Kick Triggers

[JustaBassist]

for post hardcore/hardcore drums how do you go through the whole trigger/kick process???

[Tim Brown]

#1. Purchase a sound module of some sort (ddrum and Roland are both excellent. Alesis makes worthless pieces of crap, and as far as I'm concerned if it says Alesis on it - it is NOT a Professional piece of gear, and I will not waste my time using it, and wouldn't even promote it to my worst enemies.

#2.Purchase a trigger for your Kick Drum (about $70 dollars + a high quality Cable....figure $100 for the Trigger and the Cable) Both Roland and ddrum triggers are good. anything that you glue to the head, like those "$10 Red Dots" are useless pieces of crap that are sold to people who don't know anything about triggering.


Then of course, you will also need an output cable, and if you intend to practice with this system, you'll need a PA system with at least about 3,000 watts of power and a pair of high quality (Peavy or Carvin at the very minimum) subwoofers - otherwise your kick sound will be hogging the PA, and the singer and guitarist will either end up quitting, or turning your kick channel off. LOL


You mount the trigger to the Kick drum's batter side head. Pack some muffling inside the kick drum to control the resonance, and eliminate any false triggers, and then connect a cable from the Sound Module to the Trigger input of the Kick channel on the Sound Module.


Now, to be honest -as long as the drummer is not using Heel-Toe or any of the speeds reached by Death Metal drummers, he can probably use just about any old sound module with a Trigger to MIDI interface. If you are after a dead "country" Thud trype of Kick drum sound - even the old Simmons, Pearl, or Tama Techstar Sound modules from the 80's will deliver that sound.
How do I know? because I've own all three. The Kick drum was the only thing where an acce[ptable "Thud" was generated back then, you just shortened the length of the resonance, so the sound was cut off right after the strike.

If you intended to trigger any other sounds - I would go with a new Sound Module, as the Ddrum and Roland units that are out these days both have very convincing drumsounds in them. I can't really comment on Yamaha's sound modules because I have no experience with them.



Tim