Topic: Drum levels using Roland TD-20X

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

Replied March 4, 2020 at 13:57 #2544616

Ilja Körrer
Participant

Hi!!!

How do you send your Midisignal to SD3? The TD-20 has no USB-Port. Is the incoming SD3-Midisignal equal to other Midisignal like in Nuendo or another VST? Are you using it in a DAW or Solo?

Cheers Ilja

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.7
Operating system: macOS Sierra (10.12)
Replied March 4, 2020 at 16:15 #2544638

Bear-Faced Cow
Participant

You probably want to check the velocity mappings in the MIDI/e-drum settings for that preset and customize them to your playing (and save it as a user preset).

jord

Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/
Replied March 4, 2020 at 18:11 #2544663

Asa Palmer
Participant

I’m using SD3 Standalone to test this.

Midi out of the TD-20 into RME Fireface UFX Midi in. This is then connected to the PC via USB.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.7
Operating system: Windows 10
EZBass v1.1.8
SD3 v3.3.6
EZKeys v2.05
Windows-10Pro (ex Windows-11Pro user)
Nuendo-12.0.70
Roland TD-20X
Replied March 4, 2020 at 18:50 #2544674

Asa Palmer
Participant

Bear-Faced Cow wrote:

You probably want to check the velocity mappings in the MIDI/e-drum settings for that preset and customize them to your playing (and save it as a user preset).

jord

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll give it a try.

Do you mean the Velocity tab on Settings – Midi In/E-Drums screen?

I’m not clear what’s going on here so need to study the user guide to get to understand it.

At the moment the Roland pads are working much better with the built-in TD-20X sounds.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.7
Operating system: Windows 10
EZBass v1.1.8
SD3 v3.3.6
EZKeys v2.05
Windows-10Pro (ex Windows-11Pro user)
Nuendo-12.0.70
Roland TD-20X

Replied March 4, 2020 at 19:17 #2544681

Bear-Faced Cow
Participant

The velocity map transforms your incoming MIDI. It is probably sending out a lower value and needs to be adjusted to suit your playing style.

jord

Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

Replied March 4, 2020 at 20:31 #2544695

Mark King
Participant

If you are hitting really much harder than you would to hit 127 then you need to change the trigger sensitivity on the td20. The Roland sounds are quite compressed so don’t have a wide dynamic range. This makes the settings less fussy when using the module sounds. A full 127 will be the same sound as when using the preview pad. Record it and play it back. SD3 drums are really dynamic so much closer to real drums. Spend a bit of time tuning the triggering on your module first and then move to tuning SD3. The presets are there to get the note numbers right and the hi hat, they don’t take account of how you set up the triggers on the module. That is down to the individual

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

Replied March 5, 2020 at 16:32 #2544841

Bear-Faced Cow
Participant

The MIDI/e-drum presets do, actually…

I would recommend this over adjusting the hardware sensitivity for many reasons. One of them being that you can have different user variations to suit the type of kits and save them along with your kit presets. There are others…

jord

Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

Replied March 6, 2020 at 05:27 #2544952

Jorg
Participant

The Audio-Midi over USB is one reason (not to mention dying screens) to upgrade to a newer roland module, specially if you want to trigger SD3 with it. All the newer modules since the the TD-25 have a USB-Audio gain setting (by default it is set at -18dB, way too low!), where you can set the volume as high as you want for incoming audio (from SD3 into the module)

Otherwise the only way to increase the volume is to modify the velocity curves so a, sa, a 50 velocity hit gets increased to 70 and so on.

Replied March 7, 2020 at 11:23 #2545194

Mark King
Participant

I disagree. You have to get the chain right and this starts at the module. The preset does not take into consideration personal trigger settings. How could it when we all hit differently. You have to set the sensitivity to suite your playing even if you just use the module sounds. How can SD3 preset take that into consideration when we may all have the sensitivity set differently depending on sticks and how we play. I’m not saying don’t use SD3 settings but start at the beginning with the module. I stand by my last reply.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

Replied March 7, 2020 at 14:17 #2545214

Bear-Faced Cow
Participant

You’re right in that everyone hits differently. However, saying that the preset doesn’t take this into account is incorrect. The only reason one doesn’t take it into account is because they don’t use the preset’s input velocity mapping to adjust their sensitivity:

Quite often people are simply loading the preset as is with the input velocity mapping set to linear.

For those of us who use our MIDI controllers, and e-drums are nothing more than a glorified MIDI controller, for more than SD3 (SD3 is only one rhythm producing software that I use), it doesn’t make sense to adjust the hardware, especially if your hardware is performing as desired in other software. It is far more sensible to adjust the software to your playing so that you don’t have to keep readjusting when going between software, which can introduce its own errors.

jord

Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

This post was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Bear-Faced Cow.

Replied March 7, 2020 at 19:30 #2545301

Mark King
Participant

Agreed that SD3 has things to fix problems but better to set your module up correctly in the first place so it works well with all software. Many people leave their modules as they get them instead of tuning them to there playing. If tuned to your playing setting up in SD3 or any other software will be simpler. The original question mentioned having to hit really hard to get 127 and couldn’t keep it up. That is module set up wrong and will be the same with any software.

SD3 with older sdx,s plus Rooms of Hansa and Death & Darkness. Cubase and wavelab current versions. Roland TD50x using all trigger inputs for triggering SD3 only. Windows 11 computer. Various keyboards and outboard gear as well as VST instruments. Acoustic drums: Yamaha 9000 natural wood and Pearl masters. Various snare drums. RME BabyFace Pro FS and Adam A7X monitors

1
Thanked by: Asa Palmer

Replied March 7, 2020 at 21:11 #2545320

Bear-Faced Cow
Participant

I believe we can agree on the fact that if you are not getting 127 out of your hardest hit, then yes your controller needs to be adjusted ignorer for you to be able to achieve maximum velocity without having to go all caveman over it. Again that would apply to all controllers (e-drums, pad, etc). However, based on

If I really whack them hard I can get the maximum midi level of 127 (as shown by the Analyser in SD3), but even then that does not sound as loud or as good as clicking on a drums image with a mouse.

if you are achieving higher velocities and it doesn’t sound right, then one needs to adjust the velocity map in SD3. Everything between your softest and hardest hits are not linear.

jord

Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

1
Thanked by: Asa Palmer

Replied March 10, 2020 at 15:10 #2545809

Asa Palmer
Participant

Jord and Mark,

Thanks for your advice. I’ve really appreciated your conversation about this.

I’ve tried both of your suggestions and found that increasing the ‘sensitivity’ of the individual drums on the TD-20X appears to give me better levels in SD3 without having too much impact on using the TD-20X’s own sounds through the Roland amps (it may even have improved the response), and without having to mess with the default SD3 settings.

I’ll play with this for awhile and see how it goes.

Many thanks.

EZBass v1.1.8
SD3 v3.3.6
EZKeys v2.05
Windows-10Pro (ex Windows-11Pro user)
Nuendo-12.0.70
Roland TD-20X

Replied March 11, 2020 at 10:30 #2545925

Jorg
Participant

I guess if you play with headphones increasing the sensitivity in the module and playing its sounds is contra-productive but if you’re playing through an amp is ok.
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Drum levels using Roland TD-20X

Superior Drummer 3 Help

Viewing 14 replies - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)