robin

I'm looking for a nice way to take hits registered from a drum trigger (like a ddrum red shot) to use within max. i imagine that the output from the trigger is a CV, but have no real knowledge of this. If it were, then would it be possible to use something like a doepfer CV to midi interface to then pop midi messages into max?

slightly OT i know, but just hoping someone has prior experience of this.

drum-trigger-to-max

Open the helpfile for the midiparse object and connect it to your MIDI input. Bang on the stuff and watch your patch window. The rest of the message munging should be easy for anyone who's spent even minimal time in the Max tutorials.

The question was actually more to do with the hardware side of things, which is why I thought it may be slightly off topic. Like I said, I was asking if anyone had any experience using drum triggers with a cv to midi convertor. I'm more than capable of handling the data in max.

I'm not sure how the drum triggers you are talking about work, but you could try connecting them to the audio inputs of your soundcard and using some level detection in MSP land. The ADCs will probably filter DC voltage but since the drum hit happens very quickly i guess it's not a problem.

http://meshlabs.net/2009/01/passive-footswitch-to-midi-using-your-soundcard/

if you are in the bay area, ca, I have an old Roland PAD80 octapad that I'd be willing to sell really cheap. It has 8 "trigger" inputs that can be converted to midi.

unfortunately i'm about 5000 miles away. i'm looking to get something similar - or i may try a hack with my arduino board. it's just not something i have much experience with. thanks for the offer though.

I've used raw piezo mics through an audio interface. Add some simple MSP level detection and you have an easy drum-trigger interface. I've never tried to get fancier than sending a simple bang when the piezo is banged, though. So if you're looking for subtlety and velocity sensitivity you may need to go another route.

@ Holland...any chance you could post your patch for the piezo mics?? I've set up two piezo's to act as drum triggers using an Arduino set up, and can get the two values parsed into Max, but only as continuous streams from the serial object (see patch below). I just want what you mentioned, a single bang when the piezo is banged.

I know this topic is OLD but its the first result when you do a google search for info on using drum triggers with Max so I thought I would contribute my set up. All you need is an audio interface and a contact mic. Run the contact mic through the interface (obviously) then through a gain~ and then into the bonk~ external which outputs bangs at signal peaks. So far I haven't had any trouble with double triggering/etc as long as you tweak the amplitude accordingly.

Here's my solution that uses just native objects, locks out each trigger (so they don't trigger each other), does velocity, etc....

With velocity there's a tiny bit of latency (180 samples), but it's better than a hardware unit I think.

It's tuned for 'on drum' piezos, so it may not work well with drum mic input, but I've not tested that.

The volume differential bit is based on Peter McCullough's envelope follower.

Here's my solution that uses just native objects, locks out each trigger (so they don't trigger each other), does velocity, etc....
With velocity there's a tiny bit of latency (180 samples), but it's better than a hardware unit I think.

The volume differential bit is based on Peter McCullough's envelope follower.


drum trigger to max