DM10 Snare Trigger/Curve

[Guinness]

I don't always hit hard, like a baseball bat, but if a particular tune is at a point where there's some heavy passion, I will give the snare, etc....  a full strike. (as if it gets louder, but it doesn't, as a medium-high hit triggers a full note.  I suppose I could tweak the settings to get the snare, etc to be louder on a full strike vs a med-high strike.  But it's not that important to me.)

After the above comments, and the constructive criticism I took on edrumforums, and after watching The Jack this morning, I need to make some changes to my snare (and cymbals).  I could use some help.
 
What trigger settings do you have for your snare?  I think my sensitivity is set at about 45 (or maybe it's 65... I forget atm), and the curve is Spline2.  I had it Exp1, as well as Linear. 
 
Here's what I'm trying to do...  I want my "normal" strike to be at 80-90% of volume. Then when I crank down on it, I want to get that extra 10-20%.  It seems I get full hit no matter if it's a medium strike or full.  All that said, I don't want to lose ghost note sensitivity.
 
How's yours set up?  Suggestions for me?  THANKS
 

[DeeDubs]

Guinness,

Hmm.. I never really considered the volume aspect.. when I have that situation in the acoustic drum world I use deep rim shots to get that extra bit of volume. I guess this has carried through to the eDrum side for me (which is why I try to steer away from having a stick click on the snare rim).

Perhaps you could try the same - give your rim sound a bit more boost so when you hit the a rim shot it's a bit louder..


Damn it now I got 'The Jack' stuck in my head

BTW I still have my snare set to the default (linear)

[Guinness]

Good idea re:  the rim, but I don't think that'll work for me.  Imagine me bouncing on my throne, in the heat of a tune... wailing away... I don't think I'll be able to hit the rim like that.  I think of the rim as a more subdued, soft sound.... not kick ass rip roaring.   Hmmm...  How the hell do I describe what I'm talking about..  argh.

[ghostman]

I've been playing with this a LOT on my module, because I am exactly in your situation - I wanted 75% volume w/ a normal hit - so, a little room for the really hard hits.  I seriously sat down and tweaked the snare for like 20-30 minutes.

I will discuss what I tweaked

Threshold: I find that a low threshold tends to lead to 'easy max'.  Meaning, low threshold means you'll get 100% easier, boost this a bit to dial down the hit strength of your strikes.

Sensitivity - this is key; watch when you strike the pad you will see the strike strength on the top in a row of bars - the harder you hit, the further to thr right the bars go.  You MUST figure out what a 'regular playing snare hit' level is.  Tweak the sensitivity so that the bars go 3/4 (my case) of the way across if you are playing a standard beat.  I'd turn on note chase - hit the snare - then turn off note chase so that you can play normally, but only the snare is on the screen for editing - keeping note chase on you'll watch the hits bounce around from hihats to bass to snare, etc.  BTW, my snare hd sensitivity is at 99, and I have to REALLY pound my snare to max it out.

Curve - once you have the sensitivity dialed in (after 10 or more minutes of playing / tweaking) go play with curves.  I tend to like the exp curves for the snare, although, this is something you should play with..

[Pier]

Hi,
sorry for the delay; just back home from work (sad but true: I have to work to live and play drums... ).
Remember that my snare is set on a separate snare stand; my snare settings are (head):
- Sensitivity: 27
- Xtalk Rcv: 01
- Xtalk Snd: 02
- Retrigger: 04
- Thresold: 04
Curve: LOG1

settings for rim:
- Sensitivity: 30
- Xtalk Rcv: 02
- Xtalk Snd: 01
- Curve: LOG3

I loose very few ghosts.
I.E. - do you know the pattern of Toto's "Rosanna"? sounds great with those settings. Of course, a nice "touch" is important... !

[Guinness]

I've been tweaking my Snare six ways till Sunday over the past few weeks.  I haven't touched Threshold.  Maybe that's the ticket.   I didn't really care about the headroom so much.  A while back I realized my ghost notes were not registering.  Neither was a tight roll.  So, I've been focused on that.  But now, and based on the comments dscrammie said, I realized I need to work on the top end too.
 
I have the same issue with my crashes.  But for that, I've just played with sensitivity and curve.  Threshold is another setting I didn't think of looking into.  RTFM, right? 
 

[Hellfire]

I thought I would chime in to add that the way your drum trigger is constructed can make a difference on the setting as well. The reason I bring this up is, what works for one person doesn't always work for the next. This is really true when you are talking about DIY triggers. Everybody's trigger are a tad different.

I think what ghostman stated is a good way to get the response to any trigger.

[Guinness]

HF makes a good point.  Thanks.
 
I messed with it tonight and can't get the spacing between 1 and 10 to were I want it.  Threshold is at 3, and when I decrease sens to 20, I get the Headroom, but lose volume on buzz rolls, ghost notes.  I have sens back at 45 now and can hear buzz and ghost, but have not much headroom.  that's ok.  I'm used to that.  I guess it's a matter of what's more important.
 
also, if you had followed my hh saga, strangly now...  I can calibrate my hh, both open and closed.  Works fine.  I don't know what changed... maybe just playing it worked out the resistor better.