Zitat von T.C. im Beitrag #3

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... I would change only ONE THING at a time and play with that for a while to really understand what that one change accomplished ...

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Maybe that's perfectly right, but maybe not?
Just as a thought:
If I want to alter my beater angle, let's say if I want to reduce it, but at the same time I want to keep my pedal-to-beater-way-progression (e.g. I want a "near stoppage" just in front of the head) and the heaviness of the feeling, I need to
- change the beater angle
- change the cam angle
- increase the spring tension
Meaning: I want to change one aspect of the feeling so I need to change 3 settings.
Right?

My browser tells me your links were short-term-links when I klick your fotos.

Zitat von Dennis im Beitrag #15

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Zitat von BaerndME im Beitrag #14

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..both state, that they adjust the triggers' height so that the trigger is fired slightly _before_ the head is hit.

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and that's one big problem I see. - people more and more tend to ignore advices and manuals from developers while copying nonsense.

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If only there was one, Dennis, if only there was one... :(
I ordered my Ontriggers fron Thomann, roughly at the time when I also ordered my Darwins. They came, as far as I remember, in a generous package with a spare piezo included.
I think that also included there was a sheet of paper with instructions on how to attach the trigger to the board - that's it.
Everything else, at least as I know, is a question of
1. What does my internal logic unit tell me? (That's something about not damaging the trigger as well as having it fired at the same time the natural sound is created at the head, basically corresponding to what you wrote)
2. What do other people do (yeah, influencers, cause that's the only source)
3. Trial and error.

And when it comes to triggers, I hate trial and error. As much as I love experimenting with the geometry of the darwin (after watching your videos) I hate messing around with the footboard triggers.
I want best practices so they simply work (because messing around with them leads to nothing better), but there are none given by OnTrigger themselves.

Given those circumstances "copying nonsense" is what people naturally do and will do.

I've been testing a lot as well as informing myself about good practices when it comes to footboard-triggers in the last weeks because I had several issues with heeltoe.

Zitat von BaerndME im Beitrag #7

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Zitat von T.C. im Beitrag #1

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...any tips/tricks/etc for me, as someone moving from head triggering to pedal triggering? putting them on OG Darwins.

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Best is, I think, something like "when the beater is 2-3mm into the head, the footboard should touch the trigger."

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Well, in that video Eugene Ryabchenko...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXBjPXRY13Y
...and in that video Wanja Gröger...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIKRT-EsiC4&t=260s
...both state, that they adjust the triggers' height so that the trigger is fired slightly _before_ the head is hit.
When I tried that, I always had the impression that this leads to failtriggering, but I think, I had a different problem (wich is now at least partially solved since I use a Y-Cable for my Roland TM-2, I don't know exactly WHY this makes such a difference).

So most certainly what I originally wrote was not a good advise.


Sadly, there's no official manual or documentation, as far as I know, about best practices on trigger-fire-points from OnTrigger themselves. I dunno if Dennis provides one for the GameChangers (EDIT: Found something below the shop section).

Well... After the past few weeks and a lot of "bending some metal" I really wish I had GameChangers...

Welcome Leon, Greetings from Hamburg.

Zitat von KickSomeAZZ im Beitrag #10

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That's exactly what I meant. If you adjust any of the parameters like footboard height, beater angle and stuff, I'll need to re-adjust the trigger position everytime.

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Well, maybe, maybe not.

For me the footboard height, especially the footboard height at the point of impact, is the part of the geometry that is most important for a good feeling that I am used to, so I always adjust my footboard heights to the trigger height that I chose once, meaning the triggers also serve me as a kind of marking how high my footboards should be.

But yeah, that's only one possible way to handle it.

Zitat von KickSomeAZZ im Beitrag #8

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I may give my 2 cents to this topic as well.

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Nice one post! Thanks for your thoughts.

Zitat von KickSomeAZZ im Beitrag #8

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BUT: If you ever need to re-adjust the triggering point during soundcheck oder linecheck because you need to adapt to that bassdrum the backline offers, you gonna LOVE the GC features. Example: You put your pedal on this "foreign" bassdrum and you notice you don't get any triggers --> you need to slide the trigger towards you. Just turn the wheel to the right until you get the first triggers. Move back a bit --> you're fine.

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Well, be warned, that's not quite true, even not for the gamechangers.
Let me try to explain it.
Once you have set up your pedal, it has a certain geometry. I'm not sure for the Phantoms, but for the darwin, the geometry mainly consists of footboard height, beater angle, cam wideness, cam rotation and strap length.
This all results in the state where, when the beater touches the batter head, the footboard has a certain angle, a certain distance to the baseplate at the trigger position, that is
ALWAYS the same, AS LONG as the beater is ALWAYS perfectly perpendicular to the hoop at it's lowest point (or to the ground, if the kickdrum's legs have a length where the bassdrum batter head it perfectly upright).

In other words: you want to set up your pedal even with an unknown bassdrum in a way that your beater touches the head perfectly, it get's maximum touch and therefore maximum rebound and stuff anyway. That means you have 2 options for adjustment: One is the adjustable hoop clamp, the other is the distance-adjustable beater head. In both cases you should reach a state where your beater angle is in a perfect 0 degrees angle when hitting the head. When you reached that state, your trigger point will always be the same since the baseplate always has the same angle.

Since you don't change anything else at your geometry for the gig, you should not change the gamechangers' or the ontrigger's position when setting up your pedal.

EDIT: If I think about it: For everything to work fine you would have to bring a "Spirit level" - thing to the gig to adjust the bassdrum legs' lengths, but that would be inevitable anyway, especially for direct drives an excentric cams... Hmmm....

(Sorry, last post: Already tired. This post: Still sleeping and caffeeinating up. If it's unclear what I mean I might repeat it in german)

Zitat von KickSomeAZZ im Beitrag #8

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...Unfortunately the stock bassdrum samples of the TM-2 sound like clicky sh*t (as most stock bassdrum samples do). So we decided to record a proper one-shot sample of my Mapex Saturn V bassdrum, processed it a bit and it sounds phenomenal. Very present, but still natural. I'm using the triggers as dynamic triggers so the volume of that sample increases when hitting harder. That combines perfectly with a conventional mic in the bassdrum.

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Oh.
There was once a facebook group called "metal drummer nerdz worldwinde" (maybe still exists, I'm unfortunately somehow not able to join), one of their members uploaded a kick sample library he compiled, as I understand it, it is meant to be free for the metal drumming community.
Can I upload it here? I have it on my machine, so I would love to share it. It contains some real kick ass samples for every occasion.
Or, if you have facebook, you can try to join the group. If it still exists, the library should be pinned.

Zitat von T.C. im Beitrag #1

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...any tips/tricks/etc for me, as someone moving from head triggering to pedal triggering? putting them on OG Darwins.

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Oh.
Well, I still have OnTriggers. They are on a metal bar wich has to be bent, so you cannot adjust their height as easily as the gamechangers.
Footboard-Triggers have to be carefully adjusted to the correct height to work properly. Best is, I think, something like "when the beater is 2-3mm into the head, the footboard should touch the trigger."

So here's what I do, it may be the other way round for you:
- First I set up my Pedals as I want them and then I bend the triggers to the correct position
- Then I take them out to make sure the Triggers both have the same height and "shape".
- I put them back in their quicklocks then and watch the pedal from the side how it looks, when the beater is touching the head (2-3 mm in)
- I then raise the footboard or lower it according to the distance I find until I'm satisfied

- When both pedals are set up correctly and equally I only use the hoop clamp adjustment to readjust the triggerpoint for different bassdrums.

Dunno, all this is very complicated, maybe the gamechangers are real gamechangers for that setup-process and you don't have to do anything about it.
Just make sure the triggerpoints are correct, otherwise you may have failtriggers or missing triggers.

Sorry if this is all a bit confusing, I'm tired and already a bit dizzy after that day ^^

Zitat von T.C. im Beitrag #14

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hey look, it's another song's drumcam! soundboard audio.
https://youtu.be/6fDoUCxCgZA

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This looks and sounds to me like "metal drumming done right".
Love your groovieness/musicality!
Thumbs up!

@Dennis I think for problems like these it's cool to ask the community first and then you. Why?
- Could be a user-caused problem
- Community answers take workload from you
- Future users with similar problems could benefit from the forum answers
(That's what the board is for, right?)

Anyway, it's heartwarming to read when you offer your help in a way like that.

Oh cool, that topic became relevant for me recently. (I can do 160 bpm* singles kind of reliably, but the music my band does requires me to play up to 210 bpm, and since I did not manage to speed singles up to that in the current practice time I can manage to do, wich is 3 x 2 hours per week average plus band rehearsal, I need to take the shortcut)

Well, I can ride a bicycle, but as soon as I remove one hand from the steering bar, I fall, not to talk about riding free-hand.
And don't try to send me into the street traffic, I provoke crashes with cars...

Meaning: I can do doubles alone. At 160 or 180 they sound like decent 16ths notes, at 210 they have a certain popcorn tendency, but that's not a problem as I think it will improve.
As soon as I start to play 8th notes or something with my hands in addition, it all falls apart.
And if I try playing some of our parts during a rehearsal (or to our music while practicing) it simply doesn't work at all.

Okay, it's just a bunch of weeks since I picked up heel-toe practice again for doing it seriously this time, and you cannot expect wonders in some weeks, but yeah... does anyone have any good ideas on how to train integration of doubles into playing the complete drumset?

Some advices, may or may not help anyone else, but maybe they are worth thinking about:
- Try Flatfoot technique first (in a sense of the technique where you slam your heel into the ground in front of your footboard)
- Then try again a bit of playing in a jazz-like, heel down manner, with only ankle rotation (maybe you did not do that for a long time since you started playing metal)
- Try a buzzroll-like motion where you do doubles just out of the rebound from your drumhead
- If you got all of them, you may combine them into heel-toe

- If you have bigger feet (45EU or 10US plus) and the floor is in your way to slamming your heel into the ground consider getting the heel raiser upgrade from Dennis. The low footboard, that is unique to the darwin, may look very sexy, but it is highly impractical for certain styles.
Another way to get some air under your heels is to raise the whole pedal (including the bassdrum) with something like a wooden plate or similar.

*Always talking 16ths notes here.

Zitat von filL im Beitrag #7

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I just ordered both options. I only played chain drive so far (Tama Iron Cobra). So let's see, what fits me better.

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Good decision.


Meanwhile I changed to DD and played with it for several months.
DD has it's advantages. It's a bit easier to set up ontriggers/footblasters with it, it has much more progression with strenght->beaterspeed-ratio when you set it up a certain way, making it safer to failtriggering, it kicks back more aggressively making you feel the hits better in your feet when playing socks or barefoot.
-> I learned a lot from using it.
Anyway, I changed back to strap recently for the more organic, more natural feel wich it has for me.

It's soooo cool to have both options. I'm really enjoying it!

Zitat von Dennis im Beitrag #3

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It's unfortunately a very stupid idea to add a bump on a flat metal surface since more than one hoop clamp type will struggle with that and considering that any "natural" hoop is also simply flat.

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Yeah! So true.
Unfortunately more than one Manucfacturer does that. Here's a pic from my Yamaha Kickpad, I think it's a KP100. (Photo is 2 years old, can't believe my darwin is already that old ^^)



Troubleshootingtip: Buy yourself a cheap 16" kickdrum, a cheap meshhead and a cheap Trigger. It's like a total of 150 Bucks or so, and it will do better than any kickpad for multiple reasons. At least that's what I did and it was a good solution for me.

For me it was:
Fame Maple Standard BassDrum, 16"x14", Black
Pearl Mesh Head MFH-16, 16" f. Tom
Fame Pro Kick Trigger

@Musicstore

Works perfectly fine.

Zitat von Dennis im Beitrag #10

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Zitat von BaerndME im Beitrag #9

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What I want so say: It's capitalism, and I think you consciously choose not to play by it's rules, wich is somehow cool as fuck. But please, don't feel sad and frustrated if other companies do. Feel superior.

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Appreciate the input and the kind words

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Glad you took them the way I meant them.

Zitat von Dennis im Beitrag #6

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...it’s a bit sad and honestly frustrating considering the costs, time, and effort ... it’s literally printing money.

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As much as I understand you and REALLY appreciate your interest in perfection...

If money seriously was your concern, you know that you had several options to become rich as fuck.
With your products, you could dominate the market.
- simplest: just adding 2 - 3 employees to your company and dropping the one-year-waiting-list for the darwins to two weeks.
- also: Doing the same thing but creating a new alternative label for pedals that are build by your employees instead of yourself with a slightly lower pricetag and different support options
- or: looking for someone who builds your pedals in License, paying license fees to you, with a different label and a slightly lower price as well
- optionally delivering the darwin ftw as an assemle-on-your-own-kit version (wich also would be a lot of fun for some customers)
...and so on. Tons of options.

It's a decision of yours and yours alone and it's okay as a decision, but I am convinced that the only thing that is holding the darwin ftw back from becoming the number one cash cow on the pedal market is your personal capacity, as many people will buy a Demon XR, Trick pro 1V or even CK just because they simply cannot afford to wait 10 months for their new hardware...

What I want so say: It's capitalism, and I think you consciously choose not to play by it's rules, wich is somehow cool as fuck. But please, don't feel sad and frustrated if other companies do. Feel superior.

Inventor211: Perfect summary.

As I wrote on Facebook, "There's a reason why I'd rather use a rooted Android device over an IPhone. Maximum options for configuration mean maximum chance for a perfect fit to your body and feet, and leaves space for your preferences to change."

Maybe "perfect settings" would be very awesome for me, but it's just my personality that during my development in drumming I sometimes kind of feel that I need a bit of a change. Seat height, spring tension, movement-to-force-ratio development, beater angle, cymbal height, snare stand angle and so on. I just feel that I need to be able to change it.
That's the number one reason why I bought a darwin even though my shitty skill would by far not even be limited by a normal pearl eliminator or an equal pedal.
Now I have it all.
Every possibility.
Why should I limit myself to a single set of settings, setup and feeling?

...and why should I limit myself for 1050 euros?

I feel you, Giraffic.
While changing the setup, you will curse over and over again, because it's difficult to get both pedals to a state in wich their geometry is equal.
And you will maybe change it over and over again because you look for a setup that just feels right, and that needs time.
But believe me - in the end you will know that stepless adjustment is your friend. :)

One thing that helps me a lot: I have the ontriggers with quickmounts, so I set them up to a similar height at first and I set up the footboard cam rotation last so that the footboard is just one Millimeter above the trigger when the beater touches the head.

Some of my words from ACDs facebook page (different context)

"Let me try one possible explanation why people maybe love direct drives.
As you know, I have both.
My feet are a bit clumsy as well as a bit heavy.
For the use of triggers it is necessary (and generally it is good) to have the beater some centimeters away from the head while your feed are in a resting position. So it's cool if at the end of the movement the resistance becomes higher.
The spring geometry supports that.
An excentric cam supports that as well, at least a bit.
But since the way->power-ratio of a dd changes in a (co?)sinus-function, dds support that increasing resistance the most. It is easier to play without fail-triggers then, you don't have to concentrate on releasing the pedal after the hit, it supports you very much.
At least for me it feels that way.
The strapdrive feels smoother, more organic, more natural, nicer. (for me)
But it's cool to have both options."

If I' m right...



If the lever or the circle that is connected to the beater reaches the highest or lowest possible point you cannot move the beater any further (theoretically). That's like sin(0) or sin(pi). Shortly before/after that point you have max beatermotion for min footboardmotion. You got most footboardmotion per beatermotion, when the lever/circle points 90° forward like sin(1/2 pi). (backwards would be kind of strange...)

I hope that's correct, school was very long ago...

EDIT: Look here, that might explain it a bit better:

Welcome!