Positional Sensing not working - SOLVED

[Tatoupulus]

Hi Dmitri,

I own a Roland PD-125 and tried to use the positional sensing. I made a video of the problem - look at your pm please. Although the video was made with the older firmware, the behaviour is still the same with the new one. The position-marker stays at the right side (most of the time) - it doesn't make a difference where I hit the pad.
I tried Level 1, 2 and 3 with the LV and HL values you mentioned in http://www.megadrum.info/content/miscellaneous-settings - nothing changed. I added my actual mds file.

Do you have any suggestions?

My second minor problem is at input 28/29. I connected a Roland Cy-8 and I get no good connection - Megadrum misses most of the hits - sometimes the hits come up seconds later. I tried several cables and also another cymbal and a mesh-pad - no change. On Input 30/31 the hardware works perfect. So maybe there is a shortcut or a bad soldering-point in the unit itself!?
I got my stuff working - but I would like to have the input 28 working too.

Thanks

T.

[dmitri]

There is no PM from you yet, so I'll ask here.
While in PositionalLv, PositionalLow or PositionalHi menu settings and you hit the head, it also shows a calculated PS value. What are these values when:
1. PositionalLv is 1 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
2. PositionalLv is 2 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
3. PositionalLv is 3 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
4. Does the pad have proper tension on the head?

Did you try to connect other pads/cymbals to inputs 28/29? Is the problem still the same? If so then the problem is most likely with the stereo jack. I can send you a replacement jack if you can solder it yourself.

[Tatoupulus]

Hi Dmitri,

I've sent the pm yesterday (named videolink). If it's not there I will sent it again.
I tried other pads and cables (as I wrote before).

1. PositionalLv is 1 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
I get
center: most often values from 4-6 - sometimes I get 0 or even 11
near center: most often 6-7 - sometimes values like 0 or 11
near rim: most often 3-4 - some values higher and lower
2. PositionalLv is 2 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
Low value to 16 - Hivalue to 30
center: most often value 11
near center: most often 11-18
near rim: most often 8-9 - sometimes values are jumping randomly (?) from 0-18
3. PositionalLv is 3 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
Low value to 18 Hivalue to 34
center: most often value 13-15 - sometimes values up to 24
near center: same as above
near rim: most often 10-12 - sometimes values are far away from this

4. Does the pad have proper tension on the head?
I increased the tension as I found the postional-sensing not working. It's very tight now.

[dmitri]

Hi Dmitri,

I've sent the pm yesterday (named videolink). If it's not there I will sent it again.
I tried other pads and cables (as I wrote before).

1. PositionalLv is 1 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
I get
center: most often values from 4-6 - sometimes I get 0 or even 11
near center: most often 6-7 - sometimes values like 0 or 11
near rim: most often 3-4 - some values higher and lower
2. PositionalLv is 2 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
Low value to 16 - Hivalue to 30
center: most often value 11
near center: most often 11-18
near rim: most often 8-9 - sometimes values are jumping randomly (?) from 0-18
3. PositionalLv is 3 and you hit a) near center b) mid center c) near rim?
Low value to 18 Hivalue to 34
center: most often value 13-15 - sometimes values up to 24
near center: same as above
near rim: most often 10-12 - sometimes values are far away from this

Can you increase MinScan to ~60 and repeat the test?

4. Does the pad have proper tension on the head?
I increased the tension as I found the postional-sensing not working. It's very tight now.

As far as I know, for PS to work properly tension doesn't have to be very tight. There must be some "golden" medium tight tension which is best for PS.

Do you have another PD-125 to test with?

[privatex]

I just tried your mds file and ps work fairly good on my snare pad (not smoothest as after fine tuning but pointer covers whole interval). Ok other parameters don't fit for my diy pad, but even in this circumstances ps works.

[Tatoupulus]

Hi all,

I increased minscan to 55 - not better. BUT:
after I lowered the tension of the meshhead: now the pointer is moving. It covers the entire range.

Used Pos Level 3
Pos Low 13
Pos Hi 27

more testing tomorrow


THANKS AGAIN

[Tatoupulus]

Positional sensing is now working as expected FINE!
It is VERY sensitive to the tension of the meshhead!

The other Problem with Input 28/29 (jack 16 Aux6) still remains. I soldered today the cables for this jack inside again. (I also shortened the cable around 1,5 cm.)
Also I tried to increase gain on the input and lower the threshold - no success.

The behaviour is like that:

The cymbal is working fine on 30/31 (jack 17 Aux7). With the same config the cymbal behaves strange on 28/29.
I tried to play only on this cymbal. Sometimes it is working for 30 seconds without missing a hit. Then a pause occurs and the cymbal is dead for some time. This can last to 30 seconds.
Then it might start working again. Sometimes it seems that I can force the cymbal to start working again with hard edge hits. This is not working every time.
After that a pause can occur again.

Do you think that this issue might be related to the inputjack? To me - if the jack is broken - it should never work.

Can someone test pads on input 28/29 to see what happens?

[privatex]

28-Tom1R, 29-CrashB maybe this is an answer (probably not). Your inputs are not synchronized according to this document:
http://www.megadrum.info/sites/default/ ... manual.pdf

I dont know maybe you customised your inputs for your needs, it's just something that I noticed.
I had similar problems, cable was culprit in 99% of cases.

[airflamesred]

I use those inputs all the time without a problem. I did however have some similar issues with inputs 52 and 53 but ended up putting the unused hi hat there. It would be a bit strange having one particular input not to work - no?

I have noticed that input 55 doesn't seem to update after doing a 'send all'. It stays blue.

[dmitri]

To be 100% sure the problem is with the jack and not anything else you can swap wires between jack 16 (inputs 28/29) and jack 17 (inputs 30/31).
If the problem will stay with the jack 16 (and moves to inputs 30/31) then the problem is with the jack 16.
If the problem moves to jack 17 (and stays with inputs 28/29) then the problem is with something else.

privatex: pins numbers on the main board don't translate to input numbers.