Status Update:
Thanks to all who provided ideas. I was wrong. I initially thought this would be a long-shot question because I've seen no others here talk about recording percussion; be it acoustic or electronic. But I now see that audio is audio and sound is sound with lots of processing overlap/commonality across different instruments.

Brian, I watched the video and it confirms that S1 is using Peak Normilization. The Gain Staging he talks about at the end I don't think will address loudness variation within a stem but addresses variations across stems.

Mario, Yes, I have a boatload of outputs on the drum pad, MIDI is included. So far I haven't needed to deal with MIDI yet. Partly because of the satisfaction I get from capturing what I play on a physical instrument in my final recording, even if my non-MIDI recordings are far from perfect. Yes, I do apply effects and volume automation so it's a matter of personal philosphy; at least at this point in time. A year from now things might be different. As for the Limiter, I think I'll explore that as-needed. It's looking like the Compressor (although not perfect) is giving me an improvement.

Matt, I looked at Pure Limit. It looks like a solid plug-in. I'm hoping that the next major rev of S1 will contain that kind of AI capability.

GuitarHacker, Peak normalization in S1 doesn't solve this problem but the compressing seems to improve it somewhat.

rharv, thanks for the AudioMinds webpage. I bookmarked it. There's a lot of good stuff packed into that article.

Here is what compression can do to this recording. The first half is with no compression, just peak normilization. The second half is with compression per the parameters in the attached screen shot. I also included an 86 BPM click as a consant volume reference. One other detail: The act of compressing seems to have reduced the overall volume of the recording. So in order to compare apples-to-apples, I decreased the non-compressed waveform by 3dB so that the variations within it wouldn't be percieved as exagerated.
Compression Comparision

My ears are telling me that compressing does in fact reduce the loudness variation. As I have applied it, does it eliminate variation? No. But someone coined "Never let perfection get in the way of good enough". Besides, some may say that a little "humman errorr" is not necessarily a bad thing. smile

One this is for sure, you could spend a lifetime studying mixing and audio processing, it's a huge subject. And I could spend days with just fiddling with the Compressor parameters. For me, I just want to know the bare minimum to construct pleasing songs; playing music is a higher priority than processing sound. That said, I'm grateful for all that responded, the learning goes on and the compressor now has a place in my toolbox . . .

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BiaB 2025 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.