Hihat setup with Roland Vh-11 and zourman conversion module

[Koskis]

I recently purchased the Roland Vh-11 and zourman conversion module to overcome some of the hihat issues on legacy 2box kit. Now I have following challenges:

1) Loud bow sound
On hihat the bow sound is more loud than the edge sound with the same stock hihat sounds that had no issues with 2box hihat. This means when i play my normal style on 4/4s: 1s and 3s stick hits more towards edge and 2s and 4s to bow. ..all songs sound like reggae as the 2s and 4s are louder (on last gig Billy Idol's Rebell Yell sounded like never before... ) . I already got good advice from Anders to purchase the Dsound manager to lower the volume of bow sound of hihat which worked to some degree, but I'd like to hear other thoughts as well.

2) very loud sound when hittin the stick "horizontally" to bow
When I hit the hihat so that bigger surface than just the tip of the stick hits the bow, the volume of the output is again very loud. This causes strange dynamics while normal playing. Anyone else noticed this and any ideas how to overcome this?

3) What's the function of the bow cooler? I tried to tweak it to overcome the issue 1 with some variation but not a full fix.

4) Have you encountered any issues on sound stability / interference, etc if not tieing HH pedal and bow/edge cables to the hihat pole?

5) What settings are you using for zourman cooler, and UNIT (and which sounds used) for gigging? 

Best regards,
Juha

[ANGR77]

Hi Juha!

1 - You can set the gain for the hi-hat very low - about 0 to 2 on the 2box seems to be a good value for Roland VH-11. (The piezo is quite hot.) The bow cooler on the Zourman Drums module is a potentiometer which if turned to "-" (Counter clockwise) will cool the signal. I would set it to about 9 o'clock.

2. Hittin horizontally - how do you mean here? (Like Ringo Starr plays on the hi-hat...?)

3 - See 1.

4. If using 2box module (MKi) in environments like basements etc with a lot of earth interferences, then I have occasionally seen some issues - especially if the 2box module have a metal connection to the hi-hat stand. Ping, me if you experience problems here.

5. See 1. The AAX hi-hat is good in my ears...

This my 2 cents - maybe there are other users with good suggestions here!

Best Regards

Anders / www.zourman.com   

[Koskis]

Thanks again for quick reply.

1) Cooling the signal means what? (sorry for dumb question) - and is there any consequence keeping the piezo hot (other than perceived sound)?

About  2): If the normal angle of hitting the bow is about 30 degrees, when this angle goes close to 0 (stick hits the bow with more surface) the sound is loud. However, after tweaking the Hihat so that the triggering sector is positioned right, and tweaking the cooler nob it got a better.


Thanks,
Juha

[ANGR77]

Great to hear about the improvements on the edge hits etc. The edge on VH-11 is a switch...reading just a 0 or 1...when hitted and then the 2box reading the piezo for the amplitude...to generate an edge hit sound. So the bow piezo is very much involved here to create a good edge hit. 

The cooler is a potentiometer which can calm down the signal...a too hot piezo...often generates a very high signal...almost a distorted signal...with less dynamics. That's why sometimes you want it to be more cool...:-)

Best regards

Anders / www.zourman.com