tuning 8 toms

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

I've been visiting here frequently and have really enjoyed the great advice to be found on this site. Thanx!

I'm looking for people who have, like me, put together a monster set. Here's what I'm working on at the moment ... and what I could use some advice on:

I've got 8 toms set up (4 on each TD-10) and am trying to create a decent-sounding tom-range. Somehow all the good (natural-sounding) samples seem to sound a little "off" when I "stretch" them to high.

I've tried creating a range by creating two toms from each of the four samples provided, but the two highest toms get a "ringy" sound.

I've tried to create three toms from bottom samples in order not to have to tune the higher samples too high, but then the whole range sounds too "low".

Somehow I can't get it right ... the only ones I've gotten to sound good are the 752 Standard Toms ... I'd rather use some of the better samples though.

Anyone out there who has created a good 8-tom range? If you have, I would be interested in knowing which sample(s) you used for each tom and what you tuned it/them to (pitch and decay).

One more, while I'm at it. I've connected both TD-10s to my Mackie 1202 VLZ but somehow I'm getting quite a lot of "white noise" (hardly noticeable when I'm playing, but quite annoying when I'm programming). I've tried just about anything and am now considering inserting some sort of filter between headphones and Mackie mixer ... any suggestions?

Thanx again! Love the site, will continue to drop by frequently!

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My equipment: 2x TD 10 (Expanded, TDW-1 with V-Cymbal Control), 2x CY-15R, 1x CY12H, 5x Pad-80R, 6x PD-7, 1x PD-9, 1x KD-120, 1x FD-7, 1x Roland MDS-10, 4x Sonor Delite double cymbal stands, 1x DW 5000 Pedal, 1x Mackie 1202 VLZ, 1x NAD C521 CD-Player. To be expanded soon ...

[This message has been edited by deus62 (edited April 27, 2002).]

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

Thanx C.

Two questions:

You wrote that externalizing the power supply has helped "a little" with RF hum. Does that mean that this hasn't really solved the problem?

Secondly, what effect would a noise gate have on the overall quality of the TD-10 sound? Would it cut any other frequencies?

Again, thanx.

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My equipment:
:: 2x TD 10 (Expanded, TDW-1 with V-Cymbal Control)
:: 2x CY-15R, 1x CY12H
:: 5x Pad-80R, 6x PD-7, 1x PD-9, 1x KD-120
:: 1x FD-7
:: 1x Roland MDS-10, 4x Sonor Delite double cymbal stands
:: 1x DW 5000 Pedal
:: 1x Mackie 1202 VLZ
:: 1x NAD C521 CD-Player

To be expanded soon ...

[This message has been edited by deus62 (edited April 27, 2002).]

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

Thank you, C., for your in-depth answer.

I will look into trying to get a grip on the noise problem by using a gate.

The problem though is that the noise I'm getting is less of a hum but more of a high-pitched "squeal" (albeit one that is overpowered as soon as I start playing). My guess is that the "white noise" of each TD-10 module, each with a varying frequency, comes together in the Mackie mixer where they are combined into the noise I can then hear. If I turn one of the units off (any one of them), the noise disappears.

On top of that, once I connect my headphone amp (HDB Audio, HA48 Professional Headphone Amp; 8 in) to the Mackie whenever we want to do a living room session, the noise is again multiplied and everyone else gets a nasty hiss via the headphones. Again, once we get down, the noise virtually disappears, but when we stop playing, everyone usually takes the headphones off as quickly as possible.

[GRRAVEE Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close GRRAVEE]

if you live next to a radio geek you are outta luck.......

[MPCman Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close MPCman]

Hi deus62,

Welcome to this board!
If you have any pics of your drum setup, I'd be very happy to place them on my e-drum picture website. http://edrumpicsite.flappie.nl/

Greetings,
Pieter

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My Personal homepage - MPCman's E-drum Picsite! currently with 13 profiles

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

Hi MPCman,

I have just contacted a photographer (5.5 Megapixel camera) friend of mine to take some good shots of my set. I'm expecting to expand my set this summer (3 x Pad 80 and another Sonor Delite stand; the stuff has gotten really expensive here after we got the EURO ) and I'll send you pictures of that as well.

Give me two three weeks now though for the first pics because I'm in the process of putting together a rather tricky website (PHP, MySQL) which is eating the little spare time I have.

Let me know if I should retouch the photos in any way (file size, photo size) and I'll send you the final versions. I do that every day, so no problem there. I also noticed that people have added comments about their sets. Any special wishes as to what I'm supposed to write or a "free for all"?

For others reading this thread: I'm still interested in getting some feedback on my original post, re tuning an 8-tom range!

Thanks everyone ...

P.S.: GRRAVEE ... no radio geek in my neighbourhood. I'm the only geek around here.

[This message has been edited by deus62 (edited April 28, 2002).]

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

I'm running each module separately into the Mackie (TD-10: Master Out R and L into Mackie: Line In 5-6/7-8, R and L) and I'm monitoring the mix at the Mackie (phones) as well. So, no problem there.

What I'm currently looking into is something else. I got an E-mail from someone who read this post recommending that I have a look at the fuses in my flat.

This person who wrote said that returning to older style ceramic fuses (he's someone from Germany as well) could solve the problem. Thing is, I don't know squat about fuses so I've got to contact someone to have a look at this.

Upon this guy's recommendation (I was sitting here reading and posting on and off from about 8 in the evening until 4 in the morning), I tried the set again and again and it appears that the noise is reduced the later it gets. This would clearly indicate that the power supply in the flat (my town) is at fault ... the more people switch off electricity in their homes, the cleaner the net gets. The noise doesn't disappear completely and I need to check again a couple of times just to see that the reduction wasn't some sort of freak occurence.

So, either I will have to change the fuses or install some sort of power filter.

Another thing I was wondering. I'm also into HiFi equipment and am using some very high quality headphones to monitor the sound. Could this be a problem? They (Sennheiser 590 and 600) have an impedance of 120 Ohm (590) and 300 Ohm (600) and a frequency range of 12.....38000 Hz. They're very sensitive ... that's why I bought them for my Marantz stereo.

Again, thanx for your input. Appreciate it very much.

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

You're probably right about the phones. Can't hear half of what my phones are actually transmitting. On the other side though, the transparency of the sound can grow quite tremendously. What you get is a clearer sense of "space" when going for the high-end stuff. The sound tends to "breathe" more ...

But, myself being quite critical when it comes to all kinds of hifi and sound equipment, has probably teinted my listening tastes. Case in point. About 15 years ago I had a really good pair of KOSS phones and could not imagine switching to other phones. For quite some time, my ears simply couldn't get used to the new ones I had bought. It's almost like my ears are behaving like Pavlov's dogs: whenever they hear a certain kind of sound, they start to "drool."

That headphones tend to color the sound is certainly true. Whereas the, for example, Sennheiser consumer phones tend to emphasize the bass end of things, their high-end phones (HEV 90) for God knows how much money are run through a separate tube amp which is connected to the loudspeaker outs of the stereo system. Absolutely fantastic sound - as good a sound as you might get from SACD or DVD-Audio on top-of-the-line-speakers.

Oops, I'm getting a little preachy here ... and running off on a tangent. Hifi is a passion of mine ... Sorry.

I will check out the Sony phones. I have been a customer at a small hifi shop in the nearest city (that would be Karlsruhe, just across the Rhine from where I live) and the people there will get me anything and allow me to take it home if I like ... if I buy it or not. Then again, I also left a lot of my money at that shop ...

Thanx C. It's been a pleasure talking to you. I'll go ahead and try various suggestions from this thread in the next few weeks and will post here or elsewhere again once I've found the solution.

Of course, I'll be monitoring here if anyone wants to get into a hifi discussion with me (for example, if anyone really needs the Dynaudio Evidence Master: http://www.dynaudio.com/products/evi...dence/evid.htm - I've heard them in a surround sound setup and was floored by the sound; four of these babies + a subwoofer would also get you a decent size house + a car or two) or if anyone here has some suggestions on tuning my 8-tom range ... my original question.

[This message has been edited by deus62 (edited April 28, 2002).]

[MPCman Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close MPCman]

Originally posted by deus62:

Let me know if I should retouch the photos in any way (file size, photo size) and I'll send you the final versions. I do that every day, so no problem there. I also noticed that people have added comments about their sets. Any special wishes as to what I'm supposed to write or a "free for all"?

If you hit the Join link on my site you'll see a form where you can fill in all the info that I need to put your pics and comments on my site.
I don't have space to host pictures from everybody on my own space, so you should include links to your pics (preferably with thumbnails) as well. Something like 3 to 8 pics would be nice.

Take as much time as you need

Greetings,

Pieter

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My Personal homepage - MPCman's E-drum Picsite! currently with 13 profiles

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

Hi Pieter,

I'll hit your homepage once I've got the images. Because I'm currently setting up my own site (which will still take some time as I'm finishing three others), I will also have a page of my own showing my set .

CU

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

What would it sound like when you hit the floor? Sort of a subwoofer-enhanced thud?

By the way: $40.000 won't get you far with these babies. Don't forget, you need a decent cable to hook each one up. Let's say you go for a Kimber XL which will cost you $1,920 for an eight-foot pair ... try snaking those to all four corners of the room (five, not forgetting the sub snuggled up somehwere). And these cables are more in the consumer range once you really get into it.

Of course, you would also want to power each speaker with a decent mono block amplifier ...

You know what, I think you could buy the entire Roland engineering team for that.

Come to think of it, if I had the money I'd probably do that ... and then print out this forum's wishlist for them and let them build the mother of all electronic kits.

Jee Zus.

A wet dream in the middle of the afternoon.

[This message has been edited by deus62 (edited April 29, 2002).]

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

Hey, my first sizzling icon. Does it stay red if I keep on posting stuff here? How about this one (although it doesn't belong here...) ...

I'm using pro-mark's Millennium II Elvin Jones Jazz sticks (light, short). I'm looking for the same kind of stick with a little added length, just to make me feel more manly. Any suggestions anyone?

[Pleiadian Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pleiadian]

Originally posted by deus62:
I'm looking for the same kind of stick with a little added length, just to make me feel more manly. Any suggestions anyone?

There must be devices out there that you can use to enlarge your sticks, but not many people are willing to discuss the subject out in the open...

I'd be happy to send you some links through the mail

Not that I've ever needed it, of course



[This message has been edited by Pleiadian (edited April 29, 2002).]

[deus62 Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close deus62]

Originally posted by Pleiadian:
There must be devices out there that you can use to enlarge your sticks, but not many people are willing to discuss the subject out in the open...

"Hi, my name is Deus62. I'm a stick enlarger."

[Boingo Registered Member Find all posts View Profile Close Boingo]

Originally posted by Pleiadian:
There must be devices out there that you can use to enlarge your sticks, but not many people are willing to discuss the subject out in the open...

We're all adults here people. All you have to do is rub those short sticks with a fine sandpaper. For most "normal" sticks, their length should increase.