www.megadrum.info

I have here: my best efforts at my crudely drawn MS Paint diagram of my mental idea for a pad.



I have to make somewhere around 17 of these, + a load of slightly different ones for cymbals, and chances are I will have to order the parts for all in one, so no chance to actually prototype, so I want to make sure the design is okay before I send off for the parts.

Basically the pads are screwed with that bracket thing directly to the pipe, which is 15mm hard copper (well it felt hard enough in the DIY store ). They will be connected as a 'rack' rather than each pad on a seperate stand. Could this cause a problem with crosstalk? Or would the foam suppress this enough? I tried to design it so that the playing surface, piezo and drum frame were as mechanically seperated as possible.

The piezo is stuck to some kind of material sandwiched in the foam and not in direct contact with either surface of the pad, in order to reduce the 'hotspot', would this work? Again, the idea being that the foam provides some mechanical 'insulation' between the piezo + pad, so to reduce hotspot, and also between pad + frame, to reduce crosstalk?

And my final idea, instead of running an individual ground wire to each pad, is there any reason why I can't just attach the main drum frame to ground, and ground the pads that way, instead of running 32 individual ground wires to each pad? Could save a lot of soldering and cabling!

Any comments/thoughts/criticisms/"you are a moron, do this instead"s welcome!

And PS. Although you can't see it in the diagram, the foam bits are actually foam discs, 4 in each pad, one at the top, one left, one right, one bottom, at the edge of the pad:

Oh, and if anyone can find a supplier that would just supply a number of no-nonsense aluminuim discs in the UK, as used for the backplate, could they let me know? I'm at a loss and I dont have the tools for perfect circles! Same goes for the cork/rubber playing surface!

Hi Ohawker,

I should pre-empt my response by saying that I have no experience in any of this stuff. I have ordered a kit for reasons that would take too long to explain, but I am not even a drummer.

However, having spent some time looking at home made kits on the net I would make one observation... it may be invalid, but just in case it has any merit:-

From other pad designs I have seen, the aim appears to have been to create the most direct effect when striking the very centre of the drum. From your design, it would appear as though the biggest signal would be generated when striking the surface immediately above the foam discs. Although one could perhaps suggest that by stiking further away from any one disc would bring you closer to another disc, and as such may limit this problem, I would still be suprised if striking the centre would give maximum effect as per most other designs I have been looking at.

Whilst any practical suggestion from myself is probably even of less value than my minor "critique" I see no reason my you couldnt continue to use the basic design you have proposed for suspending the main pad wwith the discs, but adopt a more common method for affixing the piezo.

Sorry if I have waffled on a bit, and sorry also if my views are a little uneducated, but I hope at least it give you a little something to consider.

Hi CairnsFella,

Like I said, I'm totally up for any opinions and yours is just as important and I'm not a drummer either so don't worry

I see your point, how about this arrangement?



As you can see the foam is further towards the middle than on the first design, could help spread the response more evenly?

I suppose I could order the parts for all of them, and experiment to see what works best

Any other suggestions?

Hmmmm... , whilst I see your point that it might spread the response, what I suppose I was trying to say before is Im not sure you would want to spread the response "too" evenly... and that you would be aiming for a greater response in the centre... but then if you are after a more even response across the drum than is standard, maybe your design hits the mark?

Lets hope someone that knows what there talking about comes along and offers some more useful advice than mine eh

Ah i see

Possibly, I mean I've seen some 'anti hotspot' posts', so I was assuming that spreading was the idea? Also I had a go on my friends acoustic hit, it seemed to have pretty even response!

But yeah, its something for me to think about thanks for your help!

You should check out the V-Drums forum.
There is a special DIY forum, tons of info there!


Maybe you can transfer this kit.
http://www.thomann.de/nl/millenium_tr2_uebungs_set.htm
You can use this as a guide.
http://members.cox.net/ampage/triggers.htm


You can also get normal drums and convert them.
This will cost a more than DIY pads. But this will you a pro like e-kit.