Drumming Geekery

The DDrum Pro trigger is useless with mesh heads, it needs the sound of real heads to work correctly.

Fortunately I only ordered one of these for testing, so I am not out as much as I would have been if I ordered 5.  So for now it looks like I will need to make my own triggers.

Yes you can look at my profile and it is pretty accurate in just a few short paragrahs.  My profile however does not say why I am here.

Well I have been following a good friend of mine Dan Shafer as he moved from various blogging platforms to eventually land here and for once he has very little bad to say about it.  You see I have watched Dan talk about various subjects over the last 11 or so years that I have known him, and in technology he has shown me to have some very accurate insite for how things are working, or not working as the case may be.  So when Dan has so much good to say with little bad, I tend to listen.

So I am here to see for myself why Dan moved away from the "more powerful" and complicated systems to what looks almost zenlike in its simplicity.  In fact it is so simple that I spent more time then I should have looking for features that I was sure were hiding in some link that I missed.

Since my current focus is on Drums this is where I will start my experiment.  Who knows where it will lead me.

OK, mesh drum heads pretty much suck by themselves.

To sum it up:

• Much quieter.
• plays closer to a real drum then practice pads.
• surface has a softer feel then my Evans heads.
• Can actually get a tiny little bit of tone out of the drums with mesh heads.
• Practicing now has an added difficulty of being too quite, making it harder to keep time.

Yes they do have a closer stick feel to my Evans heads then my practice pad does, but there is a certain softness to the feel that I don't like very much. I am using Pearl mesh heads right now, and they are all single ply heads. Perhaps double ply heads will have a better feel. they are much more expensive so I will probably check out a single head for the snare.  If that works maybe the bass drum also.

So next steps are:

Get triggers for at least snare and perhaps bass drum first. to experiment with.

Look into two layer mesh heads for snare and bass drum.

Put together a simple experiment to do some tests.

The Snare trigger will be an Acoustic Pro Trigger that is a two zone for rim and head to start with. I will also create a simple 6 channel i/o module to connect the trigger/s to using an arduino uno, Garage Band, and my almost entirely retired MacBook.  Total additional cost about $60 since all I need to get is the trigger.  I already have an Arduino, some XLR plugs, some cable, a few resistors and an old laptop.

Yes I love to play drums! Yes drums are loud and can become less then relaxing for those that live nearby.  Since I really do try not to be an insensitive jerk and practice at times that are less intrusive, I have found that finding optimal practice times can be dificult to indeed.  Since I really don't want to put down the sticks, I have been thinking about potential solutions to the problem.

an initial brain storm of the problem came up with the following possible solutions:

1. Move to someplace with a studio.
2. Create an isolated sound proof room to practice in.
3. Buy electric drums.
4. Practice on pillows.
5. Use rubber pads on top of the drum heads.
6. Use mesh drum heads and cymbal pads.

First I must keep in mind that my financial situation is currently less than ideal. So in reality 1 and 2 are not available as options. Option 3 while intriguing, would also be a stretch at this point.  Option 4  I already use to practice the rudiments.  This leaves me with rubber pads and mesh drum heads.

All my research shows that rubber pads change the feel of the drums and that mesh heads have the closest feel to "real" drum heads.  My research also shows that mesh heads can wear out very fast, and can be hard on the bearing surface of drum if you don't put something between the mesh and the bearing surface.  Even with the potential downside mesh heads are looking better then pads, at least as an initial experiment.

There is another point to explore.  Mesh heads are supposed to be pretty good for electric drums and you can get triggers that attach to drums which you can connect to a drum module like Yamaha's DTX 500 or Roland's TD-4.  Combine this with a VH-12 high-hat and a few CY-12C symbols and I would have a pretty respectable electric drum kit. 

So, first step.  Get some mesh drum heads with mutes for the cymbals and high-hat.  Then see how well they perform in practice. If all goes well, then look into getting ahold of a second hand module and trigger to see how that goes.  Who knows, I could have a pretty good electric drum kit at the end of all this.