www.megadrum.info

Hey Guys,

im new to the Forum, and have a couple of questions regarding wiring and MD in general. Im looking forward to buy a 56 Input version, when all my questions get answeared.
Im from Germany, so sorry for my mediocre english

First of all, i bought a few piezos, copper braid and LED's and started playing around, just to get used to wiring and understanding stuff (it's my first DIY project of this kind).
After some succesfull attempts (LED's lit up after hitting the Piezo), i collected a few ideas, of how i wanted to build my triggers (I want to trigger Low volume Cymbals).
The core idea is, that i want to make the Piezo detachable from a little box, where a poti sits inside. So if the Piezo is dead, i just plug it out, and a new one in.
And here come the first few Questions:

I want to attach and detach the Piezo from the little "poti box" with a 3,5mm Audio Jack. Does that propperly work? Does it deliver the nessecary power, or does it act like a ressistance? Because i saw a forum post saying, that a 3,5mm audio jack is not a good idea for a trigger.
Is a 6,35mm Audio Jack a better choice? I was also thinking about the 3,5mm jack having thiner cables, that are easier to hide and cheaper in price.

The next questions is about the cable i used. For my experiments, i used basic copper braiding, with a very basic shielding (just a plastic jacket). Is this kind of cable enought, or is it better to use an audio cable (like instrument cables for 6,35mm jacks or audio cable for 3,5mm jacks)?

Next up, was die "poti box". I saw a wiring shematic online (shematic 1) and i wanted to know, if this one works with MG.

Furthermore, i saw online, that someone is using a 100k linear poti, to cool it down. Is this true, or should i take a higher or lower one? What kind of poti resistance is good?
If i want to go with two Piezos and two potis, i have to wire it like in shematic 2 right? Then i have a Stereo Jack for a stereo input on MG. For example as a dual zone cymbal.


The last thing concerns adding two signals together:
1. I have two basedrums. Is it possible, to feed two bassdrum triggers through the mono input for bassdrum on MG? Like two triggers sending alternating signals to the bassdrum mono input. they wouldnt be played at the same time. but what happens if i did?

2. I want to sum two mono signals togehter and feed it through one stereo jack into a stereo input on MG (like 2 seperate toms or cymbals). I wanted to do it without splitter cables, because that would be too much of a mess. I was thinking about building a 19" Rack box, that summs 2 signals into a stereo one. then i can pluq it in with a small stereo cable in the back. I would do that like shematic 3. Is that possible?


Furthermore: Can i feed a one zone Cymbal with choke (piezo/switch) and a one zone mono cymbal (just piezo) through a singe MG stereo input? If yes, how would the wiring for that look like?


Thank you in advance for you help. I saw so many cool things and this forum, and i hope you can answear my questions so i can be a viable part to this awesome community !

Greetings,

Cheatz

Do you intend buying the kit or Dmitri's pre-wired box?

airflamesred wrote:Do you intend buying the kit or Dmitri's pre-wired box?

Intended to buy the pre build one. Does that change anything?

1. MegaDrum has plenty of inputs. You can feed two bass drums to tow inputs.
2. The schematic you showed will work. In fact this is exactly what a Y-splitter cable does.
3. You cannot feed a piezo/switch cymbal and another single zone cymbal to the same stereo input. A piezo/switch cymbal, even though the switch is just for choking, will you use two inputs so no input left on a stereo input for another single zone cymbal.

dmitri wrote:1. MegaDrum has plenty of inputs. You can feed two bass drums to tow inputs.
2. The schematic you showed will work. In fact this is exactly what a Y-splitter cable does.
3. You cannot feed a piezo/switch cymbal and another single zone cymbal to the same stereo input. A piezo/switch cymbal, even though the switch is just for choking, will you use two inputs so no input left on a stereo input for another single zone cymbal.

1. Ok i can Life with that haha

2. So all my 3 schematics are correct?

3. Ok got it


How about my cable concerns? Is a small audio Jack (3,5mm) enought with a small audio cable, or should i go for a 6,35mm Jack with instrument cableing?

The 3.5 will work but the quarter inch is much more robust.

airflamesred wrote:The 3.5 will work but the quarter inch is much more robust.

I see Makes sense.
And how about cables? I would use istrument cables then, but still have a problem for the stereo jack. Cant find cable with 3 wires inside, for tip sleeve and ring. The only ones i found, are microphone cables and not instrument cables. Does that make a difference?

And how about the potis? What number of ressistance would make sense to build in?

You can use standard stereo cables.
You may not need pots at all. But if you need to "cool" any triggers you can use ~10k pot inline on the signal wire.