I looked at the cost of additional cymbals and decided that I could probably make one cheaper. So, as I always used to practise on a rubber pad on my acoustic cymbal I decided to see if I could modify this. I purchased a 27mm piezo and a stereo cable from Amazon for the total cost of around £3.90. I then soldered the piezo to the stereo cable (simple job) and stuck the piezo to the back of the rubber pad. I set up my acoustic ride cymbal in the correct position, placed the rubber pad on top, plugged in the jack and…….. it worked!
The rubber pad mutes the noise from the cymbal and, for me anyway, it’s nice to have that element of ‘real kit’ amongst all the pads and plastic cymbals.
The low cost of this addition and relative ease of making it got me looking at other mods online.
So, I decided I needed another ‘drum’ to hit and planned to
build a splitter cable and go all the way by converting my acoustic snare drum
to an ‘E-Snare’. The idea being that I could split ‘head’ and ‘rim’ on my dual
trigger snare and assign any sound to it (another tom was the plan).I found a ‘how to’ guide online with instructions how to
wire up a splitter. I ordered a male stereo to two female stereo splitter
cable. I wanted it to look neat and managed to solder the much needed resistor
(yes, it really does need this) into the jack end without it looking a mess.
It’s probably here that I should point out that they accept
no responsibility for any damage to your module (or any other part of your kit)
if you try this.
Next came researching how to convert my acoustic snare to an
E-snare. This was quite an eye opener and I learnt a lot about how triggers work
and various methods of mounting them. I decided to go for a relatively simple
technique of bridging between two opposite lugs and mounting my piezo centrally.
I do have previous engineering experience so making up a couple of brackets and
necessary parts wasn’t too much of a task. I decided to use a thin wooden
batten to span the gap. The tricky part is getting the piezo to sit at the
correct height as it needs a ‘cone’ to trigger correctly. The most difficult
part for me was sourcing the correct type of foam to make a cone. I eventually
used a yoga block (Argos) which I cut down to around 40mm x 35mm. Then the fun
part came. I taped the foam block onto a small sanding disc on the end of a
drill and used coarse sand paper to shape it to a perfect cone. Note: the cone
needs a 7mm flat top as this touches the head to trigger.
Also note: sanding this stuff creates a lot of dust – wear a
mask!
Once I had my cone made I wired up my 27mm piezo (lead comes
out of air hole in shell) and stuck the cone on. The top of the cone needs to
protrude 2mm above the bearing edge. Easy to check using a straight edge across
the drum.
I opted for a remo mesh head which was around £17. Plugged
into the splitter and everything worked.
For a few days…..
Then ‘mis triggering’ started. To cut a very long story
short my dual trigger snare no longer ‘dual triggers’. Whether this is due to
using the splitter cable which has fried something on the pad or whether it’s age (6 years old), or whether it’s just
coincidence, I’m not too sure.
What I do know is that there’s an ongoing debate about
whether electronic kits will surpass acoustic kits. You either love them or
hate them. I’m kind of torn at present as I think both have their place. With
my Roland kit I can play anytime, teach more easily and record simply. My acoustic kit is noisy,
big, looks fantastic and at least the sounds I’m making are from the actual
sticks / brushes on the drums and cymbals and not some pre-recorded samples
that I’m just triggering.
From my recent experiences I can safely say that I wouldn’t
convert anymore drums. The mesh heads are good, very quiet, but very bouncy. I
read beforehand that a lot of drummers were of this opinion but I think you
need to try it for yourself. So, in conclusion, if anybody has read this far
and wants my help I’m happy to email photos and measurements etc so you can try
for yourself.
But in my opinion, don’t waste your time.
