I have been building my own drum pads for my alesis d4 unit for several years. I use the remo practice pads and piezos from Radioshack. These work pretty well and my design is excellent(I was a mechanical engineer in a past life) but I want to know if home-built technology has moved past this remo/radioshack era.
Specifically, recently I bought some Pearl mesh practice heads and have been using some Ddrum triggers on these. Works pretty well, but I want something more elegant. When I go to the music store, I generally spend alot of time trying to see inside the Vdrums or Hart mesh pads. Seems like they just have a mesh head with a "column" of foam or something connecting the mesh head to the piezo trigger. Damnit, I know I can reproduce this, but I need input from any other garage edrum builders! $200-300 is alot to pay for one mesh pad from roland or Hart. Especially if we can think up a design using a $7 mesh drumhead, my existing drum shells, a $2 cord, and a $1.49 piezo from RadioShack.
Specifically, recently I bought some Pearl mesh practice heads and have been using some Ddrum triggers on these. Works pretty well, but I want something more elegant. When I go to the music store, I generally spend alot of time trying to see inside the Vdrums or Hart mesh pads. Seems like they just have a mesh head with a "column" of foam or something connecting the mesh head to the piezo trigger. Damnit, I know I can reproduce this, but I need input from any other garage edrum builders! $200-300 is alot to pay for one mesh pad from roland or Hart. Especially if we can think up a design using a $7 mesh drumhead, my existing drum shells, a $2 cord, and a $1.49 piezo from RadioShack.