Hello fellow Pro X users!
This weekend I spent an hour or so trying to recalibrate/configure my Pro X hats to see if I could get it to work better.. we've all had some or a lot of frustration with it, but I've had a bit of luck in getting it to work (for me) a lot better than previously. Couple of things to say first off, just because I'm finding it's a bit better on my kit, with the same settings it could still suck on yours.. it would seem no two modules are exactly alike, and of course, the hi-hat stands are going to be different. I'm using a relatively cheap Network stand.. I'm no expert, I've only ever owned maybe 3 hat stands in my life.. never really had an amazing one. This Network stand functions well enough but I found the spring tension fairly tight, even adjusting the tension setting.. then add in the spring from the Pro X hats and it's been hard to close it with any subtlety. I replaced the spring in the stand, wasn't easy..makes closing a bit less effort but I may put it back soon and try again to train myself to stomp a little harder.
Plus, the hats will always be louder as far as cymbals in the kit go, thanks to Alesis' great idea of using one of their cheapest crappiest sets possible. There is also the problem with air displacement slowing down closure when barking or chicking 'em. I was looking closely at those 3 rubber circles that protrude. Are they there to help the thing "feel" how tight you're closing it? Or just to help with damping the sound as the top and bottom meet up in closing them?
Anyhow, so I recalibrated my Open/Close.. I tried many variations and ended up sticking with 80/10. I tried all setups from about 20/10 up to 99/80 and everything in between.. even 99/1 and 60/40. Partly depended on how much separation I set my top and bottom hats at. But I'd try a setting, play closed, all open, barking, chicking, and partly closed and so on and then try another setting and another. For me, I got the best of all sounds with 80/10. My hats have about an inch and half gap at full open. I also set my triggers to low xtalk since they're on their own stand, retrig of 18 and threshold 03..again, played with one hand and foot while raising and lowering the settings to see how it seemed best, then tried buzzrolling on the closed and open hats to see if I got any machine gunning or missing hits and settled on those numbers.
But for me, the biggest discovery was in the velocity curves.. I tend to have my pads at Log3.. maybe 2 or 4 depending on how sensitive or large the drum is.. even the crashes/ride I think I've got Log3. So that's what my hats were.. when I first got the Pro X, in order to get a decent enough pronounced bark, and to have my edge and top hits loud enough, I had both cymbals and pedal set to Log2 or 3.
This time I went through them all and spent a few minutes playing with each. Linear, Log3&4, a few others gave nice strong results. But it lacked in dynamics, I couldn't get a nice sound if I played softly. If I lowered to Log1 or 2, it was too weak. The Exponential settings didn't cut it for me, but I was amazed this time around at how good response I would get with the Spline settings. So I ended up settling on 2 & 3 and now I can finesse a lot more if I want to play some fast double strokes on the hats in a quiet part or just tap softer when a song gets brought down low.. and then if you bring it up louder it senses it nicely. The other thing was for my chicks, it was pretty much one loud sound I'd get with the Log settings..which I needed it seemed for rock but if I chicked in a quieter song it was just way too loud. With the spline settings I can get a fairly soft chick as well as a louder chick when I want it.
So maybe some of you have already got those settings dialed in and I hope its working well for you. For some of the people who haven't had time to test out all the trigger settings, I hope this helps make your Pro X experience a bit better. Oh, and I noticed I had my sensitivity up too high, I think I was like 50. I brought it down to 25 or 30 and that also helped a lot in allowing me to get decent response at low volume/velocity in my playing. If you're like me, maybe you set the kit up and didn't have hours and hours to toy with all the fine tunings and calibrations other than a few minutes here and there. I'd usually rather focus on just getting in some semi-decent playing than spend two hours dialing in the module! But nevertheless, this has helped me get a far better sound and response out of my Pro X and enjoy playing even more now. Definitely there are many times when I'm playing and I'm not feeling like I'm getting the same action and sound as I would with an acoustic set, but it's at least a heck of a lot better after spending some quality time on the module again, and for Addictive Drums it's translated well into my enjoyment for that environment as well.