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I designed this based on the Yamaha three zone cymbal schematic the was posted HERE. I need to know if this is a workable circuit with Megadrum. It incorporates a main piezo, a modified KRC piezo/switch for the bell and a switch for the edge. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jman

EDIT: Incorrect image deleted by Jman 31

Sorry, just added the circuit!

I don't quite understand. If you have a cymbal with real edge and bell switches why are you complicating it with the circuit?

I don't really like the bell switches that I have seen, and no I don't have a cymbal with real bell and edge switches. I am in the process of designing one and I want to put a piezo there because although it complicates the circuit, I believe it simplifies the build. stick a piezo on it with some two sided tape and it's done.

If you have an idea for a bell switch that looks and works as good as an over-the-counter product, I would be glad to see it. Oh and it needs to be on the underside of the cymbal.

Jman

Your schematic confused me. It shows that the connections go to switches rather than piezos.

Whoops, You are absolutely correct. Here is the revised. Sorry about that!

EDIT: Incorrect image deleted by Jman 31

I bread boarded it and made a slight change. I moved the 10K resistor from the edge circuit to the bell curcuit. It was the only way I could get it to work. I am going to make a PCB for it this weekend and see if I can dial it in. I have to learn a lot more about the settings on the MD before I will have any success.

Here is the revised circuit.

I built this circuit and it seems to work great. I will know more once it is installed on a cymbal. I played around with the threshold settings and got all three zones to trigger. Here is the PCB. It fits in a 35mm piezo buzzer shell. I will post some pics of it soon.

I am at my wits end with setting up the 3-zone ride cymbal. I have tried all of the settings found in the 3-zone cymbal thread to the best of my knowledge. I get two zones no problem. I am assuming that it is the edge and the bow. I can not seem to get the bell no matter how hard I try. My setup is the schematic I show above.

One question, on the VU meter I get activity on the top 4th bar (bow?) and the bottom 4th bar (edge?). Every now and then I will get activity on the bottom 5th bar. Is that where I should be looking for the bell activity? Or is there even a bar for the bell activity? When it does trigger that 5th bar (which is rare) it makes a new drum sound.

I am using a 25mm piezo to trigger the bell circuit, could the smaller signal from that have anything to do with the problems?

Please Help, I'm getting very frustrated.

Thanks
Jman

Here is a picture of the cymbal

jman 31 wrote:One question, on the VU meter I get activity on the top 4th bar (bow?) and the bottom 4th bar (edge?). Every now and then I will get activity on the bottom 5th bar. Is that where I should be looking for the bell activity? Or is there even a bar for the bell activity? When it does trigger that 5th bar (which is rare) it makes a new drum sound.

Edge and bell activity are displayed on the same bottom bar. What you get on the next bottom bar is a crosstalk signal. Piezo/switch/switch support in MegaDrum is meant for a "piezo/real switch/real switch" cymbal. I cannot suggest any real settings for this circuit without testing its dynamic characteristics. I can only suggest to try setting thresholds with "Set All EdgeSw" and "Set All BellSw" from http://www.megadrum.info/content/miscelenous-settings .