Re: Kimouette’s case (A to E conversion)

[gastric]

I see you’ve been getting some help on the MegaDrum forum. That’s good. Note that the MegaDrum can theoretically support whatever features you want. Piezos, switches for chokes or triggers, combination thereof. With up to 32 TRS inputs per MegaDrum the skies the limit.

As far as cymbals. You should have no problem sticking 2 piezos on each cymbal (one on the bell, another 1/2 way between edge and bell for the bow sound) and some sort of a choke if desired. I’m not exactly sure what choking capabilities the MegaDrum has. But a simple Hellfire-style choke like I’ve implemented would definintely be cheap ($16US or less to put a choke on ALL of your cymbals) and no problem for the MegaDrum. The Roland modules can take it a step further and compute that a quick switch signal is an edge crash and a long switch signal is a choke. Unsure if MegaDrum can do that, but if so that’d be fantastic and another arrow in it’s quiver over the Alesis Trigger IO. That might fall into the “3-way-ride” category that is currenlty unconfirmed as working properly for MegaDrum.

For the hihat you can simply stick one piezo on the cymbal, wire that to an input on the MegaDrum. Just like any other trigger. Separately for the hihat you need some sort of pedal. It can be a simple on/off switch of which you can make basically anything you want. Switch on the pedal. Switch on the cymbal. Switch on the hihat stand. Switch in your shoe. It doesn’t matter in that case as it’s a simple on/off switch. You just need to provide some method for the positive and negative of making a contact to complete the circuit. And in fact can literally use two wires, glue them to the stand/pedal somehow, and just construct it in such a fashion that they touch when the pedal is all the way down to trigger the closed. Postive on the bottom edge of the top hihat cymbal, negaive on the top edge of the bottom. Cymbals close, complete circuit, viola! Or for that matter use the entire cymbal as part of the circuit, assuming you didn’t dampen them on the inside. Connect wire to top cymbal, another to bottom, when they touch it completes the circuit. Might not be as successful using the actual cymbals as if you’re hitting them while closed they could bounce around and break the connection causing choppy closed sounds. But it was a thought. 🙂 Get your gears working on a possible solution.

However, the most ideal method is to rig a 25k potentiometer (check the MegaDrum forum for the most appropriate pot to use, but 25k seems fairly universal to most modules) to the hihat stand. You can find the Beatnik method of sticking a slider in a project box, then connecting the slider to the hihat chain on the low end and a spring/rubber band on the hi end to provide automatic return. Wire that to a mono jack, connect that to the pedal input on the MegaDrum (or any brain/controller) and bam! A variable hihat pedal to provide your opens, closes, and everything in between. Shouldn’t cost much more than constructing a simple on/off. Certainly well under $10US total for a totally variable hihat pedal and probably a worthwhile expenditure as on/off hihats are fairly annoying.

Christopher Graham