The following was originally posted by Hellfire over at Vdrums.com:
Most people when they get into DIY edrumming for the first time, they tend to use the Remo practice pad conversion. Split the foam in half, attach a piezo to a metal plate of some kind, and sandwich it between the foam halves. That works OK, (rolls and flams suffer a bit) but for my way to work I need a little more shell depth. Well, my X4L has that depth. The system has four layers.
Layers #1 & #2 – 1″ thick Poly-fil batting
Layer #3 – mylar disk (yes the same as a drum head) with one 27-mm piezo attached to the bottom with 3M chemical resistant double stick tape.
Layer #4 - 1″ thick Poly-fil batting
This is placed under a mesh head.
I know what you are thinking, you’re thinking “The piezo wouldn’t last 1 hour”, but you would be surprised at just how well it works. I’ve even road tested already. (yes, I gig out). This system is much more sensitive than the old foam-metal-foam style, and it seems it trigger just as good as my Roland cone drums. I most also say that it doesn’t feel like you are hitting a foamed back drum trigger. I think most of us here know that hitting a edrum that has foam behind the head just “feels” bad. It looses the bounce and has a bad thud. My new sensing system does not feel like you are hitting foam, because you aren’t. Poly-fil is a lot less dense than foam, this is why I use a mylar disk instead of metal. The Poly-fil also, does not dampen the bounce as severally as foam. The end result of using a mesh head with my new system really does give you the feeling you are playing on an acoustic drum. You still have bounce, but it is not like a trampoline, it is more like a mylar head.
In the pictures you will notice that I had to retro-fit my X4L. I couldn’t have anything in the cake pan because of how close the mylar sensing plate sits to the bottom of the pan, so I ran the wire out the bottom into a project box. Here’s some pictures:
Well, there it is. I hope people try there own experiments with this system so I am not the only one who knows how good it is. eDrumming for me is one big experiment, so I am always changing, tweeking, and messing with my designs.
10 users commented in " X4L Mylar Refection Plate (Update) "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackhi, im currently in the middle of my first A/E project. I am looking at possibly scrapping that idea to try this instead. Space and sound are going to be a big issue for me in the near future and my acoustic set just isn’t going to be able to come with me.
I mainly was wondering how well this would work for the alesis trigger I/O and if just adding a separate piezo to the side of the pan would give me a rim sound option, or would there have to be a section that is batting free to help separate the signals?
Thank you so much for your hard work and time spent! im just getting in to this and i really appreciate the information!!
I’ve built four of these trigger pads. One for a snare, and three for toms. They look great, thanks for the design. I’m sending them into a Megadrum 32 channel trigger to MIDI box I built myself. I then send the MIDI into an Alesis SR16 for the drum sounds.
Cool design. I’m still tweeking mine too. Adding different amounts of padding, different reflector plates, …
Thanks again.
Sounds good. If you ever wish to upgrade your SR16, I would highly recommend the Alesis SR18. I used it myself with a Trigger I/O kit. very similar set-up to yours.
Phil, I saw on edrumforum.com something about using pie plates? Is that just a pie plate in place of using the cake pan?
Do you still use the piezo on the pan itself for rim pickup?
Do you put foam or something under the plate itself?
Do you think any self supporting clear plastic would work — thinking of thin clear plastic used in disposable food containers?
I too am in the process of building the Megadrum trigger to USB-MIDI. I’ve ordered all the parts. Then going to use something on a laptop as the drum module.
I’m definitely building one of these as a snare. Don’t know what I’ll do for all the toms yet. I already have a 10″ hoop picked up from a local music store.
You should be able to use either a cake pan or a metal pie plate. The difference is going to be the depth of the pan/plate. If you plan on using the clear plastic in the same way I’m using it here with the X4L, I would say no it will not work. That is because the pan/plate is used as a very shallow drum shell which the head gets stretched over. That kind of tension would crush a plastic container (unless it is really thick, like maybe a 1/4″ thick). I hope that helps.
If I’ve double posted sorry…
The plastic I was talking about was for the reflection plate, not the ’structure’ — for that I’ll use a cake pan. The plastic I was talking about is slightly rigid, self supporting. When you buy some baked goods (cakes, pies, cookies) like at Wal-mart they come in those snap apart plastic containers. I was thinking of using a clear plastic lid as my reflection plate.
One more question, do you use a piezo on the cake plate with this arrangement? And do you put it in the center? (okay two questions)
Thanks.
I’ve got the Megadrum PC boards etched and I’m stuffing parts. This weekend I’m putting together my snare drum.
You’re right, this is fun!
A piezo on the cake pan would serve as the rim sensor and yes it would be in the center of the pan.
Phil, I’ve made my drum (FINALLY). Don’t quite have anything to hook it too but I’m working on that.
For the reflection plate I used a disposable plastic dinner plate – you know a plastic version of a paper plate.
I hooked the outputs to a scope to “see” what it looked like. It works. Seems that the rim trigger has more raw output but I would suppose that to be normal since there is more of a “direct” connection between a rim shot and the piezo in the bottom of the cake pan.
The reflection plate piezo waveform “looks” just like all the classic pictures of what the output should look like.
I’ll let you know more when I get a ‘brain’ to hook it up to. Right now I’m trying to get a Microdrum project off the ground.
http://microdrum.altervista.org/blog/
– Dan
Hi, i build 2 days ago a butter cookie tin edrum and added your idea of mylar reflection plate, i have built many edrums and none of them works decently, they always have little sensitivity and high hot spot (maybe i need too much detail).
When i was cutting the Mylar disc, i thought, mmm i don’t think this gonna make it, it really works!, it needs a high amount of preamp but, it is very sensitive, i can make snare rolls, I’m still having some issues with unwanted notes when i hit it very hard, but the problem is my edrum brain, it’s a home made self-designed, still needs code debug, I’m a bass player but recently i feel the urge of learning to play drums.
By the way, merry Christmas, sorry for the bad grammar, not a native English speaker.
Sounds good, thanks for your comments. Let us know if you get the unwanted notes issue resolved. Again, thanks for your comment.
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