Philippines Megadrum (video)

[Aaron]

there seems to be a serious latency issue in the video.

or is it a youtube side affect ?

[Synthex]

there seems to be a serious latency issue in the video.
or is it a youtube side affect ?

This is either youtube or DFH software, but no Megadrum.

[elrules]

I must say after seeing the video I felt quite disappointed.

I don't know who's fault. If megadrum, if the drummer, or if DFHS.

I am not referring to the latency. It is obvious that it is PC's fault or youtube's fault.

But the main issue I see on that video is that the triggering is inconsistent. I suppose the drummer, playing that groove, is doing the snare hits with a consistent strength, but the triggering shows us some low strength hits, making the groove awful. Maybe the megadrum doesn't trigger well? Or what it is? Also, he plays some rolls and the triggering is also inconsistent.

In order not to blame megadrum instead the drummer or DFHS, I wanted to make sure and have listened the MIDI samples dmitri posted. And, as I thought, I find the same inconsistent triggering: In the free bounce, it is supposed that the velocity of the hits decrease one after another, but in the midi file I hear some hits louder than the previous in some of the free bounce tests. Also the roll is not good in terms of velocity.

In another thread, in which someone wanted dmitri to explain the parameters of the megadrum, someone said that Roland has a "Scan Time" parameter. Dmitri said it couldn´t find it useful. But, if Roland uses that technique it is for some good reason. A signal coming from a pad it is not always a big wave followed by smaller waves. Pads and their piezos are not perfect. Some hits produce signals with smaller waves at the beginning. That is why Roland implements the "Scan Time", to make sure that in (commonly) 1.2 ms you take the highest peak of the several waves that occur, and not only the first one.

And that is why I think the megadrum does not make me feel as good triggering device on that Youtube video. That's the first impression I had. Someone said it triggered better than a TD-12, so I was expecting a lot about it. Maybe I will have to apologize later, but I felt disappointed with that video. And the reason of that, I think, is the "Scan Time" not being implemented on the megadrum.

[dmitri]

I must say after seeing the video I felt quite disappointed.

I don't know who's fault. If megadrum, if the drummer, or if DFHS.

I am not referring to the latency. It is obvious that it is PC's fault or youtube's fault.

But the main issue I see on that video is that the triggering is inconsistent. I suppose the drummer, playing that groove, is doing the snare hits with a consistent strength, but the triggering shows us some low strength hits, making the groove awful. Maybe the megadrum doesn't trigger well? Or what it is? Also, he plays some rolls and the triggering is also inconsistent.

In order not to blame megadrum instead the drummer or DFHS, I wanted to make sure and have listened the MIDI samples dmitri posted. And, as I thought, I find the same inconsistent triggering: In the free bounce, it is supposed that the velocity of the hits decrease one after another, but in the midi file I hear some hits louder than the previous in some of the free bounce tests. Also the roll is not good in terms of velocity.

In another thread, in which someone wanted dmitri to explain the parameters of the megadrum, someone said that Roland has a "Scan Time" parameter. Dmitri said it couldn´t find it useful. But, if Roland uses that technique it is for some good reason. A signal coming from a pad it is not always a big wave followed by smaller waves. Pads and their piezos are not perfect. Some hits produce signals with smaller waves at the beginning. That is why Roland implements the "Scan Time", to make sure that in (commonly) 1.2 ms you take the highest peak of the several waves that occur, and not only the first one.

And that is why I think the megadrum does not make me feel as good triggering device on that Youtube video. That's the first impression I had. Someone said it triggered better than a TD-12, so I was expecting a lot about it. Maybe I will have to apologize later, but I felt disappointed with that video. And the reason of that, I think, is the "Scan Time" not being implemented on the megadrum.

It is sad you made your conclusions based on the video and the midi of two non-pro/novice drummers. It is if I made a video of me playing a top class Fender guitar and you would conclude the guitar is no good:( I'm not going to say anything about video, but the reason you see slight/huge? inconsistency in hits levels in my midi is simple - I cannot hit steadily the same place on the pad with the same strength both in the roll and with the free bouncing stick. And also, who told you that "Scan Time"(yeah, let's use fancy names) is not implemented? It is! It is just fixed (for the present time) and I assure you it is more than 1.2 ms.
It reminds me soviet times in Russia when they accused writers/poets of antisoviet content with the words: "I haven't read his book but I blame the author!". (I know you try to sound apologetic, but it makes it worse). Please, post your feedback (no matter, how bad it is to MegaDrum) once you played it.

[elrules]

Mask Time on Roland is the same thing as Retrigger on MegaDrum. Setting it too high will make it impossible to do very fast rolls.
To be honest I don't see real benefit of per input scan time.

Sorry, I must retract my words about what you said about scan time. I didn't read well. You said it wasn't very useful a per input scan time.

Having in my mind (wrongly) that you have said scan time is not included in megadrum, I directly associated the messy triggering in the video with that.

It would be nice to watch megadrum performing in a video with an experienced drummer, with well-done DIY pads or (better) with Roland pads, and with a good recording (with no latency). Despite it is nice to have a visual proof o megadrum (thanks estregan), on that video we can see that it works! but we cannot appreciate how good is its triggering and so on (due to external factors as it appears to be).

I also thought that your "free bounce" test was done in a perfect pad. I don't want to mean your DIY pad is bad, but, for example, I have DIY 12'' mesh pads that have the same sensitivity all over the mesh, so with a free bounce, my td-6 always gives me a decreasing sequence of note velocities.

Despite having a td-6 I want to build a megadrum and sell the td-6 if the megadrum rocks. Megadrum also costs money and time, so for me, as I saw some videos before buying a td-6, it was important for me having a video of megadrum. I was looking forward to it, but with estregan video I saw it works but I did not see the potential of megadrum that could make me replace the td-6.

Nevertheless, that doesnt mean I am not excited about the idea of building megadrum and finding it is greater than my td-6 (before building it, for the time being, it is better in number of inputs)

[estregan]

I must say something here since I am the drummer in the video. There is no latency when I was playing it by myself. Sounds come out as I hit the pads without any noticeable latency.

The problem would be the way I recorded the video... I recorded all midi notes in protools and later synced it to the video which is probably why they are not perfectly synced. Now you may ask why that was the way I did it. It's because my video recorder cannot capture great sounds and it also captures the noises my pad makes.

Anyway, I still do think I have some tweaking to do within megadrum to get better playability. I am now talking to a pro drummer for a possible new video to showcase megadrum's capabilities.

Thanks and may we improve megadrum even more!

[dcho]

hey, have you figured out what was wrong with the cymbals yet?

[fercks]

guys from phil meron nb n buo n un funtional n mgkno aman kung bibilhin tnx

[dmitri]

guys from phil meron nb n buo n un funtional n mgkno aman kung bibilhin tnx

Please, use proper English. Otherwise the forum will become a mess if everybody starts using their native languages or local variants of English:)

[fercks]

sorry man i just thought this forum is for filipino's
what am i trying to say is that if there is any available module w/c is already assembled
and where can i get it and how much? but ofcourse this is for the people here in the phil