I bought a Roland TD-25kv that comes with a VH-11 hi hat controller.
The problem is that for some reason unknown to me, Roland made the hi-hat controllers CC4 range from 0-90 (instead of 0-127). This causes me a great deal of stress because I therefore can’t get a fully closed hi-hat sound by default in my VST drum instruments. I can scale the CC in Superior Drummer 2 but I have other programs (like SSD4) that do not have this function, so I’m looking to scale it inside of Cubase so that it can handle anything I throw at it.
I would like to somehow tell Cubase that 90 is the maximum CC4 value instead of 127, and therefore scale everything down within that range. 0 is wide open for hats, but 90 is only about 3/4 closed, so I can’t get a fully closed hi hat unless the VST instrument itself supports scaling (like Superior Drummer 2 does). Unfortunately I have other libraries that do not support scaling from inside the instruments themselves.
Would some kind soul help me with which parameters to set to achieve this, and with what tool inside of Cubase?
Also, do any of you own the TD-25 module and have similar issues because of this Roland limitation? Thank you kindly in advance!!
vice_france answered my question in another thread (which took me two full nights to find, scouring the internet) when he answered another person’s question who had the exact same issue:
I’m so grateful for people who take the time out of their day to help the rest of us.
That 0-90 range covers open to closed on the TD-25 module. The rest of the range (91-127) covers foot pressure (you know when you jam your foot down hard on a real hi hat and the pitch rises slightly). This 91-127 range is officially only available on the Roland TD-30. However, as you have noticed you can multiply the 0-90 range with the Cubase input transformer to cover the full 0-127. Now, here’s the cool bit: Instead of just triggering your VST instruments - If you send your “now transformed and fully ranged 0-127 VH-11” midi signal BACK into your TD-25 (via the TD-25 USB cable), you will get the full range Hi Hat sound from your TD-25 module including that Hi hat pressure effect. It’s a bit of a pain having to have a PC next to your drumkit but it’s a lot cheaper than paying £1600 for the Roland TD-30. I don’t know if any of that made sense or if you had already worked that out but I thought it was a pretty cool hack.
PS Yeahimsteve too
So if I am already using the USB midi port on the TD-25 to send midi data to the computer, how do I set it up to do what you suggest; to also send it back to the TD-25 at the same time? Like what routing options do I select?
In the inspector there is input and output routing for your midi track. Choose the “TD-25 Midi In” (or something similar to that, I’m not near my laptop atm) in the midi output dropdown box. You’ll need the TD-25 USB drivers installed beforehand but I assume you’ve already installed that.
Edit: Almost forgot, you’ll want to disable “local” in your TD-25, or else you’ll be triggering every hit twice. Sorry if I’m not being very thorough here, I’ve just got in from work and I don’t have my gear setup. I’ll probably be a bit more helpful tomorrow
Edit #2: Right, it’s a new day, I’ve recovered from a particularly vile day at work and I’ve just got this stuff working here (drumming at 6am - you’ve gotta love electronic drums) so if you need a better explanation just let me know.
