[LAU] Off topic: building drum triggers for acoustic drums !

[Renato]

On Tue, 17 May 2011 10:41:57 +0200
Svend-Erik K Madsen <sv-e at sv-e.dk> wrote:

> Hi list
> 
> Anyone who has build drum triggers themselves ?
> 
> I just ordered some piezo transducers to build my own triggers, but
> your experiences is most welcome regarding material used to
> encapsulate transducers, rubber, foam rubber, how thick the size, and
> so on.
> 
> I planned to build it up on some angel bracket inside the drum shell
> and mount it on a lug screw so that the trigger will be placed
> underneath the drumhead near the rim, don't know if thats good or
> bad, and if a rim shoot would trigger too, of cause I don't want that
> to happen on my snare, for which I plan to build a separate rim shoot
> trigger too.
> 
> Hope someone will share their experiences :)
> 
> 
> /Sv-e
> _____

Hi, there is this open source project called megadrum
http://www.megadrum.info/
which gives you schematics and instructions to build a drum machine,
i.e. something you feed triggers into and which outputs MIDI. You can
even order kits or preassembled units.

I know it's not exactly what you were asking for but since Arduino came
in the discussion (which would, I suppose, have the same role as the
megadrum in such a project) you might want to look into it. I'm
definitely no expert but I think making the megadrum, although more
laborious, would have it's advantages over using an arduino. Well,
actually I even tried building such a thing with arduino some time ago,
and certainly I can tell you that it's not that easy to accurately
detect how hard you hit the piezo; the megadrum supposedly does this
good. Also the megadrum seems to have quite a community.

Maybe on the site you can even find some info on
building/clamping/placing your own triggers.

BTW there's a similar project called edrum
http://www.edrum.info/
I wouldn't be able to tell you the differences though

HTH
renato