[Orb Vroomer]

Hey,Dave thanks for the info & link.The Canon I had was an FS-200 if I remember.Less concerned now about the mic input feature (I only saw 2 like that in my brief search).None of the pricey HD had mic inputs.I will buy an HD when I make my next buy.Seek out a video cat, if possible,for advice.A lot better results than the geeks who like to remind us of their vast knowledge while rapidly spewing out their tech speak in an effort to highlight their genius,talking over our heads.Then they have no ability to answer a simple ? with a simple answer.You know-answers like yes or no or it can't do that!I'm such a novice & don't even know how to start a new paragraph in here! I'm getting better-can now type with 4 fingers instead of 2!!!!  RE:belden spaghetti with switchcraft sauce.Snakes & multi-pins work as someone mentioned earlier.I have 5 pin XLR's I have used.You can use 1 cable to input 4 trigs,as the ground connection can be shared.The black box to the left of my snare (midi-kiti) used to be in my sounds rack & I hooked it up with two 5pins & an extra cable (kiti has 9).Make these yourself & bundle it with heat shrink or such.This will minimize cord mess & make set up quicker.Another option is the big multi-pins like the pro sound cos. use.A bit tricky to solder & deal with,but quick & effective.Personally,I like patch bays.I NEVER have any cable into the set that can be stepped on or whatever & trash an input.If that happens with me only my patch bay needs repair & if you've ever had this happen (always occurs during a crucial gig set up) you can simply by-pass the patch bay with a spare cable & start your show on time.

[vindrums]

      I considered getting into doing the capture and editing myself, but after about an hour of research determined that like everything else in sololand, there's a learning curve. Too many file formats, and this scheme works with these two and never that one, and etc. etc.. My computer is big enough, but I just couldn't see putting in the time.
      REF, I still don't understand why you say we are generally limited with e-drums to one pad one sound...I'm not sure if the TrapKAT does all this, but here goes.....Using a couple links and velocity shift, I can have 12 sounds up on one pad depending on how hard I hit it! Hit a pad and from pp to mf it's a dynamic cymbal, and hit it harder, and a dynamic bass drum enters the sound! Hit as hard as you can and a gong happens along with the cym and bass. (or not) But it sounds like you are looking for a simpler approach. Transpose covers that! You could make one pad to toggle between two pad configurations for the whole kit! In other words, you can change every pad on the layout witha hit, and change it back with another hit. On a more complex note, instead of toggling between two, you can set up a chain of transposes and have 8 different configs. Add a home base and you add more practicality because you can get back to the original config with one hit no matter what step you are on. This has nothing to do with changing kits, this is a transpose and it's done as quickly as playing a single note. So I hate to get all mathy, but if you have a DrumKAT you have ten pads and nine triggers. If you sacrifice one pad for transpose, and one for homebase you still have 17 surfaces with different setups to play. So with the transpose you end up having 136 zones, just casually running through the chain. The thing is: you can have more than one transpose pad!! Add one and that gets you to 256 pads/zones in one kit! You can also link a sound to the transpose or home base, so you don't lose there. So, it becomes a matter of a little extra counting. Play a ruff or a five stroke roll on the transpose and the next hit puts you into that step of the transpose. It isn't as distracting as you might think. An 8 stroke roll gets you to the last step in the chain, and can be done in a quarter notes time. So you have a special chinese cymbal you want for the end of a fill and it's on the 8th step of the chain, you link a tom to the transpose pad, and at the end of your lick you play a nine stroke roll (or 32nds) on the transpose pad ending up with the last note on the cymbal pad!
   I love the trapKAT for what it is......take out of case and plug in! Very Simple, but it's not the controller the DrumKAT wants to be! And we are not not limited to one sound per pad in e-drumming
Vince   

[Orb Vroomer]

 I forgot to mention Vince to help us,but he just took care of that.I mostly use my Mapper (midi processor/note re-definer) to handle many similar programming functions as in some examples Vince explained above.Trying to quickly absorb the above post by Vince almost turned my brain into mush!! I can see that Vince is taking advantage of a lot of functions that a lot of us have not taken advantage of.Vince appears to be about a light year ahead of me in that department!I am spoiled a bit because I was using a Mapper with an octopad before the Kat controllers were being sold.I was using advanced techniques prior to the option of Kat & it took several years before Kats were reved up to their current state.Matter of fact I was a demo artist @ NAMM for the Mapper,& I'm trying to place the date of that summer show.It was in Chicago & I think it was around 87 or 88? Mario might remember,because I think that might have been Kat's first NAMM show ,too.It was very interesting-our Mapper crew was trying to figure Kat out & I think they may have been checking us out as well.I was demoing the Mapper using an octopad,DW pedals,DX-7 sounds & an SPX-8 drum machine.(SPX-8 was that the correct model?been a long time!) Our booth had myself & a guy with DX-7,Moog Liberation & such.Whenever it got slow around our booth we kicked out 1 of our 4 demos & created a crowd around our booth! Can't remember each demo,but I remember a 'jazz' set we had.On that one I played swing beats,walking bass lines,vibe chording.That left leads, more chords,etc to be covered by the key player.@ times we sounded more like an ensemble of up to 5 or 6 players-all live!! The average Joe on the NAMM floor was baffled by what we had going on there..Not turning on my rig for 3 years has left me out of touch with more recent advances.I always wanted to 'exploit' these instruments-not just 'play' them!! Now I find myself a bit of a dinosaur wanting to jump into the future once again.I've been missing out on stuff like Ableton Live & such.I've seen you coolkats using this equipment & you guys are blowing me away!!! Enlighten me,please!!! orb.

[vindrums]

  Orb Yep stacking and other midi things like that are easy especially when you add things like sound modules like my QSR that will do four samples for each program naturally. (and then that can be stacked 16 more times!) Many other modern modules take this for granted nowadays. BTW there's something REF and I have in common; The QSR and the DMpro are brother and sister modules, and for the money they are still nice even though they're getting old. The pcmcia card is the easiest and cheapest way to have a nice sampler for litle money...I digress; All these midi merg units (like the one in the KAT) are where some real power lies. Orb has the mapper/ midi note redfiner which I'm not sure of the size or capabilities of, but when you start adding up equipment things gets big fast. For instance the DrumKAT has a 2 x 4 interface, in the case of my Cheeta keyboard, that adds a 1 X 4 interface, and my Opcode Studio 64 x interface was 4 X 6. Now I'm a PC guy, but with a Mac this Opcode would do millions of things, which sounds just like your mapper. The funny thing was, the book for the opcode for pc was about 30 pages and the book to use it with Mac was about 2 inches thick! My point is: if you had a mac, this opcode would prettyy much do the same things as the DrumKAt as far as alternate stuff and velocity shift and stacks and all that and that was back almost 15 years ago. Same with the DrumKAT, I haven't discussed some of the fancy updates that later DKATs and Turbos do. I'm trying to keep this just to the basics that were offered from the beginning......this is all assuming that some of the things the first DKAT did, now we have the Trap Pan and mallet K's using most or all of that power.
   Alternate Mode provides us with the same power (give or take) that keyplayers have and use. That's why there are certain aspects I like to push, and trust me, every keyplayers uses sustain, and even the very best and most talented players find uses for transposes, and aftertouch is another giant one I push. By the way, by utilizing AT you double your pad layout (for a drummer) so double the math for the last post......the possibilities are staggering.
    So now that's out the way we can stop being scientist sand math guys, the stuff has already been invented so
JUST PLAY MUSIC
Vince   

[gmbydmit]

I just read this whole thread and I'm blown away by all the cool things you dudes are doing with Kats, triggers, etc...

really dug the 'Orb' vids....awesome stuff, man.

Although after all this technical talk, I'm having some grey matter leakage from my ears....I had better go lay down now.

 

oh yeah, almost forgot...I used Magix Movie Edit Pro 15, and it worked ok for $89.00

[Orb Vroomer]

Thanks for chiming in "gmbydmit".Also thanks for the positive feedback!! Once again Vince has turned our collective brains into mush.I usually read & then comment immediately,but Vince puts out so much substance in a small amount of space.I'm still trying to absorb his last post,now I'm behind on another one!! I don't want to explain the Mapper & I'm glad no one has asked (YET) .But truth be told,it goes WAY beyond stacks,velocity shifts,etc.By now there are many ways to do various performance set ups we have discussed here.One day it (Mapper) might fail & I'll have to start over.That's when I be begging Ableton Live users & others to help ME!!! HEEEELLLLPPPP!!!!!! Gearing up for research.The WHOLE reason I joined this forum.This chatter is so much more valuable than a 'salesman expert' or even a manufacturer's web site.I always download manuals before considering any purchases.Everybody has a slightly different set up,but with some overlap (Kat controllers,of course).Once when I was in a Guitar Center & asked for a demo of intel light fixtures,the 'experts' scattered away from me like cockroaches when the lights turn on!!! So left alone, I just broke open new XLR cables out of their display,hooked everything up & proceeded by myself. I kept waiting for an 'expert' to come back & say: "hey,what do you think your doing?" They didn't.But if they did, I had a reply ready for them.  "YOUR JOB FOR NO PAY- YOU !@$!$%%!@#%#%% EXPERT SALESMAN"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    orb.

[vindrums]

      I ' l l   t  r  y   t  o    t  a  l  k    s  l  o  w  e  r

    Really i'm sorry, do the examples help?
Vince


What kind of dinosaur is that? I think it's a
Turbosaur!    

[vindrums]

    So I decide to look up transpose in a manual (in an effort to shorten my explainations, or to see if I am doing some sort of disservice to board with my examples).......so I find a 3.5 Guide which explains transpose on page ten (check it out at home if you have that one) and though I figured out in the end that I do have every transpose example in my music, for about fifteen minutes
It turned my brain to mush
Vince

does that make anybody feel better?

[Orb Vroomer]

Vince. DON"T STOP!! We with brain mush must overcome our inferiority,somehow!! It's like synergy.Synergy:According to " Buckminster Fuller,the behavior of a whole system unpredicted by the behavior of any of it's separate parts,or the subassemblies of it's parts".Synergy in music is a technique whereby the last note of a segment of several thematic notes is the first note of the second segment.These segments can be separated,in which case the conjunctive note is repeated.The method is of considerable value in building serial chains,in which the concatenations of adjacent links may be freely dissolved.With this separation of links the function of the connecting tone becomes ambiguous,serving as the imaginary tonic of the first segment or an "imaginary" dominant of the second segment.The specification "imaginary" is important because of the aesthetic differences created by such a split of the chain.            WHAAAAAAT??? Just kidding!!  I have no idea what that means. Since I couldn't turn brains to mush by myself,I referenced my favorite book for some handy plagiarism!! So for anyone who likes everything about music go get yourself a copy of "Webster's New World Dictionary of Music". This one was lifted from page 524.  It's full of terms,history,bands,etc. Just open to any random page & see if it's one that turns YOUR brain to MUSH!!!!!!!!!!!  Vince,I kept forgetting to tell you-I have a sustain pedal under left foot,too.Could not function without it.Through that in so your reading wasn't a total waste of time!!!!!   take that,   Lugdrum- tom -Beat-hosers.  orb.

[gmbydmit]

holy shit
 

[Orb Vroomer]

Crazy. Remote Brain Connection has been linked.  I was posting you, while you were me. It's in your new DIY thread. Sorry to punish everybody with that fascinating read! I was just trying to fake 'holding my ground' against the mind-bending tech talk. Pretty good fake,though,wasn't it?  Let's see what happens in your new thread.

[REF]

My comment about one sound per pad is considering cymbals, mainly. You cannot stack an edge, bow, and bell on one pad for constant playing. Unless, of course, one wants to tweak velocities, but that gets really iffy in a live playing situation and just takes alot of time to program. And for typical drum set playing, I don't want to have to think about striking force just grooving or playing fills. I want to concentrate on the music more than tech stuff. If someone WANTS the sound of edge, bell and bow all in one, so be it.

Also, there is the entire reason someone plays edrums. For some it is to max out every possibility. For others, like myself, it is to replace basic acoustic drums and also throw in SOME of the things edrums can do, tech-wise. For others they are just a replacement for acoustics for one reason or another.

As to my battleship TK, Orb, just flip it sideways and it would fit through any doorway being so thin. And being so light, another 20 pads would not add enough weight to bother me. Although, my entire reason for getting into finger drumming concepts and returning to the TrapKAT is because of my back. So, a certain amount of weight gets into the equation.

[REF]

For most players of ANY electronic instrument, most pros included, because of constant updates, and new technology coming at us at exponential speed it is beyond the capabilities of most musicians to keep up with it all and come close to mastering it all. It will always be a minority of people who master the capabilities of these instruments. Once you learn the possibilities then you have to apply it all. Such time to learn and program is way more than most people have, even pros who make a living with it all. When family, chores, errands, and other stuff gets into daily life, it is generally the very tech intelligent, and /or the hermits with no family, or who put family and general life on a major back shelf, who truly get to master this stuff. That has been my observation.

There just isn't enough time in the day.

[Orb Vroomer]

I was posting during your post!!  Yes,one has to remain highly motivated & dedicated to stay vigilant in whatever your trying to accomplish!! We all have different amounts of time/ effort available to dedicate to our craft. I'm self-employed & I sometimes I am  required to work long hard days.After a day, of say, spray painting an entire 2 story house, moving 32 ft. ladders around all day,etc. ,a person has to stay motivated!!  Some days I work until dark,come home,shower,eat dinner-by the time I hit the basement studio it's like 9 PM !! Then,when I sit down in front of the TV,it takes a lot of motivation to get up,walk over to rig,stay STANDING for a couple more hours before bedtime!!!!!! Lately it keeps raining & I can't get any day work done.That's the only reason why I've been able to post at all times of day,lately. These rainy days provide an opportunity to work on my craft. But I still have to keep working, as much as possible,so I'll have $ to buy more Kat products!!  I don't have children,so that is a definite advantage. Other than that,I can't think of anything I can 'back-shelf' pertaining to the examples you listed above. Will power,desire,motivation - all this stuff comes into play for all of us.What you speak of is a common situation all humans share-no matter what they do .Stay vigilant & utilize any little time that life gives you.  orb.

[REF]

I put in tons of time all my life into acoustic drums, playing and then making them. With electronics, which I began around '99, 2000, I think age is another matter, as well. I just do not have the energy I once had. Learning curves are rough. I still cannot figure out how to set up this used EMU Procussion module I got months ago. Plug and play, simple programming, maybe get a few more tech things happening and I am good to go. PLUS, I am also trying to learn to read music, recently bought a MalletKAT, and that is another whole universe that is killing me. PLUS, my wife would like me to learn how to play guitar as well. So, the guitar is sitting in the case; because of the Contest I put the MalletKAT on back burner and now I am two steps behind in that. Yeah, motivation. After a day of renovating the house and watching my grandson, about the only time and energy I have at the end of the day is to fall in bed.