A newbie's experience building Megadrum

[dizzib3]

Hi all,

I'm a newbie to megadrum and have just finished the intial construction phase using the amazing Synthex all in one kit, so I just wanted to put down in words my experiences which will hopefully help some others out there.

As far as electronic go my skill level isn't brilliant but I know the difference between a resistor and a capacitor and how to solder, and it seems that is enough!

Essential tools were a cheap multimeter to check for short-circuits on neighbouring pins, and a magnifying glass to read the tiny writing on the capacitors, plus I found the following sites which helped with figuring out which parts are what...

Resistor colour codes: http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Resistor_Codes
Capacitor code information: http://www.csgnetwork.com/capcodeinfo.html

Since everything is clearly marked on the board it was very easy to see where things should go, but even so I did find Synthex's board photos extremely useful.

The 40pin ribbon cable is an old IDE cable I had lying around.

My OS is Windows Server 2008 x64 and when connected via USB the device is listed under Sound, video and game controllers as "MegaDrum MIDI USB", no driver installation required, and no firmware updates needed thanks to Synthex.

I'm using a Jobeky snare and an impromptu kick using a Maplin piezo until my KD8 arrives next week. I was amazed that my initial wiring attempt succeeded -- simply connect the kick pizeo red wire to the ribbon wire #5 and the black wire to ribbon wire #1 (ground), easy!

My Echo Mia Midi gives 1ms latency @32 samples @96k, and addictive drums plays better than I thought possible considering I haven't even gotten to tweak the settings yet!

The next phase is to hook up the lcd and keyboard, jacks and box, then make some diy toms


Dimitri, I have contributed as a gesture of appreciation for your hard work.

Cheers,
Andy.

[Synthex]

Thanks !

[dmitri]

Dimitri, I have contributed as a gesture of appreciation for your hard work.

Many thanks!

[dcho]

I was just a bit concerned, but it looks like your kick pedal is aimed directly at that piezo that is glued/taped to the metal disk. Please tell me I'm wrong.

[fabodrum]

it looks to me like the beater hits the cd a few in/cm low of the piezo, where the cd is actually backed up by the monitor (or whatever that black box may be).
if the beater went straight for the piezo, the experience should first be that of a 127-const. curve and later be that of a 000-const. curve

this setup should put out a very crude wave to trigger from, as it lacks real damping. i´m amazed it works without any tweaking. then again, retigger time doesn´t need to be short on a single base. maybe the kick input has a pretty long one by default?

[dizzib3]

Don't worry folks, I've now got my new KD8 and that piezo has moved into my crash cymbal, and I'm making good progress with the box and remote-control and will post some pics when done, hopefully quite soon

I don't know if this might help someone else out there, but for some reason my setup only works with MIDI speed set to 31250. I'm running over USB plugged into Windows Server 2008 64-bit.

Also I had problems after I'd reassembled everything in the box, for no apparent reason MD booted into 'quick access' mode but I don't even have a digital hihat. Finally solved it by clearing the settings (right button on power-on) and setting 'quick access' to off and 'big vu meter' to no.

Also been having some issues with the synthex kit buttons so I've ordered some high quality tactile buttons instead

[Synthex]

Megadrum with my USB part (PIC18F2550) only works with MIDI speed set to 31250, the speed of MIDI. All other speeds are obsolete.

[dizzib3]

As promised here's some pics. I'm pretty much done for now and have to say that I'm very pleased with the result.

I find woodwork much easier than metalwork so decided to use a wooden box which I found down the local market for 5GBP. The remote control is made out of a couple of coasters screwed together and houses the tactile buttons which light up to show midi activity I did consider putting the lcd in the remote but in the end I wasn't sure how to cut a rectangular hole!

So overall the experience has been surprisingly straightforward, but I did hit a couple of stumbling blocks which were solved by reading around the forums and trying things out for myself. The necessary info seems to be out there but does take some finding since it's scattered around these forums.