Synesthesia Mandala Electric Drum!

[Allez]

Anyone have experience with the Synesthesia Mandala drum? Mine should be here any day now and I'm so excited! Didn't see any recent threads about it so I thought I'd start the discussion. If it lives up to expectations from all the youtube videos I've been watching, I plan to build a kit around a couple of them.

I'll update this soon with first impressions and then a full review, but for now here's some of the videos that convinced me to take the plunge:

HD position sensitivity and realistic drum emulation ------- melodic instruments too (dude's shorts not included)

--------- and cool effects not playable any other way ---------------------------- this is the future of drumming

[Kiwi]

Looks interesting - I hadn't seen this before ...

I just bought a Korg Wavedrum Oriental ... which is very cool for what it is, but it doesn't have the features that this has ... linking them with a USB hub is very cool ...

[Allez]

How do you like the wavedrum? I heard it's not midi based and instead has it's own dsp synethesis constantly running. That's a very interesting concept if they pulled it off well.

[JBonham]

"The Danny Carey Mandala Drum"

I heard these were invented for Danny. There's pictures of his drumset where he is surrounded by seven mandala pads.

[JBonham]

[Allez]

Oh man what I would do for an all bronze kit like that!

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by Allez

How do you like the wavedrum? I heard it's not midi based and instead has it's own dsp synethesis constantly running. That's a very interesting concept if they pulled it off well.

The Wavedrum is it's own thing, and not even trying to be a midi device. It's not perfect by any stretch, so you have to throw out any preconceived notions of what to expect and take it for what it is. Which is ...

A real drum ... you can mount a standard 10" skin of your choice, and tension it like a real drum. It's got built in microphones at various places, and depending on the programmed patch, you get to hear the actual skin - so it can be very sensitive and responds to delicate fingering and scratches etc. It can also feedback - it's a real instrument.

Where it departs from a real drum is that it has no body, which is basically the characteristic tone of a real membranophone. So it's small, and it looks cool. And the tone of the body is replaced with a combination of samples and/or synthesis. Which means you get a huge variety that is very tuneable and programmable.

You can program a patch that merely triggers samples - which sound good, but have none of the finesse of the real skin or synth algorithms. Another gripe I have about the sample set is that most of them trigger different samples at different velocity ranges - which can be cool, but can also be frustrating if you want to avoid accidentally triggering a sample you don't want. I haven't got deep enough into programming this yet, so maybe I can limit the sensitivity - but I suspect this will always bug me. If you want to trigger samples, I suggest a conventional midi drum pad, which I have, so why bother if thats what you really want.

The power of the wavedrum is in the synth algorithms - and these all use the microphone sound of the membrane as the oscillator. This is exactly why this cannot be a midi device. If you don't bang the drum, there is no sound input, so these algorithms cannot be triggered by a simple midi note. I guess they could design an instrument that records audio and midi at the same time, and on playback could process the streaming audio - but clearly that is a different beast and I would suggest that this would be best done in software. (Big hint to developers out there).

Korg use a mix of synth tricks, including FM. The cool thing about FM is that you can take a simple sine wave, and make it more complex by modulating it. The thing about a raw audio signal from a membrane is that you can filter it down to basically a sine wave. This removes noise, and so the cheap microphones in this thing aren't really a problem - it's just creating an audio signal for the synths to work on.

For me, the real power of this unit is in the Double algorithms. These take the maximum CPU, and dedicate it to one drum sound. It sounds weird, but with the Single algorithms, you can play with two synths voices, and two sample voices. With a Double algorithm - you only get one voice, but it's using a more complex algorithm which includes samples, so you can't choose your own samples. But the end result is a very satisfying musical instrument, and at the moment I basically just stick to using these.

For a synth, this is a remarkably realistic instrument. The double algorithms mainly model real world instruments, and if you merely view this as a good set of hand percussion drums alone, I think it's worth the price. I'd like a pair or more of them actually.

Although it's a fairly simple device, and the interface is a bit slow and clunky, this is a quirky real instrument that can keep a programmer tweaking for hours. And it has the playability and feel that triggered samples lack.

It's not a studio essential, but it's an interesting instrument that will suit some people very much. It's a nice blend between acoustic and electronic that suits my aesthetic at the moment.

It needs to be eq'd and processed to sound good - like a mic on a real drum. It does have reverb and delay, but these are basic and really should be turned off. I use the delay when programming, so I can hear the sound without the impact noise. I don't like the reverb at all. I use my old Pod XT as compression, eq, delay, reverb, and it's much better. Plus the color scheme and shape looks like they were made for each other. But for studio use my Bricasti is perfect.

There are a bunch of features in the Wavedrum that I ignore, but might be of interest, such as ethnic loops and the ability to play tonal sounds and drones and some weird effects.

Fairly cool. But not your total percussion solution.

[Allez]

Thanks for that great explanation! It's definitely a cool idea using the membrane sounds as input for FM synthesis. That way you get the full range of sounds across the drum head because, like you said.. it's a real drum. Which will naturally sound different wherever you hit it. So you get that position sensitivity that roland doesn't have and alesis doesn't have, all with only a few microphones. very clever.

From what you described, it seems the wavedrum system can't go the other direction. That is, looking at the microphone output and saying, "that sounds like a medium-hard hit three inches from the center." It would be really challenging to get that done with any accuracy though. But the synthesis part works well and that extrapolation would only be relevant or useful for triggering samples. It's a trade off, and by choosing to sidestep position sensitivity in the usual sense, the wavedrum has to rely on the less-user-friendly velocity ranges for the samples. But it's not a dealbreaker for me because like you said, there are other drum pads perhaps more suitable for playing samples anyway. I want to try one out soon and hear those double algorithms you're talking about!

[JBonham]

my friend has two mandalas and the position sensitivity on them really is amazing. especially noticeable when playing the snare drum though it (all two thousand or something samples for anywhere and how hard it's hit)..

[JBonham]

Originally Posted by Allez

Oh man what I would do for an all bronze kit like that!

Oh man what I would do for not having to lug around an all bronze kit like that!

[Allez]

It arrived this morning!

First Impressions...

Construction and Build Quality

This thing is solid. No other way to say it, really. It weighs close to 5 pounds and feels very substantial. The body is made from heavy duty thick plastic and the rim is a hard rubber. The pad itself is round but the rim is nine-sided. Not sure if this will affect the playability, we'll see. After feeling the drum in my hands, I have no doubt it can take some pretty good hits. The drum surface is a mesh/rubber pad ~14 inches in diameter, reminds me of a mousepad. There is a screw hole underneath for mounting to a drum kit, along with a cool embossed spiral pattern on the bottom. The shiny metal badge on it says "100% made in California by Synesthesia." You can tell they take pride in the quality of the drum, and it shows.

5 / 5

[Allez]

Playability

With the included 5B drumsticks, the mandala is quite enjoyable to play. The 9-sided rim shape turned out not to be an issue at all. Rimshots feel normal and I can't tell the difference. The rim is a stiffer material than the surface and has a very nice rebound to it. The surface has surprisingly good feel and rebound as well, bouncing the sticks up to 8 times. The electronics are sensitive enough to pick up all of those bounces and even light playing with fingertips.

5 / 5

[Allez]

[JBonham]

ooh that looks really nice. can you explain how the zones work for your own samples? I'm a little confused because I've heard that it has 128 rings but I don't see how it's possible to play those without a toothpick..

[Allez]

Features

The key feature of the mandala is the patented high resolution position sensor. It's what makes everything else it does possible. The drum knows where you are hitting it to within about 1 mm. Spread that resolution across the pad surface and you have 128 position rings from center to edge, in addition to velocity sensitivity picking up on soft figertaps all the way to seriously hard strikes.

Originally Posted by JBonham

ooh that looks really nice. can you explain how the zones work for your own samples? I'm a little confused because I've heard that it has 128 rings but I don't see how it's possible to play those without a toothpick..

Think of each of the 128 rings as the smallest physical increments that the mandala can tell apart, whereas zones are groupings of consecutive rings. If there are four zones spaced equally (center, middle-inside, middle-outside, and edge), each one consists of 32 rings. The important thing is that the mandala instrument zones exist as flexible software constructs, in contrast to other drum trigger pads with 6 or 8 permanently fixed square buttons and zero further position sensing. It's the difference between having to repeat the same single sample over and over again, and the freedom to finally have an electric drum that responds like the real thing (see the snare drum present demo in the very first post.)

The zones can be customized and grouped together in many ways, for example having a large double-sized center zone and smaller outer zones. With a little practice I'm already able to accurately hit all the zones even though there aren't any markings on the surface. Each zone can be a made to play different instruments if you like, or variations on a single one, or your own samples. Rimshots and cross-stick hits are two additional potential zones as well.

6 / 5

[JBonham]

This is all really helpful and great information. Thanks for doing this! I know what's being added to my christmas list haha

[Allez]

No problem

Another important feature I forgot to mention is that fundamentally, the mandala is a just very expressive midi controller. Multiple ones can be used together though a usb hub. And while it works very well with the included virtual brain software (which I'll review separately), it can also be used with any DAW program like Fruityloops or Reason.

[Allez]

Software

The Synesthesia Virtual Brain software comes included with the Mandala. This is what the main page looks like:




There are 6 zones on the Mandala that can be customized: Center, Middle-Inside, Middle-Outside, Edge, Rim, and Cross-Stick. Each zone can have it's own instrument or sample sound selected with independent volume and pan settings, and effects.

[Allez]

The Pad Presets save the desired sound of the entire pad with all zone instruments and their parameters. The Virtual Brain comes with many pre-made pad presets you can play and also modify.

[Allez]

There are hundreds of great-sounding instruments to choose from. For a lifelike tone, many of them contain actual samples from multiple zone positions on the drum face (labeled in the instrument list as ....z1-z4)

[Allez]

Multiple mandala pads can be used in a kit and controlled together from within the Virtual Brain program. Kit Presets save the settings of all connected pads. Like the pads presets, there is a existing selection to choose from and you can make your own. All mandala presets, both for kits and individual pads, are easily sharable as text files.

[Allez]

Effects! can be assigned to individual zones and also layered with more effects over the whole pad. Choices include multiple Distortions and Filters, Flanging, Ring Modulation, Delays, Compression, and Reverb.

[Allez]

Melodic Instruments are listed in the bottom right side of the instrument list (see picture above). They are played by choosing a tonic note and scale, as well as interval steps between notes (ex. every note, fourth intervals, etc.) and total range of the scale.




Every time you strike the zone, the next note will play according to the scale pattern that is selected. For example, "Up Wave" plays the scale up to the end of the range and back down again to the tonic. "Up Rep" plays it up and then repeats. "Full Wave Up" goes up, doooown below the tonic, and then back up. "Velocity Up" means the harder you hit, the higher the note. The "Down" patterns start at the tonic but go down first instead of up. Scales can also be turned off so each zone will always play a specific note.

[Allez]

Custom Scales and Sequencing can be done through the user scale entry section. You can add in exotic scales up to 12 tones in length. Since the user scales do not require notes to be in order, it can be used as a sequencer for your own patterns. The user scales or sequences show up in the scale list (see above) and are playable the same way. They can be loaded on any zone of any pad.

When Velocity Layers is turned on, the virtual brain will play one of three "soft", "medium" or "hard" samples for each instrument sound depending on the strike velocity, rather than just a single sample with varying volume.

The Velocity Curve Builder is gives you complete control over instrument dynamics. Separate from attack, hold, and decay (which are also customizable), the velocity curve dictates how the detected strike velocity corresponds to the velocity layers and volume of the produced sound.

LFO stands for low frequency oscillator and they can be used for automated effects or controlling parameters.

[Allez]

Using Position and Velocity as Control Parameters is possible for nearly every setting in the virtual brain program, including effects and things like the stereo balance. LFO's too. You can have as many or as few settings as you want to be controlled live. In this example, the pitch and delay time both are set to increase with the strike distance from center to edge, while an LFO is oscillating the stereo balance left and right.

[Allez]

When you combine the millimeter accuracy of the Mandala with a few thousand samples of the famous Ludwig Black Beauty Snare Drum, this is what you get...

<-------- comes included as a bonus

[Allez]

Virtual Brain Software

Pros

• Intuitive and easy to use
• Lots of presets
• Instruments and effects sound great
• No discernible latency
• Extremely customizable
• Ability to control all parameters with position and velocity
• Works on Mac and PC

Cons

• Not available as a VST
• Zone settings cannot be copy/pasted to other zones

4.5 / 5

[biggator6]

Originally Posted by Allez

Virtual Brain Software

Pros

• Intuitive and easy to use
• Lots of presets
• Instruments and effects sound great
• No discernible latency
• Extremely customizable
• Ability to control all parameters with position and velocity
• Works on Mac and PC

Cons

• Not available as a VST
• Zone settings cannot be copy/pasted to other zones

4.5 / 5

Wow.. that's quite a report!! Thanks for that... looks like a very cool piece of gear.

[DrumMjr]

I recently moved to London and bought the Korg Wavedrum Oriental, I am planning on setting up a full set of electronic drums in the future, however it is lacking in quite a few features. I am strongly considering returning it and buying the Mandala instead. What are the advantages of the Mandala over the Korg Wavedrum Oriental?

Thanks for the advice!

DrumMjr

[Allez]

Originally Posted by DrumMjr

I recently moved to London and bought the Korg Wavedrum Oriental, I am planning on setting up a full set of electronic drums in the future, however it is lacking in quite a few features. I am strongly considering returning it and buying the Mandala instead. What are the advantages of the Mandala over the Korg Wavedrum Oriental?

Thanks for the advice!

DrumMjr

I think the main advantage would be that you could set a group of Mandalas up to sound and play like a real drum kit when you want to AND still have all the sonic possibilities of their electric nature. The Wavedrum is revolutionary and very cool, don't get me wrong, but it's more of a specialty instrument you might pull out on occasion for a specific sound rather than something you would want to make a full kit out of. As I'm sure you noticed, Wavedrums don't have a MIDI interface (on purpose) but that comes at the steep price of being incompatible with nearly every other electronic instrument and music sequencing program out there. Speaking of steep prices, returning that one Wavedrum can get you almost 2 Mandalas. So especially if you're planning on building a full drum set, Mandalas are the way to go.