MegaDrum positional sensing and Hydrogen Drum Machine

[Gluv1]

Does MegaDrum positional sensing work with this soft synth? If so would anyone be willing to share how to set it up?

[ignotus]

It's not possible. A workaround might be to use a MIDI filter between Megadrum and Hydrogen that transforms incoming CC ranges into separate notes that you can then map to different instruments in Hydrogen. You would need to have the samples for each articulation. I don't know if any of those filters would specifically do that though.

[Gluv1]

OK thanks. There is a filter called CC2Note which converts MIDI control change messages to note-on/off messages. That might be the one to do the job but I wouldn't know where to start. How do you know what CC messages are being sent by MegaDrum?

Is there a list of drum soft synths that the positional feature would work with?

[airflamesred]

What exactly are you trying to do?

[Gluv1]

I'd like for a hits near the edge of the mesh head to trigger from one set of samples depending on the velocity, and for hits near the centre to trigger from a different set of samples.

[ibanman555]

Look at Bome Midi Translator Pro. This is massively powerful software, there isn't anything it CAN'T do. It includes a midi/serial data log, helpful for specifics of CC messages on Positional Sensing, and you can intercept, route, split, send or convert those any which way you desire.

[Gluv1]

That Bome software is beyond my level. I've only just got MD working with my kit. I noticed the Last Positional displays moving left and right quite nicely corresponding to hits in different places on the snare head. Unfortunately I can't figure out what signal is being produced and how to utilise it.

[ibanman555]

Will the midi log (raw) show you?

[ignotus]

I think the snare sends a CC16 message (+ position between 0 - 127) along with the MIDI note you assign to it. While it may be technically possible, getting PS to work with Hydrogen is always going to be challenging and the results will be doubtful at best. Presuming you're using Linux, Addictive Drums 2 and Superior Drummer 3 are two VSTs that support PS and run perfectly in Linux (albeit with some tweaking too...). Drumgizmo (open source drum sampler) looks promising though it's not quite there yet for playing with edrums and it's a bit clunky to map notes. But the sounds are way higher quality than in Hydrogen, which IMO is more oriented towards creating patterns than for playing with edrums.