Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Somehow in my tinkering with layout last weekend, I seem to have 
left my PCY65S, which I use on the right as a crash/ride, in a 
position which makes the irritating "self-choke" more likely.

Now, I know that the real answers are "well, put it back where it 
was" or "sort out your technique, you fool". And I could simply turn 
off the choke by changing the pad type. But has anyone come across 
any clever settings that reduce the tendency to self-choke?

Stewart

Stewart,

I think that because the rim is touch sensitive, the cymbal's going 
to choke no matter how you set the trigger functions whenever you 
trip it. Sometimes when you're striking the bow, you can almost 
imperceptibly lay the stick on the edge for a nano second, thereby 
truncating the sound; I did that all the time, frustrating myself to 
no end. It's too bad, because with acoustics, a little laying on of 
the stick can be a nice, natual, thing, contributing to the swinging 
motion, whereas it doesn't do any good with electronics under most 
conditons. I do remember, however, with the Zenbal stereo cymbal, I 
was sometimes able to get that swinging motion by alternating ride 
(bow) with crash (rim) in a way that was reminiscent of what you can 
do with certain acoustic rides. I think that I even raved about it 
on the board once.

Ed
--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "moosetication" 
<moosetication@y...> wrote:
> Somehow in my tinkering with layout last weekend, I seem to have 
> left my PCY65S, which I use on the right as a crash/ride, in a 
> position which makes the irritating "self-choke" more likely.
> 
> Now, I know that the real answers are "well, put it back where it 
> was" or "sort out your technique, you fool". And I could simply 
turn 

> off the choke by changing the pad type. But has anyone come across 
> any clever settings that reduce the tendency to self-choke?
> 
> Stewart

--- "liberatusvirus" wrote:
> I think that because the rim is touch sensitive, the
> cymbal's going to choke no matter how you set the
> trigger functions whenever you trip it.

I suspected as much. If there was only a "latency" setting which 
allowed you to specify how soon a choke could work after a trigger, 
I think it would be tweakable. Ho hum.

I shall indulge in a little scientific tinkering with the angle of 
dangle of the ride, to see if I can't rediscover that happy position 
which minimized the tendency to choke while still being a good 
target for edge crashes. Tomorrow, I think: my hands are sore 
through overindulgence, and the jet lag seems to have turned my 
brain to cream cheese.

Thanks, Ed.

Stewart

--- "liberatusvirus" wrote:
> I think that because the rim is touch sensitive, the
> cymbal's going to choke no matter how you set the
> trigger functions whenever you trip it. Sometimes
> when you're striking the bow, you can almost 
> imperceptibly lay the stick on the edge for a nano
> second, thereby truncating the sound...

Further to this: I've been experimenting with striking technique. I 
have narrowed the issue (for me, other folks' mileage may vary) to 
one particular type of strike, namely a "straight down" chop onto the 
cymbal edge from above. This self-chokes about 30% of the time, as it 
maximises the possibility of what Ed describes above. With a 
more "roundhouse" or a cross-cut swipe, I almost never get self-choke 
from the 65S. A little re-training of the muscle memory, and a bit of 
care, and this should be mostly sorted.

However, I still think a "latency" setting -- whereby you can set the 
minimum time after a normal trigger that the choke would be enabled --
 would do the trick electronically. After all, why would you want the 
choke enabled justa few milliseconds after the main sound? You could 
dial it down to, say 100ms, and probably solve the issue for ever.

Stewart


Stwart