First time problems!

[Algee]

Well, its been about 15 months since the day my babies came rolling up my driveway from the back of the FedEx truck that bright, beautiful summer afternoon here in sunny Florida. Never before have I had technical problems. Heres the deal:

V-Pro TD-10 with TDW-1 upgrade.

I recently added a CY-6 for a nice ride addition and to maximize my inputs. But even before I added that, I was having a few problems. Three plroblems to be exact.

1) My snare was triggering the rim from the head. Given a nice solid hit about 4 inches and outward of the drum rim and I would get the rim sound triggered. I made sure that I was not hitting the rim in any way, and it was clear that something was wrong. I played around with different settings on the module to try to fix it. Nothing changed.

2) My crash 1 cymbal now doesn't even respond to triggers on the main pad, yet the PD-9's rim does. Odd, eh? Yes the polarity is correctly set. No, the on-board mixer is not set funky. What could it be?

3) My new Roland CY-6 v-cymbal is so weak on triggering from the main pad surface. You have to hit it on the bell to activate the normal ride sound, and side-stick crash it on the edge to activate the bell sound. That's somewhat odd, isn't it?


If anyone could help me, it owuld be greatly apprecieated. I spelled that wrong, didn't I. Damn. Anyone?

[Boingo]

Re: First time problems!

Originally posted by Algee
Well, its been about 15 months since the day my babies came rolling up my driveway from the back of the FedEx truck that bright, beautiful summer afternoon here in sunny Florida. Never before have I had technical problems. Heres the deal:

V-Pro TD-10 with TDW-1 upgrade.

I recently added a CY-6 for a nice ride addition and to maximize my inputs. But even before I added that, I was having a few problems. Three plroblems to be exact.

1) My snare was triggering the rim from the head. Given a nice solid hit about 4 inches and outward of the drum rim and I would get the rim sound triggered. I made sure that I was not hitting the rim in any way, and it was clear that something was wrong. I played around with different settings on the module to try to fix it. Nothing changed.

Check that everything is plugged in all the way. Check trigger settings. There is a rim sensitivity adjustment. Try lowering it.

2) My crash 1 cymbal now doesn't even respond to triggers on the main pad, yet the PD-9's rim does. Odd, eh? Yes the polarity is correctly set. No, the on-board mixer is not set funky. What could it be?

Check that everything is plugged in all the way. I assume that crash 1 has always been the PD-9. See if the pad is bad by swapping pads. Same for cord. Jiggle connections looking for shorts (are they really shorts or should we call them opens?) Do the simple stuff to eliminate the obvious and easy fix first.

3) My new Roland CY-6 v-cymbal is so weak on triggering from the main pad surface. You have to hit it on the bell to activate the normal ride sound, and side-stick crash it on the edge to activate the bell sound. That's somewhat odd, isn't it?

Getting the V-Cymbal Control update might be in order if you haven't already done so. In the meantime, play with sensitivity, mask, threshold and other trigger settings.

If anyone could help me, it owuld be greatly apprecieated. I spelled that wrong, didn't I. Damn. Anyone?

that's "would", "appreciated" and "darn"

[F1Montoya]

Regarding your PD-9 only firing when you hit the rim: If all the simple checks (i.e. making sure the cord is plugged in all the way, swapping pads, etc.) come up empty, you may have to perform some surgery on your PD-9.

I don't have a PD-9 but have plenty of experience with PD-7's so I'm assuming they are designed similarly. The problem might be a loose wire within the pad. If you remove the rubber from your pad by removing the little plastic pins on the underside of the rim, you may find that one of the two wires (one red, one white) has become loose. If so, simply solder it back and you should be good to go. I've done this on a number of PD-7's with good results. If both wires are loose, no problem - the board within the pad actually tells you by color where to solder each wire.

Good luck.

F1Montoya

[Algee]

Whoa thanks for the fast response!

Check and check, everything's in it's place. I made sure to check all that. However I forgot to look under the hood of the PD-9. How can I safely pull those out? WIll they just go right back in their place?

Yes, I have the TDW-1 with V-cymbal upgrade. That should do the trick, right? Is it possible that my CY-6 is defective?

And for the snare problem, what is up with that? I've set the sensitivity levels to many different settings and nothing is changing. It's almost as if when I hit the snare hard enough, the signal is jumping to the other mono cord within in the stereo wire, triggering the wrong sound. Any ideas on that, too?

[Boingo]

Maybe this will help if you decide to open your pad up.

http://www.vdrums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10287&highlight=open

Those plastic pins pop out and reassemble easily. No sweat.

[Algee]

All fixed! Everything went smoothly. The cymbal problem was odd though. I changed out my PD-9 with another one and it did the same thing, which meant that it wasn't the pad. I just cleaned the plug of that cord and it worked. Weird huh?

The CY-6 is all fixed now, but I still have one question. Is the non-pad part of it supposed to be the most sensitive? While the pad area comes out great, the plastic section with the Roland logo on it just wails at the loudest possible volume. What's up with that?

I had to set the X-stick threshold to a low level for it to not activate the rim on the snare pad. The only drawback to that is that when I actually do want to do a X-stick, I have to barely tap it and not too hard or else it activates the rim shot. Ugh! Anyone? Thanks.

[Neil70]

Concerning the Cy-6 - you shouldn't be playing the plastic portion of the cymbal. I think it is there for structural integrity and aethetics only. Because there is no dampening of the stick strike, the trigger registers it as hard strike - and I think - though not entirely sure - that it triggers both sounds - bow and bell. Not to mention unsightly stick marks.

[TomLandin]

Regarding the snare - you might want to consider replacing the old 'blue' cone with the newer 'black' cone. I had been experiancing minor problems before, and it just turned out to be a worn out cone.

1/4 in jack inputs are notorious for developing a non-conductive layer. More so insmoky environments. Periodically cleaning the input jacks (methods vary) is good preventive maintenance.

Glad to hear most of your issues have been resolved.

[Algee]

It was purely for testing reasons that I was playing the plastic! But thanks once again for setting things straight for me.

I might look into replacing the cones. How would I go about doing that, and where could I get the parts? Would it just be smarter to give the drums to a service center? When I had to get my Roland HH pedal guts fixed, it was about $90! It's interesting that my jacks would build up that layer considering they're in a clean-as-white environment without any smoke or anythng. Hmmm...at least not that I know of.

[Algee]

Rediculously high humidity. I was recently in Boston. When I stepped off the plane, I know something was missing. Many people don't like it, but it's something you get used to. Why?

[RayPat01]

replacement parts

The black foam cones are $8 each from Roland themselves.

If your input jacks on the pads are going bad, you should be able to purchase replacements at the Rat Shack. There are exactly three solder points going to the connector; easy fix for someone who knows how to work a soldering iron (and that's an iron, not a gun!).