acoustic drums with electronic triggers

[The Garage]

I was wondering if anyone here has used electronic triggers along side their acoustic drums. My basic idea is that I would use a kik trigger and two mesh drum triggers for the toms, while using a real snare, hihat, and cymbals. Does this sound like a good idea? The reason I want to do this is so I can control the toms and kik sounds (by triggering different drum samples) after I record the kit. I wanted to combine the two because I heard that electronic cymbals don't sound very natural and snare rolls are fake-sounding. I might be wrong. Anyhoo, does this work in your opinion?

[elevate]

It works. B.C. from hed(pe) has a setup like that. He's got an acoustic snare, kick, and cymbals and has V-Drums for toms as well as a few of those rubber Roland pads. He has his own mixer on stage, so somtimes he uses the acoustic kick sound, sometimes a triggered kick sound, or a combination of both.

[The Garage]

i especially like this idea because i don't have to fuss around with kick drum sounds that fit with the bass. i can just record the midi and choose a SWEET sample after the fact. anyone have an experiences with the quality of snare triggers or are they still pretty fake....?

[kristian]

you can get triggers to attach to all your drums, and have a full kit and have all of them triggered. thats another possibility

[The Garage]

do these triggers have dynamics to them or is it any hit will trigger a sample at the same volume....? oh, and what's the company(s) that does this? thanks.

[elevate]

The dynamics will be handled by whatever module you use (DM-5, TD-10, etc..). You can set the module so any hit will trigger a sample at the same volume every time, but you don't have to. There are a few companies that make triggers for acoustic drums. ddrum is probably one of the better companies, but I believe Pintech and Hart Electronics make them as well.

[The Garage]

the problem with that acoustic drums with triggers on them is that you still have the toms and kik bleeding into the other microphones (overheads and snare mics), even if the sound is being triggered.

[elevate]

That's why you either need a sound guy that knows exactly what you want and is willing to do it (doubtful), or you need a mixer for yourself on stage so you can mute certain channels when necessary. That's why B.C. from hed (as I mentioned earlier) has a mixer on stage with him. It's never gonna be as perfect a solution as you could get in the studio, but you can get close.

[enemyofthesun]

is this for recording? If so I use a DM5 with a trigger and a D112 together to get a great kick sound. If the mix is really busy I will usually use the DM5 track. The rest of the drum is all acoustic. You would be suprised how common that is

[The Garage]

that's probably what i'm going to end up doing. i have a rolan td-7 with a bunch of those rubber pads. i think i'll end up replacing the kick with the td-7 trigger. i'm particularly interested in being able to get the bass and kik to flow well together. this way, i can always change the sound later. thanks.