Offset can also be a very useful adjustment to tweak on some brains where your hi-hat foot is busy playing double bass drums, but you still want to get a closed hihat sound at the same time. b) Foot Splash Sensitivity: This determines how easy it is to trigger the splash sound from the hi-hat when it is tapped.
c) Noise Cancel: The amount of force needed to cancel the bow and edge noise when you play with your foot “Foot Close.”
d) HH Note Number Border: This is used when you are triggering an external sound module or drum software plug-in like Superior Drummer, BFD, etc. The note number transmitted when you strike the hi-hat will change depending on the amount of pressure on the hi-hat pedal. Hi-Hat Note Number Border allows you to adjust the pedal position at which the note number switches from the open hihat to the closed hi-hat. Notation programmes like DT-HD1 also use these values to correctly notate open and closed hi-hats.
MIDI settings
Drum devices are normally set up to send and receive notes on MIDI channel 10. Remember there are actually 16 channels that can be used in total via MIDI and they’re not set in stone, so you can change this if you need to. I’ve covered this before in digitalDrummer, but when recording from an electronic instrument via MIDI, the first thing you may want to do is switch its ‘Local’ mode to ‘off’. This ensures that notes are sent from the module’s MIDI out first without playing the internal sounds. If you have a MIDI lead attached from the computer interface back to the module, you’ll get a nasty feedback loop which looks like this: module=>computer=>module=>computer … you get the drift! Sometimes, you may also want to use sounds from a plug-in inside the computer instead of the ones in the brain, so turning local control ‘off’ allows the kit to function simply like a MIDI controller.
The problem with using drum plug-ins while recording can be that you get a delay between hitting the drum and getting a sound. This ‘latency’, caused by the time it takes for the computer to receive a MIDI signal, send it to the plug-in and generate a sound, can be worked around quite well by leaving local ‘on’, not connecting the MIDI ‘in’ lead to the module from the computer, and just turning the module’s volume up enough that the latency is masked slightly by the module’s own sounds. Give it a try! • So, those are some tweaks for the front end. Next edition, I’ll look at crafting your sound before wrapping up this series with some tips for getting the most out of your module’s effects.
% J H J U B M % S V NNF S 3 F B E F S T % J T D P V O U digitalDRUMMER, JULY 2010
0'' 47