Vintage Simmons Drums (UK) Users Group

In message 4432 Patrice mentioned sonic inconsistency among SDS 7 units. I think his 
assumption is logical and I'm inclined to agree with him. I also think it would be fun to put his 
hypothesis to the test. So, let me know if there are any SDS 7 owners out there that would 
like to participate. If there's sufficient interest we can discuss test criteria and come up with a 
simple, uniform method for doing so.
Thanks.
Ed

Hi Ed,

Yep I think I've read that fact in the Simmons book, before to see it  
with my both units...

I think it's due to the uncalibrated componants...
Maybe we could have some consistant settings with calibrated cards.

What would you think about it Michael ? Wolfang ?


Patrice.


Le 2 févr. 09 à 20:01, blacklodgeed a écrit :

> In message 4432 Patrice mentioned sonic inconsistency among SDS 7  
> units. I think his
> assumption is logical and I'm inclined to agree with him. I also  
> think it would be fun to put his
> hypothesis to the test. So, let me know if there are any SDS 7  
> owners out there that would
> like to participate. If there's sufficient interest we can discuss  
> test criteria and come up with a
> simple, uniform method for doing so.
> Thanks.
> Ed
>
>
> 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

blacklodgeed skrev:
> 
> 
> In message 4432 Patrice mentioned sonic inconsistency among SDS 7 units. 
> I think his
> assumption is logical and I'm inclined to agree with him. I also think 
> it would be fun to put his
> hypothesis to the test. So, let me know if there are any SDS 7 owners 
> out there that would
> like to participate. If there's sufficient interest we can discuss test 
> criteria and come up with a
> simple, uniform method for doing so.
> Thanks.
> Ed

If you come up with some easy method I'm on... :)

-- 
electronically yours, jesper
- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
www.electronic-obsession.se
www.myspace.com/machinepop
- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -

"Spotify is fully legal and so should our content be too."

By the way I've already experimented it just by swapping a memory card  
between both units ...
anyone else ?


Le 2 févr. 09 à 20:33, jesper a écrit :

> blacklodgeed skrev:
> >
> >
> > In message 4432 Patrice mentioned sonic inconsistency among SDS 7  
> units.
> > I think his
> > assumption is logical and I'm inclined to agree with him. I also  
> think
> > it would be fun to put his
> > hypothesis to the test. So, let me know if there are any SDS 7  
> owners
> > out there that would
> > like to participate. If there's sufficient interest we can discuss  
> test
> > criteria and come up with a
> > simple, uniform method for doing so.
> > Thanks.
> > Ed
>
> If you come up with some easy method I'm on... :)
>
> -- 
> electronically yours, jesper
> - -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
> www.electronic-obsession.se
> www.myspace.com/machinepop
> - -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
>
> "Spotify is fully legal and so should our content be too."
>
> 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Imagine this: Once (1985?) Simmons promised a drummer to be able to leave his own SDS7 drumkit at home, go to a stage or studio anywhere on the planet, plug in the memory card and go exactly with his own personal sounds...
The first step to this must be: The right cards and eproms in the right slot. But: I never saw an SDS7 with the original recommended card sequence in my shop: bass, snare, tom1, tom2, tom3, I think Hihat was next and then the first crash cymbal, after that somewhere bass 2, well, read about that in the manual. When delivered, the units were fully equipped with sounds for the dedicated channels. But it made no sense, if you decided to put f.e. your Hihat card into slot 3, because the factory parameters there were thought for a high tom. Another example:
When I first transformed one of my tom cards to a cymbal (yes, because I didn't have the 690 Deutsche Mark for a sixth card these days and they still took 120 Deutsche Mark for the cymbal Eprom only, a lot of money...), I was dissapointed of the awaited cymbal sounds. But then they told me to put the former-tom-but-now-cymbal card to the crash cymbal slot, and: Voila, I had 50 sense-making cymbal sounds. They were factory- presetted on the seventh slot (or so).
Now it is getting more serious: Think about adjusting and tuning three toms in a row on your SDS7 brain, with three similiar cards and three similiar eproms (like "bright tom") You have the (intelligent and logical...) idea to program all parameters on each of your tom cards to the same value and vary only the individual pitches afterwards: I never was successful doing like that. One tom was dull, the other bright, one decay was longer, the other (with same value set) shorter, one tom clicked heavy, on the other softly. The tolerances of the electronic parts are definitely too big.
To get a good impression of this phenomenon, make the following experiment with all of your SDS7 cards by yourself: Put click, noise and digital noise to zero, filter freq 255, reso somewhere, decay 255. Analog vol to 255, analog mod to zero, analog pitch to something like 125. Now try to adjust the analog bend to a value where you can hear NO bend at all (neither up, nor down, sound has to stay at constant pitch): Is it 145? Then you are lucky: It is the standard zero bend value for analog sound source! And? On the next card? Is it 155? Oh, this means nothing, it is still good average. Now change the cards to other slots and try again: What happens?
In my opinion, the biggest trouble is caused by the cheap resistors, with tolerances up to more than 10%. They brought in gold plated fingers, Curtis ICs and the expensive "hybrid" SMD board, but took the cheapest coal resistors instead of metal foil ones. I had cards for repair, on which it was not possible to reduce click level to zero. On others, decay set to zero still was much longer than usual and useful.
So, to come to a conclusion: It is a dream to interchange sounds on SDS7s exactly, but not possible. Shared values might be a good start-off for own creations, but nothing more. But, nevertheless, I love all of my SDS7s.
Michael

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

--- In Simmons_Drums@yahoogroups.com, "blacklodgeed" <edrose1@...> wrote:
>
> In message 4432 Patrice mentioned sonic inconsistency among SDS 7
units. I think his 
> assumption is logical and I'm inclined to agree with him. I also
think it would be fun to put his 
> hypothesis to the test. So, let me know if there are any SDS 7
owners out there that would 
> like to participate. If there's sufficient interest we can discuss
test criteria and come up with a 
> simple, uniform method for doing so.
> Thanks.
> Ed
>
Hi all,

I would be up for this as I have a 12 card SDS7 system. However, I can
forsee one major problem: analogue to digital conversion (assuming
sound files are going to be posted for comparison). I use a Mytek
8x192 which is reasonably hi end i.e. transparent but using 
converters that are either coloured (Apogee) or of lesser quality will
introduce artifacts that may mask any small but significant
differences in sound between modules. I am not being a gear snob but
in the transparent converters group Bob Katz includes: Weiss, Lavry,
Cranesong, Benchmark, dCS, Mytek and Prism. I would add iZ Radar,
UA2192, DAD AX24 (Digital Audio Denmark) and Lynx Aurora. The Metric
Halo ULN-2 is decent but probably not as transparent as the previously
mentioned makes.

Additionally the DAW used to encode the .WAV might play a part in
shaping the data (dithering algorithms differ significantly) and
therefore the sound. I'd be using Logic (not a recommendation, just my
current sequencer.

SeveBC

Michael Buchner grew nostalgic:
> Imagine this: Once (1985?) Simmons promised a drummer to be able to 
> leave his own SDS7 drumkit at home, go to a stage or studio anywhere on 
> the planet, plug in the memory card and go exactly with his own personal 
> sounds...

That idea was splendid!

> The first step to this must be: The right cards and eproms in the right 
> slot. But: I never saw an SDS7 with the original recommended card 
> sequence in my shop: bass, snare, tom1, tom2, tom3, I think Hihat was 
> next and then the first crash cymbal, after that somewhere bass 2, well, 
> read about that in the manual. 

*haha* Yes, that's a laugh these days. I've seen the 5-card setup
mentioned though but after that it's basically anarchy out there. My
customized Ultravox machine has bass, snare, octaban, octaban, bass,
snare, octaban, octaban. I bet that's quite unique. :D

> When delivered, the units were fully 
> equipped with sounds for the dedicated channels. But it made no sense, 
> if you decided to put f.e. your Hihat card into slot 3, because the 
> factory parameters there were thought for a high tom. 

That fact makes it even more tempting to move them around if you ask a
sound junkie like me.

> Another example:
> When I first transformed one of my tom cards to a cymbal (yes, because I 
> didn't have the 690 Deutsche Mark for a sixth card these days and they 
> still took 120 Deutsche Mark for the cymbal Eprom only, a lot of 
> money...), I was dissapointed of the awaited cymbal sounds. But then 
> they told me to put the former-tom-but-now-cymbal card to the crash 
> cymbal slot, and: Voila, I had 50 sense-making cymbal sounds. They were 
> factory- presetted on the seventh slot (or so).
> Now it is getting more serious: Think about adjusting and tuning three 
> toms in a row on your SDS7 brain, with three similiar cards and three 
> similiar eproms (like "bright tom") You have the (intelligent and 
> logical...) idea to program all parameters on each of your tom cards to 
> the same value and vary only the individual pitches afterwards: I never 
> was successful doing like that. One tom was dull, the other bright, one 
> decay was longer, the other (with same value set) shorter, one tom 
> clicked heavy, on the other softly. The tolerances of the electronic 
> parts are definitely too big.

I see the problem from a drummers point of view but as a fan of analogue
electronics I LOVE this unpredictability.

> To get a good impression of this phenomenon, make the following 
> experiment with all of your SDS7 cards by yourself: Put click, noise and 
> digital noise to zero, filter freq 255, reso somewhere, decay 255. 
> Analog vol to 255, analog mod to zero, analog pitch to something like 
> 125. Now try to adjust the analog bend to a value where you can hear NO 
> bend at all (neither up, nor down, sound has to stay at constant pitch): 
> Is it 145? Then you are lucky: It is the standard zero bend value for 
> analog sound source! And? On the next card? Is it 155? Oh, this means 
> nothing, it is still good average. Now change the cards to other slots 
> and try again: What happens?
> In my opinion, the biggest trouble is caused by the cheap resistors, 
> with tolerances up to more than 10%. They brought in gold plated 
> fingers, Curtis ICs and the expensive "hybrid" SMD board, but took the 
> cheapest coal resistors instead of metal foil ones. I had cards for 
> repair, on which it was not possible to reduce click level to zero. On 
> others, decay set to zero still was much longer than usual and useful.
> So, to come to a conclusion: It is a dream to interchange sounds on 
> SDS7s exactly, but not possible. Shared values might be a good start-off 
> for own creations, but nothing more. But, nevertheless, I love all of my 
> SDS7s.
> Michael

Great story and a splendid finale there Michael! :D

-- 
electronically yours, jesper
- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
www.electronic-obsession.se
www.myspace.com/machinepop
- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -

"Spotify is fully legal and so should our content be too."