Download the Simmons Drums 2 App
The Simmons Drums 2 App is designed for use with the Titan 50 and Titan 20 only.
Main Screen
When you first launch the app, it prompts you to connect to your drum module. You can do this one of two ways, either using Bluetooth MIDI or a USB connection.
Bluetooth MIDI
To begin using the app over Bluetooth, press the “Connect Via Bluetooth MIDI” button. You should see a window show up, with the Titan 50 and Titan 20 listed as “Not Connected.” Press that, and it should change to “Connected.”
Note 1: If you don’t see Titan 50 or Titan 20 in the list, press the Setup button on the module until you see “Bluet:” and make sure that is set to On using the + and – buttons
Note 2: You can also access the Bluetooth MIDI Setup page in the Setup section of the app, see below
USB
To connect your iOS device over USB, you need a USB cable. On devices with USB-C like the iPad Pro, you need a USB-C to USB-B cable. On a device with a Lightning connector like most iPhones, you need a Lightning to USB Adapter and a USB-a to USB-B cable.
Once connected to the module, the screen should show the Titan 50 or Titan 20 kit and logo. To navigate to other pages in the app, use the buttons on the bottom (iPad) or side (iPhone) of the screen.
Kit Select
The Kit Select screen simply gives you a quick menu to change kits.
You can scroll through kits one by one, or use the scroll bar to jump to the beginning or end of the kit list.
Kit Edit
This screen allows you to change the sound of a drum pad. To see the sound assigned to a pad, either tap the drum on the app screen or hit a drum pad with your drum stick.
In the main view, you can change the sound category (Snare, Toms, Hi-Hat…) and the specific sound. Many pads have more than one zone, like the snare pad.
Note: The toms show two zones for the center and rim, but the toms that come with the Titan 50 are single-zone. You can purchase a dual-zone pad to access more zones, or use a Y-cable to split the tom cable to two single-zone pads.
To access more sound parameters, press the “Edit Parameters” button. This gives you a few more options:
Level: Changes the volume of the selected sound
Pan: Changes the stereo placement of the sound from left to right
Pitch: Change the pitch of the sound. This can make a snare drum sound deeper or a cymbal sound larger
Decay: The length of time that the drum sustains. Turning down the decay is like adding gaffer tape to a drum to keep it from ringing.
Reverb: The amount of reverb send that drum has. To hear the reverb effect, you may need to turn on the reverb in the Mix/FX page (next section)
Mix / FX
This view shows the digital mixer built into your drum module.
You can turn individual drums up and down with faders, and change pan and effects.
The iPad version shows all of these parameters at once, where the iPhone version has tabs to show you Level, Pan/Send, and FX parameters.
Level: Use the fader to change the volume of a drum up or down
Pan: Changes the stereo placement of the sound from left to right
Send: This controls how much of the signal is sent to the reverb processor
Effects
The effects section changes the effects processors. These controls are global for that kit, for example you can’t change the EQ differently for each drum.
Reverb Program: Choose one of the reverb programs like Hall 1 or Plate, or disable the reverb by switching it to Off.
Reverb Level: This is the overall level of the reverb. To hear reverb on a drum, make sure the Send is turned up for that drum, then also turn up the Level of the reverb.
Compressor Program: There are several preset programs for the compressor like Grind and Stomp. “Kit” is a special program which recalls the compression settings saved with the kit (if any.) Setting the program to Off disables the compressor.
Press the Edit button in the compressor window to access more parameters:
Compressor Enable: Turn the effect on or off
Compressor Attack: Changes the amount of time before the compressor effect fades in
Compressor Release: Changes the amount of time before the compressor effect fades out
Compressor Threshold: This is the level that the compressor begins to take effect.
Compressor Ratio: This is how much the compressor turns down the level once the threshold is reached. The Threshold and Ratio of the compressor together control how intense the effect is.
Compressor Gain: Heavy use of the compressor will make the kit softer. This makeup gain control allows you to turn the volume back up. Be careful with this as the level can be turned up so high that the output distorts.
Equalizer Hi and Low: This is a shelving EQ to add or subtract low (bass) or high (treble) frequencies from the sound.
Practice
There are two sections of the Practice page. One controls the metronome, and the other controls the Practice tool in the Titan module
Metronome
Activated: Turns on the metronome on the drum module
Time Signature: There are several time signatures in the module, this allows you to select patterns like 6/8 and 5/4
BPM: This changes the Tempo of the metronome and Practice mode
Volume: The level of the metronome
Accent: The level of the metronome accent. For example, the first click in a 4/4 pattern
Click: The level of the unaccented metronome click. In the example above, the other three beats in the measure.
Practice
Play: Starts or stops the Practice mode song
Song: Choose one of the songs in the module to play along
Mode: There are several practice modes, refer to the owner’s manual for more information
Difficulty: This changes the tolerance for how precisely you need to play for a high accuracy score.
Tempo Shift: This varies the song tempo during playback, see the manual for more information
Accuracy: This is how accurately you played in percentage. Playing right on the beat for 8 bars gives you a 100%.
Score: This is a factor of the accuracy rating plus difficulty, mode, and other settings above.
Setup
Setup gives you a way to change the trigger settings in the drum module. If the sensitivity feels too light or too heavy, you can change settings here. Select a drum pad, either using the on-screen display or tapping a drum.
The settings in this screen are the same as they are in the drum module interface, but you also get a Meter that shows the velocity that the pad is playing, from 1 to 127.
Curve: There are several curves that effect the feel of the drum pads
Retrigger: How quickly you can play on the pad. If you are missing triggers when playing quickly, turn retrigger down.
Sensitivity: This is the gain of the pad. If you feel like you need to hit the pad too hard to get a sound, turn this control up.
Threshold: How softly you can play the pad before it ignores the hit
Crosstalk: If you hit the crash cymbal, it might vibrate the tom pad next to it. This control keeps the tom from triggering when that happens. Turn up the crosstalk if you have problems like that.
Press somewhere else on the screen to see the global setup settings.
Volume: The overall volume coming out of the drum module
Bluetooth MIDI: This is another way to turn Bluetooth MIDI on or off
Local MIDI Control: If recording drums into a DAW, you might hear drum sounds triggered twice. If that happens, you can switch Local Control Off to prevent the problem. See the owner’s manual for more information.
Download the Simmons Drums 2 App