I was at a friends house testing his brand new TD-4x2 - fun to compare with my Dm10 setup.
Compared to my own Dm10 Pro kit, for me the three major difference were as follows:
- The sounds were much, much inferior to the Dm10, especially the variation - all the hihats were the same "ting", only with and without reverb.
- The crosstalk was much better - or lack thereof - there was no crosstalk.
- The dynamics felt better - when I smacked the pad harder for an accent, the sound was just that little bit harder.
So - the crosstalk is not an issue anymore on my kit, it has for all practival purposes been eradicated.
But - I rather liked the extra dynamics on the TD-4 kit - to have the possibility of adding an accent - I don't feel that I have that on my own setup.
Well, then - I want that extra dynamic range - I want to be able to hit the pad just that little bit harder and be rewarded with a sound reflecting that I hit it harder.
But - how to do it?
I'd love to get some information from you - how you configure your setup and how you have the curves, trigger settings, instrument tweaks and how you solve the problem of getting more dynamics.
I've had a look at it myself, and I've come up with the following:
- Turn the volume up on the headphones and the main volume! It sounds trivial, but makes a world of difference! When it's not loud, you tend to hit the pads hard all the time to keep it loud. You want to hit the pads with less than maximum velocity for "normal" hits - otherwise you won't get accents if you hit them harder. And - turning the volume up makes you do just that.
- Any changes to instruments, triggers and whatever must be made while the volume is turned up - otherwise you end up tweaking the module to play at max volume all the time.
- Add
just a little bit of "Vel>Pitch" to the pads - then they will increase just that little bit in pitch when you hit them hard - and will sound louder. I found a value of 8-12 for my snare made wonders!
- Tweak the curve and sensitivity with the volume turned up - watch the level of the hit when the ext trigger pages are open when you hit the trigger, and adjust the settings so that you only max out the bar on an extra hard accent - "normal" hits should be less than max. You may want to change to another curve to be able to control the volume better. Remember to use both your weak and your strong hand when tuning the snare parameters. But then again - you should already be hitting just as hard with both hands.
- (Re-) audition the various instruments for your favourite kit with the volume turned up - it just might be that you actually prefer another instrument when you're not playing them at maximum volume all the time.
So - what do you think - and have any of you got any good tips/techniques to share on this subject?