Roland td 4 and cymbal choking?

Hi guys,

So I received my new Roland td4 kx2 this morning and absolutely love it, but I have noticed that the kit comes with cy12-c and cy-13r pads...which are (to the best of my knowledge) 'chokeable' electronic cymbals.

I was wondering if the choke function of the cymbals could be used with the td 4 module? And if so how would I go about setting this up? I've tried googling and I'm not really finding this kind of information.

The choke cymbal wasn't something I was focusing on too much when choosing a kit, I had an old Yamaha dtxplorer that gave in, so I needed an upgrade that wasn't ridiculously expensive and so far this kit feels much better to me - I love the mesh pads! And the hi hat pedal is much better in my opinion, but obviously if it WAS a possibility to have the cymbal choke function that would only make the kit even better. If not then I'm still pretty happy with this awesome kit

So you are asking how to make the cymbals choke able right? if so it should be already set up that way and all you have to do is pinch the very edge, the last 1" of rubber or so is where the sensors are, and it should work. thats how it works on mine.

Yes that's my question, I did waffle on a bit though lol.

And mine dont choke :/ I set it up exacty as instructions said and everything works perfectly except cymbals don't choke....I'm assuming you're using a td 4 module and not a more advanced one??

I've been reading trough the manual too, but I haven't found anything about cymbal choke yet

Sorry bout the second post,

I just gave what you said a quick try (pinching the very edge) and it does work! Had to pinch much closer to the edge and a bit harder than I was doing, so thats where I was going wrong.

Thanks very much for the advice

Make sure you use stereo cables between the cymbal and module. The TD-4 comes with a few stereo cables and a few mono cables, and if you use the mono cables for the cymbals, the choke will not work (and you won't get two different sounds from the cymbals either; one for the edge and one from the bow).

I'm not sure what you mean...I wouldn't know how to go about replacing the mono cables, as the module came with 1 bunch of cables, 1 end of the cables plugs into all the pads and the other end has just one long scart lead type thing which all the wires are connected to (it doesn't seem to be a simple case of pull the wires out and put a new one in because they seem permanently attached)

But I'm getting 2 sounds from the crash and hi hats and 3 sounds from the ride (as I plugged the second crash input into there too, as stated in the manual). So I'd guess that means I wouldn't need to swap the cables?

Grace :) said:

I'm not sure what you mean...I wouldn't know how to go about replacing the mono cables, as the module came with 1 bunch of cables, 1 end of the cables plugs into all the pads and the other end has just one long scart lead type thing which all the wires are connected to (it doesn't seem to be a simple case of pull the wires out and put a new one in because they seem permanently attached)

But I'm getting 2 sounds from the crash and hi hats and 3 sounds from the ride (as I plugged the second crash input into there too, as stated in the manual). So I'd guess that means I wouldn't need to swap the cables?

Click to expand...

Yup, in that case you're fine on the cable front.

It really shouldn't need setting up at all; everything should work right out of the box. Maybe you're choking them wrong? You're supposed to squeeze the edge of the cymbal (one finger on top and one on the bottom of the cymbal)

I have a TD4KX, basically the same thing as yours, but an older model wit CY8's. Try this. instead of using the tips of your fingers, kind of turn the side ways so you get more surface area of you fingers on the choke trigger. If you look at the bottom of the cymbals it should have a little rubber ring under it that only goes part way around, make sure it's facing you and your grabbing that and not just part of the cymbal.

Thanks for the help guys, turns out I was pinching too far into the cymbal and not pinching hard enough for it to pick up the choke