Tech question:
Hi Guys,
I'm not a tech head at all..
I've noticed between each electric drum models, Depending on how hard you hit the each drum/pad you will have a certain amount of volume levels or parts! I think it's called velocity layers?, the gradual change between faint and hard hits,
Hit it hard and you get the full max volume, hit it soft and get a lower min volume & the in betweens also.
This is obviously to do with the sensors & how many different levels they can detect from your stick hitting them ?
I have a roland basic kit at the moment & for example: I can hear only 3 or 4 different volume levels from the kick which is not enough for a feel for what I need now Recording.
Does anyone know if there's a big difference between drum brands & there models or if theres a data list that shows the difference in Roland models or 2 Box Drumit's ?
Im in the market (was thinking Roland TD-25 but after discovering 2 Box I'm swaying toward a Drumit Five) but not 100% sure yet.
I know the bass drum, snare & hats is gonna need to be able to have a good range of volume levels between soft to med to hard hits Ect to get a decent groove.
Unfortunately I can't try a 2 Box anywhere here as there are no shops stocking them :(
I'd really appreciate any help or advice !
Many Thanks,
Paul :)
Short answer as I'm on a phone in the mountains: velocity layers are not directy about volume but they are different actual recordings of the real drums for certain strength of hits. OK confusing. Example, you have a sound which has only one velocity layer, it will still play at the variable volume according to your strength of strike, the processor in the module is able to dynamically change the volume. If you have multiple velocity layers in a sound then the processor chooses the closest velocity to the strength of your strike but still adjusts the volume to match your strike. So what's the point? The point is that real drums don't sound exactly the same with 2 identical hits, the minute differences that you can barely hear in the 2 layers fool your auditory system into thinking you're hearing real drums.
Btw The sensors in the heads/cymbals are analogue so at the sensor they have infinite resolution, but the processor reads the electrical amplitude and assigns a range from 0 to say 256 (I don't know what exactly but 256 is common and means 8-bit resolution, 10-bit gives 1024 individual volume levels and so on).
Shorter answer, you shouldn't have only 4 possible volumes on your kick drum.
Thanks a mill Dude! You really know your stuff !!
Hope you're enjoying the mountains !!
BW
P
Quote from: Coda on November 15, 2015, 10:04:31 PM
Btw The sensors in the heads/cymbals are analogue so at the sensor they have infinite resolution, but the processor reads the electrical amplitude and assigns a range from 0 to say 256 (I don't know what exactly but 256 is common and means 8-bit resolution, 10-bit gives 1024 individual volume levels and so on).
Shorter answer, you shouldn't have only 4 possible volumes on your kick drum.
I think that's only 128 - as in MIDI notes 0-128.
Yes that makes sense as the midi data is the lowest common denominator.
Just got this answer back from 2 box direct.
Btw does this mean the trigger sensors on each drum can dectect 127 different strick hits??
Thabks insane, anyone know how for example a TD 4 Roland compares ?
Just wanna get a rough idea of the different?
Kind Regards
Paul
2 Box Quote:
One of the main features of the 2box drum kit is
the dynamic range. Hardest hit to lowest little tap you have 60 dB
difference when gain is set correctly.
In other words; between lowest hit to maximum hit you have at least 127
levels in volume and in our case this can also be 127 different samples.
This is unique and there is no other product in the market that can match
this.
To do so many sample levels cost memory. That's why the DrumIt Five
has 4 GB of memory. Now - not all sounds are made up with so many sample
levels - there are some in the factory programs but you should know that
technically you are able to load sounds with so many levels into the module.
The sensors on any drum kit are usually the same, if they are piezo (2box Roland Yamaha alesis et all) the levels are infinite (because its analogue not digital). But the module must convert this voltage to a digital value (by sampling) and the result is a number from 1-127 (you might think 0-127 but if there's 0 then you didn't hit the drum :)). All drum modules do this similarly. The way 2box is different from any other module (except perhaps the new nfuzed kit) is that you have REAL drum samples instead of generated digital sounds. Roland sounds are not samples but they are algorithmically generated. Yes they sound like drums but they are not. With the 2box you can build for example a snare sound yourself which has lots of samples (at least 99 maybe 127?) recorded at different velocities so each time you hit the drum you hear a different recording. This means that 1) it's closer to how a real drum behaves and 2) you won't get 'machine gunning' when you play a roll. Both of these equate to more realistic sounding drums.
A lot of us here (including me) came from Roland kits, I had a Td9 for 6 years, which is a middle of the road kit in Roland's line up. The 2box blows it away, so much so that I've had to relearn how to play. Others have had td20s and td30s and still chose the 2box over them. Its that good. IMO, to go better you have to get an acoustic kit.
Sounds great dude, you know your stuff! Big time!
Funny I played a Td 20 & my playing isn't great but yea the roll is not realistic at all!
Horrible actually !
I'm not a great drummer, but my background is electronics/hardware and programming. That said, there's many people on here that know tons more than me.