positional sensing on snare

[edtc]

hello... got this idea while responding to another post ... it s maybe usefull to make a topi on it..

  I ve read somewhere in the forum that positionnal sensing required to have the sensor in the middle of the pad ... like roland or hart ones ... I ve never had the opportunity to try positionnal sensing by myself , but a lot of users ask for that on the forum  , so i imagine it could be nice and usefull expand ...

I dont know if the center sensor design is pattented or not , but maybe 2box could release a special snare pad with this design ,  update the OS for positionnal sensing support and create some nice multizone snare sounds ... i imagine that more samples are needed ( center , and some sounds between center and side of the skin ) .This is not an issue , as hi hat and cymbals can handle more than one sound ...

Actual 12" snare pad could become a big 4th tom ... so no loss for kit users

... This could open possibilities for those who use center sensor based pads ,DIY or from other vendors ... I truly think its a way to sell more modules and make more people speak about 2box ...

[nonoduweb]

   I ve read somewhere in the forum that positionnal sensing required to have the sensor in the middle of the pad ...

Apparently a rubber pad would allow to have also the positional sensing.

[puttenvr]

Yep. The rubber surface will allow that
On snaredrums positional sensing is a must, but who uses different positions on acoustic tom toms?

[nonoduweb]

On snaredrums positional sensing is a must, but who uses different positions on acoustic tom toms?

To have more realism, if there are enough zones on a tom.
It's good to have the random hits to avoid the machine-gun effect but it's sometimes annoying. When we give two hits on the same place, the sound changes and it's not very natural.

[signature]

Maybe you could explain what positional sensing is and what it does? How does it help?

[puttenvr]

Machine gunning is caused by a slow tracking module, bad sensitivity and not enough dynamic sample layers. Nothing to do with positional sensing i.m.o.

[edtc]

Maybe you could explain what positional sensing is and what it does? How does it help?

   With a real snare drum ,the sound is different if you hit the the center of the skin or the edge of it ... positional sensing is a way to emulate this: by analising where you hit the pad ,it will trigger a fat snare sound at the center , and a more "ringing" sound if you hit the side of the skin...
   it s a bit the same thing than the ride cymbal , with bell and bow sounds . That s done by analising the shape of the waveform of the pad input.

So this feature brings more realism , because it s not only the velocity who controles the way your snare sounds .

[edtc]

Yep. The rubber surface will allow that
On snaredrums positional sensing is a must, but who uses different positions on acoustic tom toms?

I agree with you , on toms it s not so usefull i guess , as the pads are smaller , and the sound of them realist enough , even without using the rim sound... but that could be different for other players...

Could you explain why positional sensing is possible only with rubber skins  ? Dont mesh skin deliver enough "diference" in term of sound to analyse the position by the waveform ..?

[puttenvr]

I think the mesh head isn't stiff enough to translate where you hit when the trigger is near the rim (ddrum, 2box pads). The Roland pads work with a piezo trigger in the centre and cooperate with the rim trigger. 2Box always promised that positional sensing would be possible with the forthcoming rubber heads.

But perhaps Deve can explain how it works ...

[edtc]

But perhaps Deve can explain how it works ...

yes it would be great if he s back from the frozen woods...  happy new year Deve !

lot of work on 2011 !!!

[Manfred]

The Roland pads work with a piezo trigger in the centre and cooperate with the rim trigger.

At the common center triggered pads the head and rim triggers are not completely separated. So i guess to detect the position the delay between the two trigger signals is measured at the roland modules.

At the 2Box pads we don't have center triggers and due to the floating system rim and head piezos are well seperated. So the "roland way" does not work. Lets see if we see positional sensing at the 2Box kit and what kind of pads are used. Maybe positional sensing based on waveform analysis is also feasible. But according to the bad experience with the cymbals this might be difficult. With rubber pads maybe a technology similar to touchpanels is thinkable. But i have no idea if this can be done in the economic point of view. Anyway it will be interesting to see which technology is used.

Manfred

[edtc]

Maybe positional sensing based on waveform analysis is also feasible. But according to the bad experience with the cymbals this might be difficult.
Manfred

   yes , i understand , it would add delay for the analysis , and mesh heads signal may vary even more than on an original 2BOX cymbal pad : because of differencies of brand ,number of plys and tension ... maybe some calibration could be done by hitting center and side of the skin at different velocities to make the module "learn", but we ll still have the "analysis delay issue"...

[fishmonkey]

from what i understand positional sensing uses the pitch of the head vibration to determine location, which i guess is why it only works with more solid heads.

[nonoduweb]

Machine gunning is caused by a slow tracking module, bad sensitivity and not enough dynamic sample layers. Nothing to do with positional sensing i.m.o.

Hi

It is difficult to say, the pos sensing can reduce the machine-gun effect if there are many zones and that each stick hits a different zone during a roll. In any case, it is an additional step towards the realism.
If one day we also manage to consider the pressure on the head, we will make another move...

[Kyrrinstoch]

I think the mesh head isn't stiff enough to translate where you hit when the trigger is near the rim (ddrum, 2box pads). The Roland pads work with a piezo trigger in the centre and cooperate with the rim trigger. 2Box always promised that positional sensing would be possible with the forthcoming rubber heads.

But perhaps Deve can explain how it works ...

Rob, as you remember, the older ddrum pads (up to the ddrum3 and the ddrum4 Cast Precision pads) used a center mounted piezo sensor. The positional sensing was able to be determined by the module analyzing not just the signal itself (initial impact to determine the strike velocity), but also the signal reflections as they bounced back from the edges within the pad  - just like analyzing the ripples in a pond to determine where the stone was tossed in. As you can see, it's not something that can be done with any accuracy without a fair bit of fast processing power and some very complicated calculations. Move the sensor from the center out to the rim, and the calculations become significantly more complicated and require much more processing power...

I'm going to assume that if 2Box states that positional sensing will be available with the use of their rubber heads, then they would be going with a center mounted sensor in them. It's one of the features I'm VERY hopeful will work at least as well as the ddrum stuff did, as I do like having that feature available to me.

As for why someone would want this feature, the snare drum reference earlier was perfect. On my acoustic snare drums, I change where on the head I hit depending on the textures and effects I want to add to the part. Playing ghost notes out towards the edge and regular notes in the center creates a different texture to the playing than if they were both played in the center or both out on the edge (same thing with train beats, shuffles, etc). Positional Sensing would allow us to do this and still keep the sounds programmed to the center of the pad to sound like you're playing the center of the drum, even at different volumes (fatter, dryer sound) and not have to change our playing style when we move back and forth between our acoustic and electronic setups.