plinkAlright… I’m still trying to figure out why my hi-hat sounds the way it does, and if anyone else has noticed this. And what may be causing / what can be done about it.
To start off… take a look at this screenshot:
This is the raw hi-hat data recorded from my TD-20 with the VH-12.
http://www.joelnielsen.com/images/edrum-midi2.JPG
As you can see there seems to be a lot of extra midi data coming in with a bit noise. (fluctuations on the height sensor midi data…) Now surprisingly the sound of the hi-hat is fine, as long as the height and velocity doesn’t fluctuate too much. But as soon as you start to open the hi-hat the sound gets extremely muddy as it changes. (It’s like there are multiple samples trying to play at the same time.) The samples also seem to cut out when a new sample starts, causing an almost static like ‘digital clip’. (I’m not clipping though, I’ve checked. )
I went through the raw data and manually cleaned it up. Tried to make everything as fluid as possible and erased all the extra notes. Here was my result.
http://www.joelnielsen.com/images/edrum-midi1.JPG
This is extremely clean, I don’t think anyone could tweak their edrum kit to output like this. So now… you would think with this very nice midi track to play off of, S2 should play beautifully. Well here’s the weird part… It does, but only about 40 percent better.
When you change from a closed hi-hat to an open hi-hat (while striking the trigger) the sound is still fairly muddy. So I think Superior 2 is still not quite doing something right here. (I have the latest version btw)
Can anyone else confirm this? On any edrum kit, but preferrably a VH-12 with TD20. I think it’s time we figure this out, I know there are others who are having the same problem. As a computer programmer myself, there’s no reason this can’t work 100% and sound exactly like the real thing.
Also, I have noticed that if I just run straight out of my TD-20 using the patches(samples) that shipped with it… the hi-hat sounds and responds perfectly. So either my midi recorder (I’m using Sonar 6.2 btw) isn’t capturing the midi data properly at all, (as having clean midi data just isn’t enough) or S2 could still use some tweaking on how it handles and outputs the hi-hat samples.
rentadrummerA few suggestions:
Do you have edrum preset installed, mentioned in this thread?
http://www.toontrack.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=61431&mpage=1&key=
The VH-12 has a very small playing area for bow sound only. Once you move outside that area you will start to trigger the edge sounds, even if you think you are playing on the bow. I find it more noticeable in S2, than when using the sounds of the TD-20.
You also might have to adjust the hi hat offset on the TD-20 to work properly with S2. I had to increase the offset to get a more closed sound, without having to stomp on the hi hat pedal. This will give you more consistent CC4 data.
One thing that I’ve noticed about S2 is that there is no single top hi hat cymbal sound, like there is when using the sounds on the TD-20, or if there is I’ve never been able to find it. In other words, in S2, even with the hi hats in the open position, if you strike the top cymbal on either the bow or the edge, you will still get a sound as if the two cymbals are slightly touching. I’m not sure why it was done this way, because it’s not quite as accurate as most of the other sounds in S2, but that might be the reason you are getting so much difference in the way the data is being recorded.
RogueHi – without you providing your S2 settings it’s difficult to say what to expect. I must assume you have applied some custom values to the ‘Velocity Ctrl’ section at the very least as without some minor adjustment you would simply get no closed sound from either curves.
… in fact, at a glance I would say that your module is not even sending ‘closed’ notes, which may be normal but in contradiction with your report.
Anyway, please feel free to send a sample MIDI file as well as a .S20 to the support address (supporttoontrack•com) and we can check it out.
Best Regards, RM
Rogue Marechal - Toontrack
Configuration Manager
plinkORIGINAL: rentadrummer
Do you have edrum preset installed, mentioned in this thread?
http://www.toontrack.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=61431&mpage=1&key=%EF%85%8B
Yes I have used the ‘edrum’ preset, which is quite inferior to my own custom one I’ve made using a manual setup guide on here. I am not having problems getting ‘closed’ or ‘open’ sounds. I am hearing the full range of sounds. It’s how they are being ‘triggered’ is what is the problem. I have done tests with only striking the top and only striking the edge. As you can see in my midi data, I am only playing the ‘top’. If I ever hit the edge my midi would show a different note being played.
plinkORIGINAL: Rogue
Anyway, please feel free to send a sample MIDI file as well as a .S20 to the support address (supporttoontrack•com) and we can check it out.
Hi RM, Yes I have all the S2 settings, ‘set’ exactly like the guides on the forum show. And I am having no problem with missed or ‘wrong’ sounds playing. I’ll get a midi file and .S20 file sent to you guys tonight or tomorrow. Like I said… everything is playing correctly, its just on fast 16th note hi-hat hits, WHILE moving the pedal up and down, that I get a muddy sound. (striking the hi-hat in the same place every time) I also have my td20 and S2 values set so I get the closed (tight) sound very early. If anything, I’m purposefully omitting some of the ‘fully’ opened sounds. (on my midi track, the closed sounds play when the ‘dots’ are at their highest spots) And obviously this isn’t part of the problem.
I will also record a ‘.wav’ so you guys can hear exactly what I’m hearing.
space42Hello –
I had a similar problem with my TD-12 / VH-11 and S2. ‘Muddy’ and ‘chopping’ hat performance.
My problem turned out to be in the high hat settings in the TD-12. If I remember correctly it was the CC Resolution value – I had it set to ‘HIGH’. I changed it back to ‘NORMAL’ and my hi-hat performance was a night and day change.
-Jerry
RogueHi – yes too much CC data often results in less than optimal playback… however for some bizarre reason Roland only allows to change the resolution for the VH-11 and not the VH-12.
It is a perfectly acceptable solution to specify the controller type as VH-11 in the TD-20 even with a VH-12 attached to it, to get access to the parameter, but is a bit counter intuitive and we therefore rarely advise to do it. Still it is always worth a try.
… I look forward to your files JN (plink), if we can improve playback based on your observations in a future version, rest assured that we will 🙂
Best Regards, RM
Rogue Marechal - Toontrack
Configuration Manager
plink Alright… I finally had some time to get around to this. First off, here is a .mp3 file showing the problem.
http://www.joelnielsen.com/images/hh%20audio%20clip1.mp3
The file consists of 3 sections:
– The first is very simple and plain open hi-hat hits. The pedal is not moving at all. I’m just striking the pad.
– Second section is the pedal moving up and down while hitting the hi-hat repeatedly.
– Third section is the pedal moving up and down very fast while hitting the hi-hat repeatedly.
As you can hear, each section does not sound right at all.
Here is the midi file that was used to make the audio file, so whoever wants, can try it out yourself and see if you get a different result:
http://www.joelnielsen.com/images/hh%20midi.mid
To ToonTrack: My email is on the way with this midi file and my .S2 settings file. Thanks again for working with me on this.
Damian Blunt Could you attach the S2 file as well please…..I’m wondering why there is CC16 being generated in your file – did you record the snare as well initially and then remove it?
One thing I can see from your MIDI file is that the CC4 value increases each time you hit a note which consequently causes a small choke sound as the note transmutes into the adjacent more closed note…..this, unfortunately, is a drawback of the VH-12 and VH-11…..hitting the cymbal causes the cymbal to move down and thus generate a change in CC data. (Incidentally the cheaper Roland models with mechanically separate pedal and cymbal don’t have this problem)
There are a couple of workarounds, the first and most effective is to increase the spring tension on your hihat stand….this is what I did and whilst not completely removing the problem improved it a great deal….the second and obviously less desirable workaround is to not hit the cymbal so hard and adjust your sensitivity settings appropriately.
I know toontrack are aware of this issue – which is not caused by the software, but the Roland hardware – I’m not sure whether it is solveable, but if it is, from toontracks past record I’m sure they will be working hard to think of a solution
Damian Blunt - Toontrack
Quality Assurance
Betatesting
Olof Westman That MIDI goes to the Open2 articualtion of the hihat. If you want
to use CC-control your hits should got to the hatsTrig articulation.
/Olof W
Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder
Damian BluntI was assuming, maybe incorrectly, that the .s2 file used remapped hatstrig to that note – but I guess it’s best to assume nothing:)
Damian Blunt - Toontrack
Quality Assurance
Betatesting
plink@grandaddy:
Yeah, I did initial have a couple snare hits in there at the odd spot I think. (by accident) So there may be some cc data from that.
Here is my S2 file:
http://www.joelnielsen.com/images/S2%20Template1.s20
As you can see… I have ‘hatsCtrl’ mapped to CC4… and HatsTipTrig mapped to F#1 and A#1. My HatsTrig is mapped to D0 and A#-1. I also mapped my ‘closed pedal’ to ‘G#1’. I have a couple custom Velocity Ctrl values. That’s it…
I have tried tensioning my spring a bit more, but it didn’t seem to do a whole lot. If what you are suggesting by this is truely the problem, Roland has obviously come up with a solution as their samples play fine. Maybe S2 needs some options to make it less ‘sensitive’ to cc data changes. Quite honestly… the sound doesn’t need to change after the strike… unless the hi-hat has been closed. But trying to adjust the sound half way through from ‘full opened’ to ‘partially opened’ is completely unnecessary.
-edit- After some more playing it does indeed seem like this is what is happening. They (s2) are trying to change the sound to the next layer down… even if it means changing through 5 or 6 layers. Now… I have seen sample libraries pull this off with no problem. My guess is something is off in the crossfade / timing of their sample change-overs. If everything is timed perfectly, you should be able to crossfade to the next sound, at the same place in the next sample. (but either way I’d like to see an option to remove this, and customize it to my liking)
Olof Westman>As you can see… I have ‘hatsCtrl’ mapped to CC4…
That’s good. Mapping is alright.
In principle you might want to use the hatsTrig instead of the hatsTipTrig
for these kind of wild manouvers. The tip sounds are only available for
the closed positions and since the edge sounds, that will be triggered
for the open positions, have a different character, the crossover between
tip and edge sounds will be less pleasing than staying within edge to edge.
>…But trying to adjust the sound half way through from ‘full opened’
> to ‘partially opened’ is completely unnecessary.
But this is exactly what your CC4 MIDI is ordering. If you want to
increase the CC4-value-range for which the hihat stays fully open
then you should increase the Soft Velocity Control for the hatsCtrl
articulation. 35 might do it.
What with the MIDI having no musical intention, I find it hard to
clearly spot what it is in the resulting audio that you are unhappy with.
However, there is the usual Tight articulation issue that can be mentioned.
The tight articulation corresponds to pressing down on the pedal
and that results in a very short (tight) sound that has quite a different
character compared to the ordinary closed sound. You typically don’t
want to use these sounds when using CC-control unless you are
certain that your hihat pedal will send the fully closed value
only when you intentionally press down.
You have lowered the Hard Velocity Control of the hatsCtrl articulation
to 73 and you typical CC4 values for the closed position is between 80
and 100. This means that you will be getting a lot of Tight sounds and,
in my opinion, will be suffering from an unnecessarily stuttery result.
You can get rid of the Tight articulation in two ways: set the Limit
Velocity Control of the hatsCtrl articulation to 125 or disallow any
sounds for the Tight articulation by setting its Layer Limits to all 0.
/Olof W
Olof Westman - Toontrack
Coder
Damian BluntI would disagree with the idea of not wanting hats to go from fully open to semi open – this is the way real hihats work and the whole idea of transmuting. To my knowledge there are no other libraries that do this….in these libraries the sample is played in it’s entirity even if it should be crossfaded by the hat closing to a less open articulation.
The hard velocity control set to 73 seems very low, that will cause all the open hits to be in a very small CC range which I would guess would increase the chances of samples switching to the adjacent layer after a hit – I have mine set to 103. You may want to try recalibrating your VH-12 offset on your TD-20.
Although I initially had similar problems I have found through tweaking that I can virtually eliminate any issues with the VH-12.
If you are really struggling you could remove a couple of the open articulations, by selecting ‘edit articulation only’ then setting all the layer limits to 0 (I’ve just tried removing open 2 and open 4 ). You can still get a reasonable range of sounds but it should limit the chances of samples transmuting due to a hit.
Damian Blunt - Toontrack
Quality Assurance
Betatesting
JoeORIGINAL: plink
I have tried tensioning my spring a bit more, but it didn’t seem to do a whole lot. If what you are suggesting by this is truely the problem, Roland has obviously come up with a solution as their samples play fine.
That is because the sounds in the Roland module do not transmute. So, you hit the cymbal fully or semi-open and the resulting sample will play until a new note is triggered regardless of what the pedal is doing inbetween … unless it is depressed fully (which will also send a new note). Roland did not have to consider this issue in their moveable HiHat design or data filtering because their module’s sample engine does not reveal the issue.
Transmute is a great feature for added realism. Perhaps in the future we will see an S2.0 build that will not react to drops in pedal position that occur within x number of milliseconds after a hit to help smooth out this hardware issue. Perhaps with a millisecond value that is adjustable by the user.
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