How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

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houston4444
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How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by houston4444 »

Hi, I am testing DrumGizmo, and reading the DRSKit and midimap, I really don't understand how is managed the HiHat midi group, however, if a hihat closed is played after a hihat open, hi hat open is well cut.

I'd like to be able to cut a cymbal, as if the drummer clamp it with its hand after the hit.

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by tavasti »

What happens if you play same note with velocity=0 (or velocity=1 if zero does not work)?

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by houston4444 »

What happens if you play same note with velocity=0 (or velocity=1 if zero does not work)?

It changes nothing, I think the new note is played, but the previous one is not stopped. In some ways it would not be logical to cut the note with velocity 1, when someone hit a cymbal a second time, it doesn't really stop the resonance of the previous hit.

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by tavasti »

houston4444 wrote: Wed Jan 11, 2023 12:41 pm

What happens if you play same note with velocity=0 (or velocity=1 if zero does not work)?

It changes nothing, I think the new note is played, but the previous one is not stopped. In some ways it would not be logical to cut the note with velocity 1, when someone hit a cymbal a second time, it doesn't really stop the resonance of the previous hit.

Did you try, or just assumed?

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by houston4444 »

Did you try, or just assumed?

Of course I tried !

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by deva »

You can stop playing notes (eg. cymbals) by sending midi aftertouch events.

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by houston4444 »

Thanks @deva, unfortunately, I don't achieve to make it works. I tried to make my own MIDI plugin to convert MIDI velocity 0 to MIDI aftertouch 0 on the same note, checking with midisnoop, my plugin seems to work, but has no effect on drumgizmo (in Carla).

I tried Ardour, but ardour don't really manage aftertouch messages, it's managed as channel pressure, but only on note 0.

For the HiHat, how does it works ? a closed hihat after an open hihat cut the open hihat hit. So, if I could apply the same logical, a blank file could be used to cut a cymbal.

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by deva »

Which version are you using?
IIRC we fixed a bug recently that made aftertouch with velocity 0 work. The bug resulted in it only working for velocities > 0.

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by houston4444 »

I use 0.9.19 which is not the last version but the previous one, that is true. TBH, I do not hear any sound modification when aftertouch is used even with values superior to 0.

I will try the last version, and see.

Shame that the HiHat mechanism seems to be a secret ;) .

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by deva »

There actually were regression errors on all choke-types in 0.9.19, which were fixed in 0.9.20. See https://drumgizmo.org/wiki/doku.php?id= ... zmo-0.9.20 for more details (ctrl-f search for "choke" or "aftertouch" to find the relevant bullets)
IIRC all chokes were broken in 0.9.19, ie. they simply did nothing to the already playing samples.

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by RyanH »

I don't think it's quite fixed. And in fact, the situation is a bit strange.

I did some comparisons between versions .18, .19, and .20. These comparisons used all the same settings, using both the Tchackpoum and Crocell kits. (I know Tchackpoum is not an official Drumgizmo kit, but it's one of my faves.) Also, my tests focused only on the choking of the open/semi-open hihats when the hihat pedal is stomped. I don't use chokes for other cymbals.

0.9.18 - Both Crocell and Tchackpoum hihats work perfectly (but Tchack has a barely discernible delay in the choke - I wonder if the samples are just longer).

0.9.19 - Crocell hats are perfect, rather than broken as was supposed to be the case for version 0.9.19. Tchackpoum's choke is, as expected, totally broken.

0.9.20 - Crocell hat choke is now broken, rather than fixed. It's not as bad as the Tchackpoum hats on version 19, but there is a delay in the choke that is pretty noticeable. Oddly, the Tchackpoum chokes, while also and still broken, are less broken than they were on version 19.

So basically, whereas version 0.9.20 was supposed to fix broken chokes, it actually broke the Crocell hihat which previosuly worked well, and while it did improve the Tchackpoum hats, it didn't fix them. I performed my tests twice, so at least on my system, the above is an accurate comparison of the three versions.

I hope this info is in some way helpful. :)

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by corrados »

It's not as bad as the Tchackpoum hats on version 19, but there is a delay in the choke that is pretty noticeable.

I assume that the following commit is responsible for the behavior: http://git.drumgizmo.org/drumgizmo.git/ ... 828a624511
It was introduced because I noticed that the original number of 68 ms was feeling too unnatural if played on an edrum kit. On my edrumulus Git branch, I already changed this value to a lower value of 180 ms which gives me the most natural feeling when I play it on my edrum kit: http://git.drumgizmo.org/drumgizmo.git/ ... 3b5e812163

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Re: How is managed midi grouping ? how to cut a cymbal ?

Post by RyanH »

I'm using Drumgizmo with an Alesis Nitro mesh kit. At least for my style of playing, the Crocell hihat choke sounded more natural using versions .18 and .19. Actually, I was amazed that the software was able to handle it so precisely! I mainly play in a jazzy funk/prog style, with a lot of hihat rolls with quick opens and abrupt closes. I guess no one implementation is going to work for everybody and every style, though. What might be cool is if choke timings were included as an adjustable setting. Not sure how feasible such a feature would be, or how many people would care to use it.

I'm still curious as to why the Tchackpoum kit hihats respond so differently than Crocell and DRS. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to the differences (i.e. more hihat overlap on Crocell but less on Tchackpoum on version .20) I love how Tchackpoum sounds, but the hihat choke issue is too noticeable with these later software versions. I'll have to cross my fingers that this kit eventually gets re-worked and included as an official kit.

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