Newb questions about VBS and Mandala pads

Post Reply
dje31
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2014 1:10 pm

Newb questions about VBS and Mandala pads

Post by dje31 »

Greetings, all. I'm seriously considering jumping in with both feet on a full eDrum kit. I've pined for a full eKit for decades, originally lusting for an SDX. Finally, the technology looks to have arrived, and cheaper and more reliable.

I'm looking at:

5 Mandala Pads;
3 Yamaha PCY-135 Cymbal Pads;
2 Roland BT-1 Bar Triggers ( as hi-hats );
1 Roland KD-9 Kick Pad ( open to other options );
1 Roland FD-8 Hat Pedal
1 Roland KD-7 Secondary Kick Pad ( optional );

The cymbals and kicks would be driven by an older Roland V-Drum brain ( thinking TD-12 ). The Mandalas would go through a Synapse to a PC with Virtual Brain Software.

Please feel free to chime in if I'm confused, off-base, or not getting it.

It looks like VBS only controls a max of 3 pads at a time. Is that accurate? I see the Synapse allows for six pads, plus three pedals plus expression.

Is it possible to run two instances of VBS concurrently, to address the additional two pads? Does that require additional hardware horsepower to limit / minimize latency issues?

My intent would be to take my latest, now-retired notebook, stripped bare of all extraneous software, drivers, and extensions, never using the internet, etc., to run VBS.

Any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated in advance.

Cheers!

Doug
mandrake717
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:08 pm

Re: Newb questions about VBS and Mandala pads

Post by mandrake717 »

Sounds good. I'd recommend Battery instead of the Virtual Brain though because the VB only handles 3 pads. Danny Carey controls Battery with 7 Mandalas and an eKick pedal and an eHat pedal. You'd be doing something similar to that. You could even send MIDI from your cymbal brain to your computer and have all your sound [pads, pedals & cymbals] come from Battery. If you want to try multiple VB instances instead you should download the VB (it's free) and try to run two of them simultaneously as a test first.
Post Reply