Hello there,
I’m always trying to get a real sounding drum out of my pad and lately i came out with some idea.
With a general layout I try to get most of the sounds of the drumset working just with some midi trick. I usually set 2 different sounds on the same pad, but those are triggered at different velocities. The reference layout Is the QFD
Pad 7: Snare rimshot. With velocity below 90/100 It triggers the centre snare so that I can do fast rolls with pad 6 and use It like other people do on the Yamaha fgdp. I’m not a real drummer but I don’t think I’d use rimshot sound at low velocities
Pad 9 and 11: Closed HiHat. At higher velocities It triggers the shank spund. I use It a lot to play accents. Usually pad 9 Is set up with a lower treshold
Pad 13 14 15: Tom Above 100 rimshot sound Is triggered
Pad 16: Ride I usually swap the crash for the Bell ride sound and put the Bow sound on pad 12. I’m still figuring out if putting both sounds on the same pad may work.
Obviously 2 pot on the pad control cc for open HiHat and centre snare
Have you ever tried to set up your pad like this? For sure this set up Is thinked for How I think drumming, so any critique may really help to improve!
So personally I prefer the simulations Addictive Drums give me, which basically does a good job of serving different sounds at different velocities.
So im a bit confused about what this trick actually does. Does it change the midi notes in your saw bases on velocity so that it could optionally even change which sound comes out of addictive drums?
Curious to hear the details.
Not really changing the midi note, but layering and triggering different articulations on the same note/pad when playing at a given velocity. For example this allows to Play both ghost and rimshot on the same snare pad
Indeed I started doing so because I liked some articulation on the HiHat but they din’t really work at lower velocities. To me the Tip articulation sound like an “even average sound” and the shank like the accented note. Then I tried to do It almost on the whole pad.
It’s not a super trick. You can do natively on bfd or with some work around on Ez drummer ( and I think other drum vst)
Here what I mean
Let me know what you think
I totally screwed up the Ride part btw
Hey that sounds good! No reason to not experiment with this. It’s just that to me it seems that good high quality drum software like Addictive Drums, Superior Drummer etc. already sort of takes care of the realism. It doesn’t;t only layer the velocities but it also round robins the hits so that no two hits on the snare sound the same.
What you’re not getting is a completely different sound which indeed could be interesting but only if you feel like you’re often not having enough pads while playing. If you have enough pads, you might as well just hit a different pad for a different articulation… or use a knob and a CC modifier to change it.
So in summary, I do understand the appeal of this and it is actually something unique that you could expand on. I just think that if you’re looking for realism mainly, you might not have to overcomplicate things and simply use a good drum vst.
