Drum Triggers

[M Havlen]

What's exactly is a " drum trigger" is it like mic'ing your kit? If so , what's the difference? Thanks

[bonzo333]

i don't really understand what you mean by drum trigger? i think it has to do with electronic kits....?

[TimOBrien]

A drum trigger is a transducer (a crystal) that takes mechanical motion and converts it into an electrical signal. This signal can then be used by a drum computer to trigger sounds or send a MIDI signal to your computer.

You can buy them for $20 or build them from $1.79 piezos from Radio Shack.

Here's a good site: http://edrum.for.free.fr/


(I just bought a Roland SPD-S and built my own trigger. It's very, very easy.)

[M Havlen]

Thanks Tim, so these are used on electronic drum kits only?

[Nik D]

Nope, they're for accoustic kits. Electronic ones already have them built into the pads.

[M Havlen]

So, It's like mic'n your drums. Do you stick them on the heads? And you can plug them into a recording console? I notice there inexpensive compared to a good set of mic's. If your able to get good recording with them, why use mic's?

[sellthekids]

It turns a regular set into an electric. The triggers use the drumming you play and turns into a singnal a drum module can use. Then it plays the sound you choose on the module, but you can still use the drums.It is like a motion midi device.But I thought about getting some do they work good and sound good.

[Bulls Hit]

There are also software triggers like Drumagog. If you record your accoustic kit onto 3 tracks say, snare, kick and overhead and you don't like your snare sound, Drumagog will replace each snare hit with one of it's samples. The software is pretty clever - you can raise and lower the trigger threshold, pick up ghost notes, flams etc. and blend the sample with the real drum sound, Demo can be d/l'd from www.drumagog.com

[zekthedeadcow]

If you use SONAR 2 or later (I don't know about 1 ...or three even) The function "Extract Timing" can be used as a trigger. Essentially it scans the waveform and looks for audio peaks over a certain loudness...say -18 Db... and then puts a midi note there ...which you have to paste onto another midi track and then you have to run that midi track though a DXi... so if you want to replace the snare drum you get the midi track and then run it through a DXi with the sound you want...works wonders expecially on kick...

[VTgreen81]

How about using triggers with mesh heads? I want to record triggered drums without the acoustic drum sound, but I want to use live cymbals. Could I replace my batter heads with mesh practice heads and trigger those?

[sellthekids]

triggers are not mics.they send signals.

[VTgreen81]

" triggers are not mics.they send signals"

I know that . But If I'm using overhead mics for cymbals I don't want the sound of the acoustic drums in the mix, that's why I'm asking if acoustic drum triggers work with mesh heads.

[Nik D]

Sure, I don't see why they wouldn't. You might have to play around with placement and sensitivity, but that should work just fine.