Sick Drummer Magazine

Does anyone bring their triggers and module with them on tour to use on the different kits that are provided at each venue (i.e. do you use triggers with the same module settings on various kits that are not your own)? And are you able to get consistent triggering without sound checks? If not, is it realistic to do this? I'd probably do some quick adjustments during set up to help ensure that the triggers trigger properly, like adjust tuning to be close to how I usually tune, maybe try to add some external damping to either side of the kick drum head...any thoughts? I'm not in a position to bring my drum kit on tour with me...

Good question, I'll be going on tour for with a alesis trigger set up for the first time. I do bring my own kit with me, but if you can't I think it probably comes down to knowing your equipment inside out. Before you go on tour, try your rig with as many different kits you can find and set yourself a standard of how you want the triggers to sound. Then test them out on different kit's to learn what you have to tweak in order to get the results you're looking for. I don't know what module you have, but I think you want to experiment with the gate and velocity settings the most in order to eliminate any false triggering. Then maybe you could change the pitches a bit, because every venue is different as well, when it comes to acoustics.

You also might wanna carry a D.I. with you, for some venue's are very sensititive when it comes to noise in your signal.

And besides that, just take it with you and see what happens

Good luck!

Thanks for your input damagedrummer,

I am using an alesis as well, with ddrum triggers. I haven't been able to experiment around with it too much yet, but, to be sure, I understand the velocity curve to only influence the volume/velocity of the triggered sample in relation to the volume/velocity of the actual hit. Thus, adjusting the velocity curve will not affect the sensitivity of the triggering, right? The vCurve set to 6 vs 4 is still going to register the same volume/velocity hits, it's just that what is outputted as the sample is different, with a higher volume/velocity sample for the same actual hit when set to 6 instead of 4, right? My main concern is hits either not being triggered at all when I hit something, or hits being triggered when I didn't hit something. If this is what you meant by false triggering, then perhaps I shouldn't be adjusting the vCurve if I'm having problems with this kind of "false triggering?"

And I would guess that by "gate" you're referring the decay adjustment? This would be the adjustment I'd probably go to first, since the crosstalk and noise adjustments I haven't really needed to mess with. But probably before that I'd look at the flabbiness of the reso heads, particularly on the bass drum.

This leaves me to wonder if there is a sensitivity adjustment for the hits with the alesis and ddrum triggers (i.e. an adjustment that modifies how hard one has to hit the drum before a sample is triggered)?

Hope your tour turns out how you want it to! Have fun!

Hey dude. I just posted a pretty big reply on your last words, but when I wanted to post it, it said I wasn't logged in, wich I was, so I had to log in and poef, story gone.

So to keep it short:

The vcurve is the adjustment for the sensitivity of the triggers.
You can check this out in the reference manuals you can download for free from the alesis website.



I think, but correct me if i'm wrong, what you meant was actually just the gain of the triggers, wich you can adjust in the EXT TRIGGER settings.Or with the gainbutton on the module.

I usually set the vcurve at 2 max to avoid false triggering, yeah I meant hits that aren't triggerd and triggered hits that aren't suppose to trigger. And then crank up the gain and decay, wich usually gives nice and solid triggers.

Good luck!!!

Yo Damaged One,

Yeah, that happened to me when I tried to post my reply, it said I wasn't logged in, but I just went back and forwards a few times and was able to get to a page with what I wrote, and then it automatically registered and posted the reply... weird...definately gonna copy this text before I try to submit tho...

I see now in the manual where it says vCurve is for velocity sensitivity, but there doesn't really seem to be a difference I notice when I alter the setting. It's more noticeable in the way I tried to explain before. Which I still don't think is the gain, which is what I think you're saying. I thought the gain was just bringing up the volume of all the hits, but didn't affect the relation of velocity/volume between triggered hits (neither making the trigger more sensitive so that it registers softer hits, nor making all the hits more or less dynamic). I think the vCurve does that, because you can have vCurve set to 7 to make all the triggered hits the same velocity/volume no matter how hard you hit the drum, or you can set it to 4 to have dynamic playing with soft triggered samples that correspond to softer actual hits on the drum.

Do you use a vCurve setting of 2 for all your drums? And crank the decay and gain? On the snare I was going vcurve 4, decay 0, and adjusting the gain based on the sample's volume in relation to the kick sample's volume. On the kick I was going vcurve 5 or 6, decay between 5 and 20 depending on the kit. And the gains ended up something like snare 65, kick 85, to get a balanced volume between the two. Toms I don't have cables for yet, but I think I'll be somewhere in between the kick and snare: vcurve 5, decay 0 - 15.

I want to be able to use a variety of techniques and play really fast stuff, but also slow and hard hitting stuff. Do you play really fast stuff with your vcurve setting of 2?

Thanks!!

Fuck this shit man, it happend to me again! And of course I didn't save the whole story.

pfff, well here comes a short version again:

I only use the module to trigger my bassdrums. I set the vcurve at 2 and then make it louder with the gain. This way I dont get misfires and still be able to play fast parts. If I do get some misfires, I just rule them out with the decay settings.

I think your on the right track, just keep tweaking it and you'll get the right settings for your playing eventually. I can't give you any info on making a balance for the whole kit, because I only trigger my kicks.

I thought I heard somebody on a forum say, I think it was the longstreth forum, that he got his settings from Shannon Lucas from the Black Dahlia Murder. So I guess he uses an Alesis as well. Maybe you could email him for some answers? Might be a longshot, but who knows.

Good luck!!