Using the Integra7 as a drum brain

I'm afraid you don't understand, the problem is not the pedal, it's the I-7, it has no hihat articulation, so the pedal transmits just fine, the I-7 receives jut fine, but it has nothing to respond to that continuous command. Is it any clearer now?

Ok, I see what your saying now. Thanks for the clarity. Eventually I'll experiment with that in particular and see if I can find a workaround or a back door of some kind and post the results if there is a development on that front but I'm pretty far away from that right now. You would think that if mod had a check mark on that channel under the 'part veiw' button that it would recieve it ALTHOUGH modulation would also have to be assigned to the parameter to be affected - which is key. Parameters such as filter, amplitude, cutoff, etc. Anyway, it's great that we have this forum to share the good, the bad, and the ugly regarding Integra. You all have already helped me a great deal and I hope to be able to recipricate and help the next guy!

Archeomuse wrote:

You would think that if mod had a check mark on that channel under the 'part veiw' button that it would recieve it ALTHOUGH modulation would also have to be assigned to the parameter to be affected - which is key. Parameters such as filter, amplitude, cutoff, etc.

You should go ahead and try to obtain the I-7 to respond to continuous pedal control from closed to opened hihat with progressive articulation, it's a good way to learn, experimenting with the actual situation..

Yeah, I'm hoping to get to get to that project in the next few weeks. With my current project I've learned at least 2 great hacks. I've never been a fan of the way Roland organizes their drum sounds to begin with and it's glaringly obvious that the Integra drumsets are laid out for keyboard players. Most keyboard players loathe editing drum sounds to anyway, so most will spin the wheel, grab kit a that is acceptable, program a basic pattern or loop, copy and paste ad nausium, then go back to their piano, organ, synth, or whatever part they were working on (as it should be). Drummers on the other hand, after years of listening to high quality snares, hats, and cymbals of all makes and models, mostly view synthesized drums as cartoonish, canned, or plain rubbish, unless they are specifically going for an effect such as the early simmons or 808 sounds, etc (as it should be). Us drummers are listening for a snares tuning, harmonic content, room size, shell depth, thickness, wood, metal, acrylic, etc - same with cymbals and the rest of the kit (as it should be). Its extremely gratifying to just grab the sticks and play a great sounding kit without the hassles of editing sounds, or digging through endless kits to find that perfect snare or ride but our quest for superb drum sounds drive us (experiencing frustrations, setbacks, fatigue, depression, etc) until we find 'IT' - and that is the BEST feeling for a drummer. All that hard work finally pays off. Sorry for the long story but it's relevent to the big picture. My goal is to squeeze every little drop of nice drum sounds out of this unit, but constantly digging through different kits to find the one sound I'm looking for becomes disheartening after awhile. I have no choice but to reorganize the drum sounds in this unit so that when I go to choose a snare sound they are all lined up next to each other - no more back and forth digging through different kits to find my 'IT'. Ok, here it is - in the process of organizing my snare library I've noticed that the snares in the SN-D 'snare menu' are the same SAMPLES as the ones in the SN-D 'drum kits' but the snares in the 'kits' sound WAY different than in the 'menu' - different pitch, ambience, harmonics, reverb, cutoff, etc. Wanting to compare the two to see what was different in each (being the same sample), I pressed the edit button in a kit to see the differences. Oh no! You've got to be kidding me! The 'ingredients' (parameter settings) are hidden! Damn, Roland really? Typical Roland - locking down any way to alter their 'signature' SN sounds (greed). After struggling and trying everything the next few hours I needed to clear my head, so I finally gave up and walked away frustrated. Had to reboot my mind and refresh - take a nap, veg out on TV, relax, change of atmosphere, or do a mundane task that doesn't require thought. Just 'be' without thinking about or focusing on anything. ESCAPISM therapy - a mini stay-cation LOL! A few hours later my creative problem solving skills kicked in trying to find a workaround. Then it hit me - the manual says you can't edit a PRESET kit but can only edit USER kits. I immediately went over to the Integra and copied SN-D 01:Session Kit over to a user kit and saved it with a Z in the name. I pressed the edit button for the snare sound and there were all the parameters! Then I did the same thing with the 'snare menu'. Plus it allowed me to turn off the annoying 'variations' that make flams, buzzes, and rolls and still leave modulation reception for the channel on for other stuff like cymbal swells, choke, crossfades, velocity switching, etc. I'm sure this a no brainer for an experienced user but for a newb like me it was a milestone accomplishment. Thank God I cut my teeth back in the day on the Yamaha PTX8, Roland R8-M, Alesis DM5, Emu Proteus, and Roland JV1080. Anyway, now I am in the process of consolidating the 'menu' snares and the 'kit' snares (with their parameters) to a 3rd user kit via MENU > PARTIAL COPY and lining them up consecutively. That was ANOTHER brick wall. Took me hours to figure out that I have to choose the 'destination user kit / note number' first (by being 'in' the kit to be copied to) THEN opening MENU > PARTIAL COPY, and THEN choosing the top line 'source user kit / note number, and THEN pressing ENTER while making sure not to overwrite the prior copy or edit and having to reload from scratch. Yes, its meticulous but the payoff for me is huge. Soon I can just scroll note numbers on one channel and have at least 100 snare sounds to pick from with no hassles and my multipad controller edit screens won't look like scrambled eggs with seemingly random MSB, LSB, Channel Assignments, Program Change Values, Volume Changes, and Note Numbers. Obviously the PCM snares will have to be assigned to a different 'part' than the SN-D snares, but can share the same channel IF the PCM snares start where the SN-D snares 'key range' ends. When I'm done my Integra will at least rival a TD-20, but have the fidelity of 24 bit / 96 khz , 8 assignable individual outs with seperate EQ and effects.

Ok, but that won't solve your hihat problem. Besides, like all Roland modules, there is a really good chance the sounds inside are only 16bits 32kHz, resampled at 24bits 96kHz.

I would choose the TD-20, or even the TD-12, over the I-7 for drums, because sounds are so much more articulated. Yes drums machine gun on these modules, but that's not a problem if you don't play them machinegunning : who plays rolls on toms? Or even on the snare, in a groove? It doesn't solve the machinegunning to realize that, but it shows you mostly hear it when you manifest the phenomenon, and much less, or even not at all, when you just play your grooves.

But the real pity to me is that Roland gave up on their fine Supernatural sound engine, they really had something with this tech, and they didn't develop it right, nor to a proper extend. Not only for the edrums, take digital pianos, the RD-800 is the last board that construct on this SN marvel they had, after that the RD-2000 tries to catch on the V-Piano, and it's a real disappointment to most users (but the RD-2000 also host SN and PCM sounds so it's still the best out there). And then ZenCore is the new rebranding to the day, and it's coming back to poorer PCM, after that, I suspect Roland has nothing to renew its offer, because they did everything but investing in R&D. They are squeezing the legacy lemon to the point it begins to show dramatically.. But that's another question.

Good luck with your programming, cheers!

So far no machine gunning, cutoff samples, double triggering, missed notes, or latency issues with A.M.s Hybrikit FSR multipad controller. I'm super impressed with how smooth buzz rolls are. I also haven't noticed too many 'grainy' 32 bit style samples yet either, although turning off the effects, and eq would be the tell all, and of course, the hi-hat issues LOL. Cheers to you as well!

Machine gunning is not in the triggering, it's the fact the attack of the sounds themselves are the same at each stroke. On Supernatural sounds there is a slight variation in the attack of each iteration, so that it rolls naturally. On drum software, it's done with alternate samples (for instance, in Superior Drummer or BFD, there are only a few alternate samples, and they are triggered randomnly, so that you don't feel this repetition effect). This is why SN sound generators were able to produce.

Older Roland module don't have that feature, and this is why rolls indeed sound somewhat un-natural, as if a machin gun was firing repetitively, tatatatata, instead of tatetatatetatet. But they handle rolls just as fine as they should, from a triggering point of view, the problem is not there, nor in the MIDI aspect behind, it's the sound generator the culprit.

I-7 SN sounds (all of them) have complex scripts to avoid these artificial effects, but sometimes the tones are not as good as the older PCM ones, like on the strings for instance.

Oh wow! Now I know what you mean! Which is why people use round robin with their VST drum libraries - that gives me another really cool idea to try down the pike! There is a mode in the DITI labeled 'alternate' (up to 40 notes). Shouldn't be difficult to set up a string of note numbers each with their own slight variation of pitch, ambiance, etc to acheive that effect although it would be cyclical - but it sure beats nothing. There also may be a 'random' mode that can be limited to a certain note range - I'll have to check. It may only need a dozen note number slots / sound variations from the Integra. Yes, I may be overly optimistic at this point but its ok to dream and think positive LOL

Your enthusiasm is cheerful indeed, have fun!

Hey lol - you wouldn't believe who I talked to a few days ago even if I told you. I was told to hold off on the Mimic to see the 2box Drumit 6. There was obviously very little time to find out if its a whole new animal or just a firmware upgrade for the Drumit 5. He also NAMED a world renowned 'futurist' in music hard and soft product development has come out of retirement out of 'boredom' to develop another new product with him. It has to do with both Drumit 6 and Katalyst software. In our extremely short convo he asked me if I wanted to be a beta tester for bugs in the software! I couldn't believe my ears and immediately said YES (of course) and now waiting on an email with a dowload / unlock key. I was told there will be a forum for Katalyst and if I can get my sh** together on it I would become a consultant on the forum. Not putting the cart before the horse though - the whole software thing could take me many months to learn thoroughly before becoming a consultant - but even then, not until after the bugs are identified and fixed. 6 months is extremely optimistic. It's ok if you don't believe this because I can hardly believe it myself really. It's a strange feeling when you wan't to let the cat out of the bag but only allowed to peek inside said bag and see the cat - a first for me! Anyway, was the best day of my year so far. Carry on.....

Oh I see that's great news indeed, congratulations to you!, and for giving a preview on that news to come (I swear I won't spread it!)

Regarding the Mimic Pro, here's my opinion on it : great hardware innovation, excellent development support, in all a product that is well thought and well made, but I'm not a fan of S. Slate drums, they are great for rock, pop, and for modern production, but it's kind of an all American product, it lacks the refinements of Toontrack's (and BFD's), for instance resonant rimshots, subtle grace strokes, and overall the recording choices at it seems, to compress at the sampling stage (or use preamps that tend to compress the sampling - I don't know in the details how they sampled these drums), is very oriented towards production drums. Hence the "Pro" label indeed, and it's coherent with the design, but it lacks somewhat the quality of a fine acoustic kit played softly, played lightly say with rods, as in contemporary jazz for instance, in short, as if it was meant for heavy hitters more than for delicate drummers. So not my type of drum sounds. But otherwise, and/or if you're that kind of drummer, or need that punch on stage in a rock/pop/heavy metal/country/whatever hard groove context, then yes it's the best thing of the times, undoubtedly!

So maybe the next new product you're about to consult for, is as good as the Mimic Pro, triggers as good as the Roland kits, and sounds as good as your average acoustic jazz kit played with all the dynamics? Let's hope so!

Soon I'll be beta testing for Katalyst software ONLY but not involved in Drumit 6 development ALTHOUGH maybe there's a way to plant the seeds from your above post 2nd hand via association. I may not get to actually speak to him again too soon but least I have a doorway IN via email regarding Katalyst.Oh, by the way, the chat you and I had last week regarding the 'round robin' approach to avoid machine-gunning on the Hybrikit (by adding a 'random' mode within a specified key range per channel) in their next firmware update is what made me call him to BEGIN with! Had I not placed that call at that EXACT time about the 'random' mode idea I would not be a beta tester for Katalyst software in the near future! THANK YOU!

You're welcome pal.

You should really consider registering at vdrums.com's forum, it is the most active and populated edrumming community, you'd find vivid discussions about everything and anything in this field.

Yeah, I read that forum too. OMG have you noticed this Madala drum stuff? They've got the positional sensing and round robin thing nailed. Was hoping they had a hardware sound module / soft editor setup.