e-drum beast - I guess most people don't want their triggers to have their own acoustic properties. I think the Drumit cymbals have a good weight to them. That's just my taste though!

The sounds themselves are (in my opinion) better than Yamaha's and Roland's, and anyway if you don't like them, you'll be able to upload your wavs or aiffs come the new software release

Hi there.I ve been reading a lot of forums on the 2box and have been lurking here a lot ( also not trolling ).Would there be a way to determine wheter or not it is fixable with the upcomming update? For instance when someone reports that a 3 zone cymbal only triggers 2 zones like reported on this forum,can you be sure that is because of a software related problem?

On uploading sounds, it looks like you will be able to easily upload a sample and I have no doubt that a simple sample is possible,yet I don't have access to a studio like the studio 2box uses to make multichannel and multi-layered samples.Where would I get samples that offer the same quality and functionality of the sounds that now come in the 2box brain?

[UC]

Hi Calimero, nice to have you on board, and good questions - I'm going to have to leave the first to techie experts like Scott from Hand in Hand (come in Scott, you receiving?)

As for the second question... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=high+quality+drum+samples

My own real interest lies in importing less realistic sounds into the kit to play live trip-hop and drum'n'bass type stuff...my bag is chopping up breakbeats into individual hits and noises to trigger, in a package like Audacity...Free and simple and there are loops sites all over the interwebs to grab raw material from

[Calimero]

That "google" site is hilarious,I have not seen that before,LOL.
The thing is though ,I ve googled before and just like now it is hard to find any samples that would quallify.90% of the links are about loops,5% of them are sites that make me go hmm don't download here,and the other 5% are simple small samples.It was my understanding that the 2box uses multi-layered samples.Please correct me if I'm wrong,but I thought that means that when I hit a pad with different dynamics,the brain picks the sample that goes with that velocity.Or when I hit near the rim I get a sample with a sound that was hit closer to the rim.Or isn't that the way it works?In that sence you have to have a rather big file for each sample.It would be nice to have some more insight on how this feature is going to work,because now it really confuses me a bit if they say that you can simply replace the sounds.

[wbrs]

I thought 3rd party very high quality sample sets would be availible via BFD, SD etc ,but it doesn't sound like they have got that worked out yet. It maybe after Drumit5 becomes a huge success we will see some more interest in making the high quality samples that this kit can use.

[UC]

I'll be honest, I was assuming that I'd be able to use available tools to create multi samples but that's got me wondering now. Time to fire off a quick email to Bengt...

[UC]

Bengt is actually in China right now, checking over the latest production run which is nearly green for go. I think it's looking like we'll be getting the functionality we're clammering for but because of development issues, we'll be getting it incrementally - no groans please, I reckon it's better to get good updates slowly than bad updates quickly!

There's going to be a utility to port singles samples over (not kits yet), coming out hopefully before the end of the year, with the full-blown Editor software planned for early 2010, which I think most people expected.

The utility will actually do the "Drumitification", which means that if you want to use sounds from a library (eg from BFD), you'll need to resample them yourself to Wav and put them through the utility.

Here's a thought - maybe we can start pestering the Drum Library producers to include Drumit-compatible versions of their stuff, as they'll be leveraging existing assetts for relatively little effort? Worth a try perhaps...Let's start a petition!

[patbat]

It was my understanding that the 2box uses multi-layered samples.Please correct me if I'm wrong,but I thought that means that when I hit a pad with different dynamics,the brain picks the sample that goes with that velocity.Or when I hit near the rim I get a sample with a sound that was hit closer to the rim.Or isn't that the way it works?In that sence you have to have a rather big file for each sample.It would be nice to have some more insight on how this feature is going to work,because now it really confuses me a bit if they say that you can simply replace the sounds.

Calimero is right.
We all need more informations.
In France, drummers are asking the same questions.

[UC]

Official word is that the utility (due Dec) will handle single shot samples.
Multisample functionality will be with the full-on editor. I can live with that!

[Calimero]

Bengt is actually in China right now, checking over the latest production run which is nearly green for go. I think it's looking like we'll be getting the functionality we're clammering for but because of development issues, we'll be getting it incrementally - no groans please, I reckon it's better to get good updates slowly than bad updates quickly!

There's going to be a utility to port singles samples over (not kits yet), coming out hopefully before the end of the year, with the full-blown Editor software planned for early 2010, which I think most people expected.


The utility will actually do the "Drumitification", which means that if you want to use sounds from a library (eg from BFD), you'll need to resample them yourself to Wav and put them through the utility.

Thank you for the reply,but I wish it was some better news.This means that we can't expect a full complete functional set before 2010. And it still leaves me with the same questions.When I sample a sound from bfd it becomes a simple wav file and then I have to sample some more yet at different velocities,or will this 'drumitfication' do some magic and work it out itself?On the other hand there is the new Alesis comming and from what I understand it should be able to load soundsets from bfd or 3rd party developers.They also are a bit vague on how it is going to work.Anyway,I appreciate that you took some time to figure this out with Bengt.I'll just have to wait and see.

[westerlu77]

Please can you explain the difference between single shot sample and multisample?