Michael Boo Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Your points and ideas are certainly not without validity, Daniel - and I am enjoying this discussion. Allow me to touch on three things here... First, in ear monitors. Drummers, guitar and bass players, keyboard players and singers in mainstream music use them all the time. They work in those kinds of settings. Why? Because you aren't dependent as much on acoustic proximity. Same with horn players. Battery percussion, a whole different ball game. Acoustic proximity is critical. And I think this is what surrounded Michael Boo's questions. You can't just slide some in ears in while marching around a gym or a football field. You have to know who's sound is who's. Yes, In ear monitors do have panning options....but what happens when the guy to your left is suddenly to your right...or behind you...or in front of you. With in ears, you have no idea who's sound is who's. You just hear sound. In a normal musical setting, that's fine. In a battery percussion setting, In ear monitoring is not enough. A person in a snareline counts on what is right next to them. NOW...that being said, Michael's number 4 question in his post above is outstanding and I'm almost embarrassed that I didn't think about it as we were going back and forth. If it's the reaction of the drum next to you and your own that one depends on, having a monitoring devise ON the drum itself really could be a logical way to give a drummer that same sensation they have with the acoustic reaction of an acoustic snare drum right next to them. THAT could work. In ears, mmm....no. In ears are void of the proximity details that a battery percussionist needs. Michael's idea however....not bad...and worth exploring. ... About once every three years I come up with an idea that doesn't result in people looking at me and then slowly backing away. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 (edited) Your points and ideas are certainly not without validity, Daniel - and I am enjoying this discussion. Allow me to touch on three things here... First, in ear monitors. Drummers, guitar and bass players, keyboard players and singers in mainstream music use them all the time. They work in those kinds of settings. Why? Because you aren't dependent as much on acoustic proximity. Same with horn players. Battery percussion, a whole different ball game. Acoustic proximity is critical. And I think this is what surrounded Michael Boo's questions. You can't just slide some in ears in while marching around a gym or a football field. You have to know who's sound is who's. Yes, In ear monitors do have panning options....but what happens when the guy to your left is suddenly to your right...or behind you...or in front of you. With in ears, you have no idea who's sound is who's. You just hear sound. In a normal musical setting, that's fine. In a battery percussion setting, In ear monitoring is not enough. A person in a snareline counts on what is right next to them. NOW...that being said, Michael's number 4 question in his post above is outstanding and I'm almost embarrassed that I didn't think about it as we were going back and forth. If it's the reaction of the drum next to you and your own that one depends on, having a monitoring devise ON the drum itself really could be a logical way to give a drummer that same sensation they have with the acoustic reaction of an acoustic snare drum right next to them. THAT could work. In ears, mmm....no. In ears are void of the proximity details that a battery percussionist needs. Michael's idea however....not bad...and worth exploring. HOWEVER....the second point I want to touch on... This could quite easily be compensated for in software. To explain... Where the current model of electronic percussion has major flaws once player is in motion has to do with one simple, and i think easily overcome, design flaw. In the current model, it is a designed around a hub and spoke network and instruments only transmit to that single receiver and control module. Again, instruments only transmit, but do not receive, and the networking model is hub and spoke. If you were to allow the individual device to both transmit and receive signals and created a MESH network between the instruments... rather than all of them just doing a dumb transmission to a single object... a whole new world opens up. In a mesh network YOUR device could sense the EXACT proximity to other devices, their movement and velocity. Based on this information, a simple algorithm can mimic acoustic behaviors of other sounds being produced in proximity to YOU. In short, what you are actually hearing in the in ear monitor is unique to you in the same way as it would be unique to you if it were acoustic. This isn't something way out there and completely conceptual, but is something quite mature and already applied to other industries and in ways far more complex than this. A lot of the technology for this is open source. Tiny OS, for example, could be an ideal to run on these instruments in this type of a mesh environment. The hardware that this sort of thing would need for this type of communication is also very mature, available as off the shelf components and is pretty much standardized. In terms of additional hardware component costs, you'd be looking at about $2-10 per unit. Nothing. Most of this is really is just in the software and really isn't all that complicated when you get down to it, as all you would need to do would be to create 360 degree sample measurements of acoustic sounds you would like to measure to set your calibration. To walk through this... process... you basically set up an environment where you can have capture with laser precision the exact moment a stick is striking the type of drum you wish to imitate and microphones placed at various distances at key points 360 degrees around the player and capture the sound. Note the patters of change... have software emulate. Again, I don't think that this is really all that complex, it is just simply engineers that work on stuff for a company like Roland have probably never actually thought about the equipment moving while playing, so never really put their heads to solving it. This is the only reason why the problem isn't solved. Edited February 18, 2012 by danielray Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevedb1975 Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 (edited) This could quite easily be compensated for in software. To explain... Where the current model of electronic percussion has major flaws once player is in motion has to do with one simple, and i think easily overcome, design flaw. In the current model, it is a designed around a hub and spoke network and instruments only transmit to that single receiver and control module. Again, instruments only transmit, but do not receive, and the networking model is hub and spoke. If you were to allow the individual device to both transmit and receive signals and created a MESH network between the instruments... rather than all of them just doing a dumb transmission to a single object... a whole new world opens up. In a mesh network YOUR device could sense the EXACT proximity to other devices, their movement and velocity. Based on this information, a simple algorithm can mimic acoustic behaviors of other sounds being produced in proximity to YOU. In short, what you are actually hearing in the in ear monitor is unique to you in the same way as it would be unique to you if it were acoustic. This isn't something way out there and completely conceptual, but is something quite mature and already applied to other industries and in ways far more complex than this. A lot of the technology for this is open source. Tiny OS, for example, could be an ideal to run on these instruments in this type of a mesh environment. The hardware that this sort of thing would need for this type of communication is also very mature, available as off the shelf components and is pretty much standardized. In terms of additional hardware component costs, you'd be looking at about $2-10 per unit. Nothing. Most of this is really is just in the software and really isn't all that complicated when you get down to it, as all you would need to do would be to create 360 degree sample measurements of acoustic sounds you would like to measure to set your calibration. To walk through this... process... you basically set up an environment where you can have capture with laser precision the exact moment a stick is striking the type of drum you wish to imitate and microphones placed at various distances at key points 360 degrees around the player and capture the sound. Note the patters of change... have software emulate. Again, I don't think that this is really all that complex, it is just simply engineers that work on stuff for a company like Roland have probably never actually thought about the equipment moving while playing, so never really put their heads to solving it. This is the only reason why the problem isn't solved. Very well thought out ideas, Daniel. However, there are still two issues within my above post that these very great ideas do not address. "Practicality" and "How Good Do They Sound"? Fixing the phasing and cleanlieness problems is huge and your ideas above could very well do that (genius in fact...and such technology does indeed exist), but if the product is still impractical and doesn't sound good, who cares? What good is fixing the phasing problems if the main battery percussion patch still sounds like crap and if the impractical headaches still exist? Do you want to be the guy sitting at a SECOND sound board just for monitors at EVERY show trying to get each in ear system for all 27 percussionists exactly how they want it....again...for a product that to the listener (as of now) sounds like crap? OR....would you rather just (as I and others have suggested) have just a FEW (not the entire line) soloists...and or maybe a SHORT (like 20 second) full line feature on them with sound effects etc? To me, the latter sounds much more practical AND useful than a full line of electronic snares being an official stock replacement for ANY use of acoustic snares. Edited February 18, 2012 by stevedb1975 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevedb1975 Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 (edited) Now those are absolutely awesome! Jim Casella's pulled off something truly spectacular. I wonder if any judges listening to the patches would pick up on the fact that they're listening partially to the line their judging and partially to a classic Casella Santa Clara Vanguard line? See now that's another problem with this. Every individual drumline has it's own unique sound and character. That is ALL lost with electronic battery percussion. So we could be listening to a sample of SCV in every drumline? :thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown: LAAAAAAAAAME!!!! You know? Percussion judges ALSO judge those elements. "Tone Quality", yes, there are different timbres based on the technique of a percussionist and tuning decisions of a percussionist, writer and or instructor (all giving each individual drumline their own unique special sound and personality). Yes, I know...someone will say "the samples can be tuned different. Doesn't matter....it's still stock and "one size fits all". Velocity stroke verses legato stoke on an acoustic drum = different tone quality. Velocity stroke verses legato stroke on an electric drum = SAME stock tone quality (with only slight dynamic differences). So you just took away one additional element a percussion judges has to be accountable to and additionally took away something each drummer has to be accountable to. AND....yet again....taking away the uniqueness of the style, sound and appoach of individual drumlines. Convinced....this product is useless AS a stock replacement for accoustic drums...while useFUL...ONLY in isolated circumstances for effect. Edited February 18, 2012 by stevedb1975 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Boo Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 See now that's another problem with this. Every individual drumline has it's own unique sound and character. That is ALL lost with electronic battery percussion. So we could be listening to a sample of SCV in every drumline? ... The solution would be to develop an artificial intelligence program to sample the actual live performing drum line and through a series of sophisticated parameters and variables established through the latest research into recursion theory and quantifier elimination methods that are redefining the isomorphism of contemporary intuitionistic logic, the hexadecimal rubrics of the Altering-time Temporal Logic written into the software would create a computational controllability that effectively converts the predetermined SCVTC signals (Santa Clara Vanguard Tapspace Constants) into drumstick induced sensor-loaded audio manifestations that exploit each drum line's unique spatial-temporal diversity. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corpsband Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) This could quite easily be compensated for in software. To explain... Where the current model of electronic percussion has major flaws once player is in motion has to do with one simple, and i think easily overcome, design flaw. In the current model, it is a designed around a hub and spoke network and instruments only transmit to that single receiver and control module. Again, instruments only transmit, but do not receive, and the networking model is hub and spoke. If you were to allow the individual device to both transmit and receive signals and created a MESH network between the instruments... rather than all of them just doing a dumb transmission to a single object... a whole new world opens up. In a mesh network YOUR device could sense the EXACT proximity to other devices, their movement and velocity. Based on this information, a simple algorithm can mimic acoustic behaviors of other sounds being produced in proximity to YOU. In short, what you are actually hearing in the in ear monitor is unique to you in the same way as it would be unique to you if it were acoustic. This isn't something way out there and completely conceptual, but is something quite mature and already applied to other industries and in ways far more complex than this. A lot of the technology for this is open source. Tiny OS, for example, could be an ideal to run on these instruments in this type of a mesh environment. The hardware that this sort of thing would need for this type of communication is also very mature, available as off the shelf components and is pretty much standardized. In terms of additional hardware component costs, you'd be looking at about $2-10 per unit. Nothing. Most of this is really is just in the software and really isn't all that complicated when you get down to it, as all you would need to do would be to create 360 degree sample measurements of acoustic sounds you would like to measure to set your calibration. To walk through this... process... you basically set up an environment where you can have capture with laser precision the exact moment a stick is striking the type of drum you wish to imitate and microphones placed at various distances at key points 360 degrees around the player and capture the sound. Note the patters of change... have software emulate. Again, I don't think that this is really all that complex, it is just simply engineers that work on stuff for a company like Roland have probably never actually thought about the equipment moving while playing, so never really put their heads to solving it. This is the only reason why the problem isn't solved. lol. it's obvious you're in marketing... slap in some buzz words, tell everyone it's not really complicated and mostly just software, and then quote a per unit cost less than $10. you're entertaining -- i'll give you that btw -- mesh networking has nothing to do with locating a transceiver in space. Edited February 19, 2012 by corpsband 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevedb1975 Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 The solution would be to develop an artificial intelligence program to sample the actual live performing drum line and through a series of sophisticated parameters and variables established through the latest research into recursion theory and quantifier elimination methods that are redefining the isomorphism of contemporary intuitionistic logic, the hexadecimal rubrics of the Altering-time Temporal Logic written into the software would create a computational controllability that effectively converts the predetermined SCVTC signals (Santa Clara Vanguard Tapspace Constants) into drumstick induced sensor-loaded audio manifestations that exploit each drum line's unique spatial-temporal diversity. UH OHHHHHH!!!!! Daniel has been sharing that stuff that's in his pipe with Boo. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevedb1975 Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 lol. it's obvious you're in marketing... slap in some buzz words, tell everyone it's not really complicated and mostly just software, and then quote a per unit cost less than $10. you're entertaining -- i'll give you that btw -- mesh networking has nothing to do with locating a transceiver in space. The part of your post I underlined is what Daniel does not seem to grasp. The "practicality" factor seems to fly right over him. He thinks it's simple. Maybe he should try working a monitor rig for a pro rock band for a night and see how hard it is to give just FOUR guys what they want AND need. Then multiply that by how many for a full indoor drumline? Like I said...."bad crack". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Boo Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 UH OHHHHHH!!!!! Daniel has been sharing that stuff that's in his pipe with Boo. Daniel wants to be where I'm at. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielray Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) lol. it's obvious you're in marketing... slap in some buzz words, tell everyone it's not really complicated and mostly just software, and then quote a per unit cost less than $10. you're entertaining -- i'll give you that btw -- mesh networking has nothing to do with locating a transceiver in space. Actually, I'm more of a software guy when it comes down to it. Everything I've ever done in marketing had a foundation in a specific software solution I created. I knew software, but didn't know jack #### about marketing... so brought in the best marketing guys I could find to actually figure out what to do and how to sell it. I learned everything from them. Anyway, many mesh networking scenarios require that each node knows its exact physical location in relation to other nodes. This is not only absolutely essential for applications that are highly dependent on timing of events (this is more complicated and different than simply all syncing with a master clock), it involves predicting tangible movement of objects. On top of this, in very low power networks, understanding proximity is essential for optimizing battery life... allowing you to broadcast only the necessary signal level. Because of this, some mesh protocols are have proximity to other sensors as an attribute. Let's take, for example, a very simple scenario... traffic sensors that would allow signal priority for public transport and would change lights for emergency vehicles. In this scenario, you have a series of fixed sensors, with fixed distances from each other. You also have sensors on objects that are in motion and must gauge based upon the speed and known patterns, their estimated arrival at certain destinations and set in motion a sequence of events that will, say, give them a green light at exactly the point they should arrive at the intersection, not before or after, and that is timed to have the least amount of disruption based on calculating known historical patterns. This is a very mature space, not some out there research, and this stuff happens every single day. Add onto this the complexities involved in mesh networking where the majority, if not all, nodes are in motion. It becomes absolutely essential to know their exact relationship to each other in order to even properly function. This time of thing is very common, for example mesh networking solutions that are used by companies like Motorola for creating networks between vehicles. BTW - cost per unit comes from an installation (about 7,000 nodes) I am currently working on that does use this exact same technology... Edited February 19, 2012 by danielray Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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