I posted last month about my new Yamaha EAD10 drum recorder and mentioned that the built-in trigger was not working with my kit. I have seen that others have the same issue with various bass drums. One solution is to buy a separate trigger. These can cost abut £60. The EAD10 was fairly expensive, so I was not really wanting to spend much more right now. I had seen mention of DIY alternatives, so I opted to make my own.
I spent about £10 on the parts to make at least five sensors. I actually got ten of the piezo elements. I have done a fair bit of soldering, but this was a simple matter of connecting wires to a socket and it worked first time. I used some tape to fix the sensor to the drum head and have since used some velcro to secure the socket. I probably need to tweak the sensitivity as it may be a bit high.
The point of triggering samples from the bass drum is to get a variety of sounds that might require a more elaborate microphone setup. You can use triggers on the other drums too or use triggers independently to have more sounds. I just need to work out how to mount those.
I will say that the commercial triggers will be a lot more robust than mine, as they need to be if playing gigs. Mine are really only for use at home. If they break then it is no big deal.
Rock on!
▶️ 3Speak
my friend, this is all sorts of clever!
I should share with you. I met an expat here, about 10 min away. Dude is a drummer, and we are going to get together tomorrow to record some stuff. So hopefully, soon, I'm going to share some new music muhself.
It's fun to make stuff like this and it may be as good as a much more expensive option.
Good luck with the music project. I'd really like to drum with others more often to see what happens. It's a bit far to your place though :)
That’s a great piece of DIY. goes to show that money can be saved with a little ingenuity!
Are u a drummer? My friend can play a string instrument and would like to build such a studio to record his playing, but he says it is expensive.
Well I play the drums :)
A studio can be very basic. You need a microphone, an audio interface and some software that could be free to get started. It could be cheap or expensive, but the quality can be down to how you use what you have. Get your friend to blog about it on Hive!
You saved money and still got the job done, respect. Don't have an instrument but making your own gear just looks cooler. I hope it holds up for a long time
That's an impressive DIY solution! It's great to see you taking matters into your own hands and crafting a functional alternative that fits your budget.