Roland V Drums with BFD instead of real Drums in the Studio???

[el cochino]

I'm triggering DFHS with a Ddrum4 set all the time and have no problem with latency in Logic Pro. Sounds killer when it's played by a great drummer.

[Ruphus]

Originally Posted by Angus_FX

the brain-in-a-box approach is still better for less technical folk.

I guess yes and no.
The brain loading software for the Ddrum4 module at least is a POS, not letting you to hear the samples before potential load to the brain. In conjunction with miserable instructions it makes a pretty opaque feature.

I have had more success with exploring some of midi ( basic sysex at least ) than with trying to exchange samples on the Ddrum brain. ( Admittedly with only two half-assed trials so far that I gave up on for annoyance, but that says it all ).
Also had a friend buying one set who wouldn´t explore the sample issue either eventhough being pretty tech savvy.

Originally Posted by Angus_FX

OTOH, we're probably only a couple of years away from a $500 SBC board with enough power to run EZDrummer and a couple of GB of Flash storage, and at that point, they'll have to watch out.

Provided you conformed sample wise to both positional and velocity reading which to my understanding is what makes kits like the ( ex- ) Clavia stuff special compared to standard / statically sounding sampling methods.

Will you?

Ruphus

[Angus_FX]

I guess yes and no.
The brain loading software for the Ddrum4 module at least is a POS, not letting you to hear the samples before potential load to the brain. In conjunction with miserable instructions it makes a pretty opaque feature.

True. Not sure that the Rolands even do brain loading?

Provided you conformed sample wise to both positional and velocity reading which to my understanding is what makes kits like the ( ex- ) Clavia stuff special compared to standard / statically sounding sampling methods.

Could well be...

[Ruphus]

Originally Posted by Angus_FX

Could well be...

That would be terrific!

Ruphus

[SiliconAudioLab]

Using the VDrums here and it works out quite well. Swap the samples (extrnl trigger).

[halbotheclown]

Hey, This Real media video is of Clive Deamer (Portishead, Roni Size, Robert Plant) working in a a studio with A real Kit, Roland TD-20 and BFD. It's interesting enough, definately worth a watch. Clive is a fantastic drummer and he also engineered some of the new Robert plant album.

http://www.sonicstate.com/articles/article.cfm?id=94

[Push845]

Originally Posted by halbotheclown

Hey, This Real media video is of Clive Deamer (Portishead, Roni Size, Robert Plant) working in a a studio with A real Kit, Roland TD-20 and BFD. It's interesting enough, definately worth a watch. Clive is a fantastic drummer and he also engineered some of the new Robert plant album.

http://www.sonicstate.com/articles/article.cfm?id=94

Dude...Killer link!

[Andi Rauscher]

although it´s not BFD, it´s´DKFHS, you may find these interesting:

www.toontrack.com/demos/chicken_low.mov

www.toontrack.com/demos/behind_low.mov

[DeepSpace]

Originally Posted by Andi Rauscher

Shure, I am talking about something like a TD12 Set.

http://www.rolandmusik.de/ftp/pub/fotos/TD-12K_BK.jpg

I think a TD20 is too much, since I do not need the Roland Sounds. And I think the Kit is the same???

The kit is not the same.

The TD12 has a 10" snare, three 8" toms and an 8" kick, two cymbals and a fixed H/H.

The TD20 has a 12" snare, two 10" toms, two 12" toms, a 12" kick, three cymbals and a full-motion H/H. Plus the stand is larger and has room for expansion.

Seriously, the 12" and 10" mesh heads and shells are much more playable than the smaller pads that come with the TD12.

If you are not especially concerned with the capabilities of the brain (except for MIDI) but *are* concerned about the cost, I'd suggest that you buy the stand for the TD20, then buy the full-size drums second hand to piece a kit together, then match it up with one of the smaller/cheaper brains. Parts and individual drums are coming up on eBay all the time (usual caveats about watching out for scammers, though...).

[elegentdrum]

I have been slowly, and methodically putting together an electronic drum set with the hopes of real time MIDI drums that feel and sound close to real drums. The results have taken me down an expencive path that will have a mixed bag of quality.

Compaired to typical audio chain: Source, Mic, pre, comp, eq, Mix+reverb.
Now I desire three perallel chains, basically 3 sound sources for one kit: BFD, TD-20, and Mic's

Before I get the mic's involved(im not there yet) I have spent 100's of hours figuring out the best triggers, use of trigger inputs, and what controls can be done with the sounds.

Thier are two main obsticals to overcome. Latancy, and control. Trigger responce and volume profiles also some into this mix.

The issues with the high hat control are already well documented in this thread.

The limiting factor in general is the TD-20. It is by far the best set of trigger inputs on the market. But IMHO, it leaves much to be desired.

Latancy: once you pass up 5 ms(millaseconds) between the drum strike and hearing the sound, it sucks as a drummer. The TD-20 requires between 2 and 3 ms (your choice from 0.1.....8) to have a reliable velocity profile with roland products. Other brands tend to need 30% more trigger sensing time than Roland triggers for reliable volumes. assuming you have good triggers and you can deal with all the trigger settings under 2.5 ms, that leaves you with another 2.5 ms to get the rest of everything you want done. ....more on that later.

Control: This has to discussed on a per/drum&cymbal basis

Kick: easiest trigger, no control just a volume level, but I had to replace my hart kick trigger with a top of the line roland to gain the correct stand design that eliminates double triggers without eliminating the lowest volume kicks.

Snare: I'm currently using a hart 13" vs the roland 12", but im considering swithing to the roland to gain better positional sensativity. again roland brand has an advantage because the roland trigger sensors are calabraited for thier drums. Also, I use two trigger inputs for the snare to keep the rim sound and the head sound seporate. This way the rim and head don't cut each other off. I use an Aux input for the rim and turn off the head sound, while the snare input has the rim turned off. use a headphone splitter to put 1 trigger into both inputs....gain must be re-adjusted for the split signal.

Ride: I have both an R15 and a pintec 18". The pintec is nicer to play and has great velocity sensativity in the mid volume ranges, but again lack the positional sensativity of the R15. as a result, I use the R15. Also the R15 can be hit much harder and still have useful veolocity informatin.

NOTE: In general I use VERY low sensativity, to aproximate the velocity profile of a real drum, even with lighter sticks.

Hat's: wont spend much time here as this has been covered, but the 12" roland hats are best if you want the hats to actually open like real ones. many drummer will use any random trigger and a good controller pedal that has a more accurate controller profile, but the feel is not as good.

Crash: use R15's...with one exception. the pintek stuff chokes faster because there is less rubber at the pinch rim used for cutoff of the sound.

Toms: I use hart toms because they come in 4 sizes(8,10,12,13) rather than just 10" and 12" for the roland toms. There chrome toms also look cool. The detailed position sensativity and velocity profile are much less imporatant for the toms. I set to up my top tom like the snare with two trigger inputs to get a timbali like sound out of the top tom when the rim is hit. Much of the time I put a cowbel, wood block or kick drum on the rims of the lower toms where you are unlikly to hit them by accident. only tom2 is set up "standard" with crappy rim sounds out of the TD-20.

After all that now I feel the best feeling MIDI drum set with available tools has been achieved. Now to apply sounds......the above is just how the trigger signals get into the system.

Next month lots of new toys come out, check out inHEAD by Aquarian, GEN 16 cymbals by ziljian, and Kick laser trigger by TrickDrums.

the TD-20 is over 10 years old, does not load samples, and models the drums sound with a propritary sound modeling software. Much of the time it does a decent job, but it does not fool anybody as in making your head spin thinking it's a real drum.

To get good sounds I'm in process of purchasing a computer to be the rest of my drum set. I expect a long hard battle for every drum blending together BFD2 and the TD-20. But here is why it should be worth it.

Only the snare drum and hats typically have positional/control sensativity set up with the sound of BFD. Details like position sensing of toms, ride, and crashes can only be used by the sounds in the TD-20, not BFD. thier is no midi information being trasmitting, nor is the software set up to use it.

On the other hand, in all casses, especially the kick. Using 128 velocity levels with detailed and infantly selectable samples sound much better if you can overcome the latancy of a sampler.

I plan to blend together the sounds of the TD-20 and BFD2 to achieve the best of both worlds. Some of the sound will maintain all of the available controls of the TD-20 in layors with the quality of BFD2.

To accomplish with, I went with a Rackmount RokBox, SSL MX-4 & alpha link and the Lexicon PCM plugin (Add $8K to already 10K electronic kit).

The latancy chain rocks with this system for the cash. 54 samples each way for converters. 5 samples to EQ, compress, and mix all inputs, and only 32 samples for the PCM plugin to start sending it's sound to the mix. Running at 96K this turns out to be around 2MS......yippy, under the origional 5MS requirement. Also the MX-4 can time align every input, when I want the blend sounds from the TD-20, and BFD, I think this will be required.

In a year or so after I have all this dialed in, and the new triggers come out, I plan to incorperate the TD-20 into the acoustic kit with Mic's. With 24 inputs on the alpha link, I can have 10 from the TD-20, 10 from mic's and 4 more for other stuff. With say 16 more inputs from BFD-2, I will have a 36 track drum set lol. with enough time, I should be able to correctly blend together an awsome sounding KIT. Two day's ago, I just realized I have to start the entire process by documenting the pitches of my acoustic DW drums so that I start off programming with the right pitches, that way, when it comes down to incorperaiting the electronics with acoustics, it will work out easier.

I know this is like drinking from a water fall, but I hope other can benefit from my time researching and working on this subject.

Most of all I hope Roland reads this, and adds control to positional sensativity, and advances the standard by wich MIDI drums are communicated so that every last detail from the triggers is available in the software.

[cdog]

Originally Posted by elegentdrum

Details like position sensing of toms, ride, and crashes can only be used by the sounds in the TD-20, not BFD. thier is no midi information being trasmitting, nor is the software set up to use it.

And this is what kills the current generation of electronic drums for me, and why I sold my Vdrums and TD20 years ago.

Elegentdrum, you are on the cutting edge of whats possible with current technology and I applaud you for putting in a lot of effort into your setup which sounds about as good as is possible today.

However, like you said a lot of new toys are coming out soon. Dont for a second think that Roland has forgotten about sample based Vdrums, they are just taking the time to perfect the technology and sound before unleashing them. Apparently, its taking a bit longer than expected.

[Mandrake7171]

I've got a few of these and they detect strikes every millimeter or so as you play from center to edge and they output MIDI continuous control values from 0 in the center to 127 at the edge, and all values in between also.

They put out MIDI notes too in 4 different rings, and another note for rim and one for a sort of cross stick.

Here's one controlling NI Battery with a full Black Beauty set of snare samples (1200 samples of 1 drum!) loaded in for all positions triggered by the continuous control. You can hear it in the strikes.

MandalaDrum's Channel - YouTube

There's other info here: Mandala - The All New USB Mandala Drum

[muziekschuur]

Hart Dynamics | Home




http://www.thomann.de/nl/millenium_t...mer_bundle.htm

[chipss36]

Just wondering why BFD? I have used it as well as addictive drums, and must say I am addicted to toontracks superor drummer ..BFD and ad gather dust, The deeper I get into this program the more I like it. anyway my set up is all Roland still not the feel of real drums however I have gotten used to it and will never go back, I can lay down tracks at 3am if I choose to and bother no body, change kits after the fact in protools , change mics' bleeds, room mics , change the snare or a ride...what ever add fx, and get things to sit in a mix just right, without having to own mics and pres and a perfect room to do so....with the lost studios expansion I have fooled many that they were not acoustic drums...not perfect but better tones than I afford , and ideal for a home studio, just my thoughts, and may give sd2 a shot.

[Jhonz a Slut]

For the last ten years, I've used V-Drums in our basement studio. Once we finally moved and built a studio separate from the house, we had a proper drum room and the V-Drums were quickly deemed unneeded anymore. Like many of you, I used MIDI to activate BFD2 drums and although the actual SOUNDS were fantastic, it ultimately sounded like a brilliant sounding drum machine, usually played by a not-that-brilliant drummer.

I constantly had to re-set up the key map and automation maps every single time I opened up a new ProTools session . . . occasionally the computer seemed to "forget" which triggers were supposed to activate which sounds and after awhile, it just made me feel like I was ducking out on a "real recording task" with this "cheat sheet". That's not a knock on anybody that gets fantastic results, I'm just speaking for myself.

That said, I would like to interject that if you're going to use the Roland kit with BFD2 (or any of the other drum related products out there) I would suggest that you try mic'ing up a live high hat to go along with it. We bought a pair of Zildjian K Custom Dark hats and once I did that, the whole thing seemed much more believable . . . of course, we were running the mic into a Great River MP2-NV and that seemed to help it warm up a bit.

That said, does anyone know what THE mic is for high hats? I keep trying the Gear Slutz search engine but haven't had any luck finding such a thread . . . I currently have been using a Shure SM-81 and it seems to do okay . . . some of the mic's I read people like "Evil Joe" Barressi using seem to be discontinued . . .

I'm fairly new to the site, but from what I see, this will be a tremendous tool for learning things that I want to know.