Low latency triggering / "optimal marimba" crosstalk

[pettersundlof]

Hi!

I have a 45 note "marimba" MIDI controller that I'm trying to make work with MD. I had a 1.5 octave version connected to an Alesis TriggerIO which worked nicely, and I got good results with a high treshold and proper crosstalk settings.
With MD I've gotten good crosstalk results, i.e. nearby notes aren't trigger each other... but:

a) I'm having big troubles getting good responsiveness from MD. If I play 16ths or 32nds it's throwing away bunches of notes... what are some of the settings I need to focus on tweaking?

b) how should I use the crosstalk settings? I don't understand them. Right now I have note E, F, F#, G, G#, A, #A set as crosstalk group 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Does this make sense? Or how should the feature be used?

c) I'm also having trouble getting good polyphony! It's often throwing away simultaneous notes...

[pettersundlof]

So here is a demonstration of the performance of the 1.5 octave controller connected to an alesis trigger io:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jplPcj7lpF8

And here's the MegaDrum, basically not usable right now (it's missing notes (and can't handle polyphony):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABEzWWr83tw

(and yes, I connected the old device to the MegaDrum via jacks, and it performs as poorly as the newer controller connected to the MD -- I can't test the reverse since I don't have TS connectors with the newer controller)

[pettersundlof]

Here's a clearer demonstration of the issues with my MegaDrum setup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3VzPZmadFY

[ignotus]

Post screenshots of your settings in MDMFX.

[airflamesred]

Put them all in the same crosstalk group

[pettersundlof]

Back to tweaking after a weekend of work.

Going to try with the same crosstalk group, airflamesred! Thanks

Post screenshots of your settings in MDMFX.

Here's two example shots of four inputs!

[ignotus]

First of all, those threshold levels look waaay too high. If you have to raise them that high to avoid crosstalk, you're going to have to address the problem physically in the marimba keys. Then, Dynlevel is also way too high to get reliable fast triggering, no wonder there are missed hits. Putting keys in the same crosstalk group will help prevent triggering adjacent keys, but it will have a negative effect on polyphony, as this setting tries to choose one hit out of several detected and blocks the rest. So you really have to go with a compromise, and most importantly, if crosstalk is an issue, tackle the problem as much as you can physically in the keys themselves.

[pettersundlof]

Yes, I've been tackling that today, adding dampeners underneath the keys to minimize vibration travel from hits.
Putting them in the same xtalk group indeed worsened the missed keys/polyphony problem... I set xtalk group to 0 again.

But adjusting DynTime and slightly lowering the threshold has yielded quite usable and musical results. I'll continue tweaking and will post updates, if anyone's interested

[airflamesred]

That's a good point about crosstalk groups, especially if you're thinking in 2 and 4 mallet scenarios.
I do think though that threshold as high as that means some physical changes.