Come on! 8 toms, you guys.

[deus62]

With all those monster sets out there, there must be one person around who can help me with my "problem" ...
http://www.vdrums.com/discussion/For...ML/001559.html (first post)

Thanx.

[Jaay]

Your post said that your highest two toms tend to sound a little "ringy" with your current tuning scheme.

When Mike Portnoy put together his Liquid Tension kit, he used a set of LP "Timbalitos"(I think) for his highest two toms. Perhaps you might want to take a pair of timbale samples and muffle them slightly so they sound more "tom-ish"?

[deus62]

Hi Jaay,

I have a couple of sets like that, integrating a set of three instruments from the percussion group (I even have two sets where I have integrated a short bass drums and/or Japanese drums range) and I'm quite satisfied with them.

I just can't get an 8 tom range right ... and that's what I would like to figure out. There must be someone out there who has done it.

I think one could probably take two completely different samples (two different tom sets) and create one range with enough tweaking. I've just been too dumb so far ...

Thanx for your input!

[deus62]

Hell, I'm just gonna keep this one at the top ...

[Shep2112]

Hey Deus,

I tried to mimic Mike's Purple Monster kit's sounds (check out 'play mike's drums on mikeportnoy.com) about 2 years ago.. The octabans have 2 separate pitches to them, which is very strange I thought. The left kick doesn't sound much like the right kick either. But I went through my tom sounds without looking at the display on the td10, and picked the closest/best sounding ones, which turned out to be the maple tom sounds. I did the same with the kicks and snare and I think they all ended up Maple. I think I did tom 1 for the first 2 toms, tom2 for the second 2, then 3 and 4 to cover the floor tom sounds.. I don't recall offhand.. I think I have the kit still, or maybe a Vkit Trans backup of it at least.. I'll check around for you..

For the octabans, I think I used the attack drum, is that the name? I don't recall at the moment and my td10 isn't here right now. But I think it was that, like a Fibre or something sound, and chopped the decay on it. Mike's pitches are a little weird on the Virtual Monster there, not all in order with even intervals. High toms are always the toughest to get right. I'd like a 6" tom, ala the beginning of Rush' 2112, but that never comes out right.

I think I had good results with 'Hall' 1 & 2 pitched up and the decay chopped for octabans too..

Hope this helps!
-Eric

[deus62]

Hi Eric,

finally someone! Thanx!

I won't be able to get to my kit till Monday or so, but I'll try out your suggestions. If you could expand on this a little when you're at your set/PC again, I would really appreciate it.

Thanx again, and CU later ...

[Shep2112]

You're welcome!

My kit is in our other car at the moment, so I'll be getting it out tonight or tomorrow.. Hopefully over the next couple of days I can go through it and see what I did with it and then I'll list it here..

What style/drummer's sound are you going for? I think the most logical arrangement overall would be:
Tom 1: drums 1-2
Tom 2: drums 3-4
Tom 3: drums 5-6
Tom 4: drums 7-8

Then you don't have to change the pitch too drastically to cover the range, so they still sound natural.. The drum modeling is great, but it's not a perfect match over the entire range, so you have to use some discretion as far as how far you stretch the pitches, etc.. You can hide a lot with ambience/compression/eq too, so if it's not quite right when played 'dry', try adding those in a little bit to blend the toms together, so they match each other more..

On Rush' Exit..Stage Left album, one of Neil's toms is out of tune on several songs. I think it's the 15" (his largest rack tom), but it's been a while since I've listened for it. Overall his toms sound good, so I think a little imperfection makes for a more realistic sounding kit too..

Talk to you soon!
-Eric

[deus62]

Ah, my man Eric.

Thanx for stayin' with me. I've been looking for you for over a year now (especially since Marc. didn't help me out ( ) although he has a monster set at home!

As I mentioned before, I can't get to my set now, but I've tried creating two toms from each of the samples.

What I'm looking for are sounds which sound more acoustic than "electronic". Not too much gate, enough resonance, etc.

The problem is that those acoustic samples are the ones which can't really be "pushed" to high. You tune them up into a decent range and they start to "ring" (for wont of a better word)."

I have about 4 ok kits ready now, but the toms I'm not happy with.

Well, I'll post here what I did when I get close to my set again ... beginning of next week.

Thanx again for your input.

CU

[Shep2112]

Well, I'll prolly have more to add here soon.. I just picked up a killer deal at Mars Music.. I now own ANOTHER TD-10 and more vpads.. I'm going to part ways with my td-7 and dm5 on ebay this coming week to recoupe some of my investment today.. So I'll definately be experimenting with more tom sounds and cymbals too.. Time to update my profile with the new gear I guess!

I'm setting up the original td-10 tonight and I'll check my settings, but definately I would say use 1 sound for every 2 drums, unless you want separate high toms, like concert toms or roto toms or octabans..

[deus62]

Hi Shep2112,

there is simply no more fun than having two of these TD-10 babies. I love it, and I have the weirdest kits up. There is an amazing amount of stuff you can do with two modules. Just make sure to separate the pads of the two modules. 1 module does NOT know that the other one is there!

Let's start a club!

[Shep2112]

Deus, great idea on the club there!

I know I'll be able to do a lot more with this stuff once I get the new kit layout finished.. Somehow the pd-120's seem HUGE on the rack sometimes, whereas on my acoustic set (4 rack toms and a floor), the 12" can go anywhere easily.. I have 3 pd-10's and 4 pd-120's to use as my toms now.. But I can't get them to wrap around me easily.. I have a small rack at the moment. One curved Roland bar, then Gibralter legs and a couple of side bars from a Roland TDE-7 kit.. I should be able to check on those tom settings for you later today though.. This has just been a big annoyance for me.. I have some studio work later this week and would love to bring a big tom on a smaller rack setup in, so I'm spending a lot of time on it..

Do you have pics of your kit?
-Eric

[Shep2112]

Unfortunately, no, not yet.. It's just a bunch of junk at the moment, nothing's plugged in yet, still building it..

Seriously though, I've had my main V-Pro set since Sept or Oct, 98, and then just in the past month I've added a TD-10, TD-7, and an Alesis DM5.. I bought a bunch of stuff and got really good deals on it, now I'm just trying to sort it all out into something comfortable to play.. So it's all scattered on the bedroom floor here and in some boxes.. My girlfriend has a webcam that's about 3 years old, I'll try that out when I get this set up in a comfortable way and post some pics with it. The quality of the cam is pretty bad, but it'll be decent enough to show drums I'm sure..

[deus62]

Hi everyone,

nice to see that there are more people who have taken the leap and are putting "monster sets" together. Mine is far from finished, but here is what I have put together so far (sorry, still no images, but wait until my site is finished ... there will be plenty):

Bassdrum: 1x KD-120
Snare: 1x Pad 120
Toms (1): 3x Pad-7 (to be replaced by Pad 80R this summer)
Toms (2): 5x Pad 80R
Cowbell: 1X Pad-7
Hi-Hat: CY 12-H
Rides: 2x CY-15R (positioned right; next to each other)
China: 1x Pad-9 (positioned above lowest floor tom)
Crashes: 2x Pad-7 (positioned right and left of center)

The two TD-10s are affixed to the rack, left of the hi-hat. Both are fed into a Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro. I pick up the headphone signal from there.

I also have a headphone amp (HDB Audio HA48 Professional Headphone Amp; 8 headphone outs) which I connect for a quiet jam whenever I have people over.

Here are the plans for the future:

a) I want to replace the Pad-7s (1st three toms) with Pad-80Rs.
b) I would like to integrate something like the D-Drum tube triggers for cowbell, etc. Is this a good idea?
c) My V-Drums are not connected to my PC yet. I'm waiting until I'm getting my new PC which will be next April. Then I will invest in a very good soundcard, etc.
d) I would like to replace the 2 Pad-7 I use as crash cymbals with Roland Cymbal pads.
e) I would like to integrate another snare (probably pad 80R again) but would then have to remove the modules from the rack.

Well, this will keep me busy for a year.

Just in case you're wondering why I use all these Pad-80Rs. When I bought the set, I just got a really good offer and it would have been silly to go with mono pads. I still get good offers from my fave shop, so I'll just stick to the Rs. And, if Roland comes up with a TD-12 (which I'm afraid of actually, because I've invested so much money already) at least I have the stereo pads which will then surely be needed.

Will keep you posted.

Let's keep it rollin', guys!


P.S.: I've included one crappy photo which I scanned in ... just to give you an idea: http://www.deus62.com/images/mine/drums0001.jpg

[Rythmstik]

Originally posted by deus62


b) I would like to integrate something like the D-Drum tube triggers for cowbell, etc. Is this a good idea?

I was going to do something like that for my V-Club, (looked at the D-Drum tube and the Pintech alternatives) but I decided to try making my own, instead. I got some plans for a simple trigger off the beatnik site (I think it was) and made one for use as a sidestick/backstick on my snare. It worked so well, I made another to use as a cowbell. They turned out to be velocity sensitive, which I didn't expect when I was making the first one. I mount them on the back of the pads, (or anywhere on the rack) where they connect to the L-rods, using, of all things, two small bungee cords. Total cost for the two pads was about 6 dollars and maybe an hour total time.

BTW, The photo isn't bad. That's a great looking kit.

[Shep2112]

Okay, I got the really old, bad-picture-taking webcam working with XP. Using an NT4 driver, using 100% CPU, but hey, gotta do what ya gotta do I guess, right?

I put it on my server and will update the image file as I continue placing pads around the kit. As you can see from my info, I have a LOT more stuff to put on here!



There's a DrumKAT 3.8 on the bottom left.. It's really tough to see.. I'll take another pic at night, so the lighting comes out better.

LP Spike is the tube trigger in the center above pd-100's.
-Eric