Hihat with other brand cymbals

[Manfred]

Hi,

yes, as Jman already said with the jumpers the poti can be enabled or disabled.

JP1 - Poti enabled
JP2 - Poti disabled

At least my 2Box module seems to have quiet sensitive inputs. Even though i'm not a hard hitter i have "gain" of most inputs (kick, snare, all toms) set to 0. And at snare and one tom this is still too high. Thats why i decided to put in the poti just in case the cymbal is too "hot".

Regards, Manfred

[edtc]

hello

you said that foot tchick are difficult to have....

    Does it mean that to trigger the tchick , the module needs the pedal down info and also a little signal from the cymbal piezo ? 

   I ask this because i plan not to use a regular hh stand to hold the HH pad , so in this case there s no way to have a signal from the piezo when pressing the hh pedal . 

Im i right ..?

[Manfred]

Hi,

that was just a matter of settings that i had in the beginning but by playing with gain and volume parameters in the module and the poti on the board i could get quiet good results.

And with the new OS 1.20 it is no problem at all. With parameters SENS and CURVE on page HPED i could easily make good settings for playing foot splashes/chicks.

There is also no signal from the piezo required. This happens more or less by accident with the original hihat and i guess most people don't want it. It happens also with a CY-5 but less marked. I even disconnected the cymbal from my board and it is still no problem to play foot splashes. Thats why i know that there is no signal from piezo required.

It should be no problem to use it without a regular hihat stand as long as you use a proper cymbal with piezo and switch. What kind of cymbal do you plan to use?

Regards, Manfred

Btw. you could also remove the circuit board from the original hihat and put it in your pedal as Jman did. These are just  4 wires (2 x piezo, 2 x switch) that you have to detach and rewire.

[edtc]

hi Manfred ...

those are good news for me !

I plan to use a mono Yamaha rubber pad for the moment , and will soon make a DIY mini HH from a splash i ve got , in order to have BOW/EDGE sound ... or maybe something smaller with a piece of metal and some rubber ...  dont know yet ! 
I plan to put your board into a E-HH controller or under a modified bassdrum pedal ... i ll see what s best ...

As i use regular hihat on my kit i want something small and easy to fit .... but maybe , thanks to your work , i gonna switch to E-hihat completely ...  Im looking forward to try it ...

i ll send you a PM soon

[edtc]

.... Just got my little board today !

I just have a loudspeaker magnet around , but it s enough for some quick testing ... And it seems to work fine ...

Now i have to find the right magnet and the best way to mount it in a pedal ...

thanx for your work Manfred

[Manfred]

Hi edtc,

you're welcome! Hope to see some pictures of your pedal as soon as you have the more or less final setup 

Regards, Manfred

[edtc]

So here are some news about the HIHAT board....

I bought a cheap and simple magnet in a tool shop , it is not very strong ,  it is  the only one i found .... but fortunatly it works OK , giving 2 or 3 cm from close to open with a nice curve ...

After mounting the board in a plastic protection box , i taped it under an old mapex bass drum pedal
and taped the magnet under the pedal plate ... i used my DIY ride cymbal for the tests:

         Calibration was easy and as expected ...   
         zone recognition was ok 
         Foot chick and splash ok too 


   Only problem came from the fact my old pedal plate moves a bit from left to right , causing the magnet to move from the calibration sweet spot ....

Also i ll have to get used with the feeling of a hihat controller , previously i only played with a real hihat ... but i think it would be  the same with the regular 2BOX hihat ...



    Once again i say really nice work Manfred !!!!.... "Spitzeklasse" as you say in your country ..." la classe ", comme on dit chez moi !!



Here is a pic , i will post more when i ll have something more definitive ....

[espen]

Ok. Here's my thoughts so far:

I got the board from Manfred yesterday, thank you very much. It is very well made and clean.
I bought a very strong circular magnet (diameter 20 mm) and a plastic box for the board. Everything relating the board and the magnet worked flawlessy. I could make calibration, foot chicks and splashes easily and the transition between stages (I have five intermediate stages) is great. I only can say it's the best working hh controller I ever had!

The only problem was my hihat pad, Yamaha PCY-135. First, it triggered zone 9 from the edge when hihat was closed. It only fired zone 8 when fully open. Zone 4 (bow) was correct all the time. I opened the cover and it was found out that when removing another edge switch ribbon cable (the upper one in the picture) from the circuit board the problem was half solved. After that, only zone 4 triggered from both bow and edge. I think I can live with that because I like the Yamaha cymbal pads very much but if someone know a fairly easy diy solution for that I would be interested to test. I know something must be done for the circuit board of the pad but don't know what. I also tested it with Roland CY-15 and it the both zones worked.

[Manfred]

Hi espen,

am i right to say that your setup works with all zones with the Roland cymbal or for example a regular 14" 2Box cymbal (not the 2Box hihat but one of the other cymbals)? I'm just asking because i would like to know that the setup with board and magnet is ok. If that is the case we can go on to trace the problem at the Yamaha-Cymbal.

What you definitely need for the 2Box hihat is a cymbal with piezo wired to tip and an edge switch wired to the ring contact as shown in my description. I don't have a Yamaha cymbal but i found the following circuit diagram in the Vdrums forum:



I don't know if that is correct and fits also to your PCY-135. But i guess it should be similar. What you can see is that Yamaha uses 2 switches, one for bell and one for edge. But the edge switch has a series resistor with 10kOhm. This resistor could cause the problem because the 2Box module measures the current through the ring contact for the level detection and also for differentiation between bow and edge. With the 10kOhm resistor in series the currents are not as expected by the module. To confirm my assumption i would do the following tests:

1. Put cymbal back to original state (all plugs back to original position).

2. Test if you can get an edge sound by playing the bell of the Yamaha cymbal (according to the schematic this switch does NOT have a series resistor). If yes, we are on the right way.

3. Do you have a multimeter? If yes could you please measure the resistance as followed:

- Unplug the cymbal from the module
- Connect multimeter between sleeve and ring of the TRS-Jack
- measure resistance with pressed edge switch (press it with your fingers as you would choke the cymbal)
- measure resistance with pressed bell switch (press the bell with your fingers)
- measure resistance with both switches unpressed

Maybe you just have to bypass that resistor and it works. But before modifying anything at the cymbal i recommend to do these test at first. Unfortunately i don't have a Yamaha cymbal but i'm thinking about buying one.

Regards, Manfred

Edit: Does anybody have the circuit diagram of Yamaha PCY-135 and/or PCY-155? This would help a lot to find the problem!

[BURNIN AMBITION]

because the pic shows the box to be 2 big (perhaps it is the zoom), i would like to ask something
can this be put under a  pearl eliminator hi hat pedal? from your experience? is it small enough?thanx

[edtc]

[quote author=BURNIN AMBITION
because the pic shows the box to be 2 big (perhaps it is the zoom), i would like to ask something
can this be put under a  pearl eliminator hi hat pedal? from your experience? is it small enough?thanx
[/quote]

hi BA

the box is 3cm high ... i think it will fit any hi hat pedal....

[Jman]

Ok ... got my boards today. The choices of project boxes is a little different here in the US. After a lot of searching I had 5 different boxes on hand when my boards arrived. Turned out, as I suspected 4 of them were too small. The one I used is a little longer than the gray box you guys have used, but fortunately it fits just perfect for my DW 3500T Hi Hat stand. I used velcro on the box and stand base. The base plate is ribbed, and that is the case with many HH stand bases. I thought about filling in the depressions between the ribs, but thought ... hey, first I'll go with the velcro and see how it works .... Turns out it holds quite well. After a little while of playing with it attached I decided to pull it out to test the second one I built ... and it took a pretty concentrated effort just to pull the box loose from the velcro hooks on the plate.





So, everything is working as expected. I have used this to replace my other box I built from a 2Box HH pcb .. Good job Manfred.
I also cranked up the resistance a little via the pot .... very nice feature ... My own HH cymbal was working well at a sensitivity setting of 0 ... now I have some headroom. I have the sensitivity set at 5 now and it is just right.

[espen]

Edit: Does anybody have the circuit diagram of Yamaha PCY-135 and/or PCY-155? This would help a lot to find the problem!

I didn't find the actual schematic but I found a picture and the following statement from Vdrums.com relating the difference between PCY-150 and PCY-155 (same circuit as in PCY-135):

"It's almost the same. Three small differences:

1. The layout has been redone, but the basic circuit logic is the same
2. There is a second film switch for the edge, serial to the first
3. The .1 uF capacitor has been replaced by a resistor 51kO"



If I understand correctly, bypassing of the resistor will work?

[BURNIN AMBITION]

[quote author=BURNIN AMBITION
because the pic shows the box to be 2 big (perhaps it is the zoom), i would like to ask something
can this be put under a  pearl eliminator hi hat pedal? from your experience? is it small enough?thanx


hi BA

the box is 3cm high ... i think it will fit any hi hat pedal....

great to know, thanx so much

[Manfred]

Hi espen,

did you try if you get edge sounds by playing the bell? If the schematic is correct this should work because this bell switch doesn't have a series resistor.

And again the question if everything works with an other cymbal? Just want to confirm that your setup with magnet and board is okay. I'm asking because distance between magnet and board and also orientation of the magnet matter.

If the answer to both questions is "yes" it could help to bypass the series resistor to get a good differentiation between bow and edge.

Regards, Manfred