V-Cymbal Ride

[Ken Taylor]

For the past 3 months now my ride Cymbal has been going back to Roland repeatedly in order to get the Cymbal bell working. The first one that arrived required a sledge hammer to make it sound. Later ones have not functioned at all, now Roland claim a faulty batch of cymbals has been the cause, however in the manual of the latest V-ride I notice that the wording has been changed. It now states that use of the drum stick tip may not allow the bell to sound at all, and tells you to hit it hard with the shoulder of the stick. Now if I am playing very lightly across the kit in a quiet part of a song and wish to lightly introduce a bell sound, I will be forced to start pounding the bell hard with the shoulder of the stick. I find this unacceptable in such an expensive piece of gear. Bearing in mind that I can currently do this with my PD9.This thing cost me the equivalent of some $250 and would buy me an ordinary Ride Cymbal of high quality which would allow the lightest of bell work. Examination of the bell shows the rubber to be far too thick over the FSR so it only allows deformation of the trigger with a hard hit. Fsr triggers (with rubber covering) allowing the most subtle of stick work have been available to us since the 80's, so for Roland to be advertising these things as capable of reproducing all the nuances of real cymbals seems to me to be nonsense.
I don't seem to be unique in having this problem either! what say we all send them back, at least it would force them to address a design problem that currently they seem to think can be fixed by changing the manuals wording.

Ken.

[Steveo the Devo]

Originally posted by Ken Taylor:
what say we all send them back

Strong words Ken. Certainly if you could convince all the Vdrummers out there to do it, then Roland might listen. I hear your sentiment but think that maybe it is a little too idealistic! Such a pity because the Vride had such potential!
Let's face it, Vcymbals are the weak link in the chain and there is a lot of work required before they come close to the real thing. That's why I go with Acymbals.

[antinucci]

I have a PCY10 bell cymbal from Yahmaha that I love. It really works well with my Hart Dynamics ride.

<img>http://img.musiciansfriend.com/dbase/pics/products/44/444154.jpg</img>

[studioVjeff]

[Stixx777]

There are many post here on tips to help with the bell of the ride. I personal do not have any problems wih it. I do use the meat of the stick just like I did on my acoustic set. There are a couple of quick suggestion I can give.
1) Set the Trigger so you are happy with the bell and adjust the rest of the trigger after that.
2) If you need to play the bell with the tip of your stick assign that sound to another trigger.
3) I found out that my rotating the CY15R so I am playing under the Roland it is more sensitve there. Rotated to about 1 or 2 o'clock.

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Ted H.
www.tocsinrocks.com

[Ken Taylor]

From Feefer: "Knowing the location of the FSR is the key with all V-Cymbals, since the strike zone of the FSR is much smaller than that of the piezo. In other words, strike position counts with the Roland FSR."

Having removed the rubber to examine the FSR I know exactly where it is, however, light strikes don't cut it on the the three V-Rides I've had so far. Roland UK are currently in contact with the Techs in Japan over this, as they have one of the earlier prototypes there which they claim does not exhibit these problems. Tomorrow they claim that they are going to go through all 139 they have in stock to find me the best one. I'll keep you posted with the results.
I'm gettin' all hot and bothered by this because I never had any problems of this nature playing either SDX pads, or the Simmons Portakit, both of which use FSR technology.
Feefer is correct in saying that the Roland FSR is little more than a switch relying on the voltage from the Piezo to determine strike force. The Piezo in the case of the V-Ride therefore seems ideally placed, but as I said earlier the rubber thickness seems to be preventing light strikes from closing the membrane.

Ken.
Ken.