Re: How to make 3-zone snare pad?

[gastric]

2 zone snare with Trigger IO is simple, as is 2 zone toms. Configure one piezo with a foam cone touching the head for ZONE 1, stick the other piezo on the shell near the part of the rim closest to where you’re likely to hit it for ZONE 2, wire it all to a TRS jack, and plug the TRS cable into the Trigger IO. Set the IO to PP type input and have fun configuring the two separate zones for proper triggering and crosstalk. Generally speaking I set the rim zone with a higher trigger threshold and the head zone will need the crosstalk as it’s more like to accidentally trigger when you hit the rim. The rim won’t accidentally trigger at all and will only trigger when you hit the rim.

I have a snare with 4 piezos along the rim which makes more of the rim consistently effective. The toms which have 1 piezo near the bottom most rim (closest part of the rim towards me) don’t trigger with as much gain when hitting the top (furthest) part of the rim. So you can wire more than 1 piezo in parallel if you really need the entire rim to be equally sensitive.

This is based entirely on my personal experience with my DIY acoustic-to-electronic conversion. So take that, as well as the fact I’m a complete novice at all of this, into consideration when reading my comments. 🙂

Christopher Graham