bileshake said:
Mr. Brown. where have you been all my life?! I'm totally fixed on the idea of triggering samples and crap live and could never ditch out the cake for the hitech pads and midi brains.
For future reference, after I aquire a Alesis controller and build my own triggers, what would it take to trigger custom samples from the kit live without a computer? A sampler midi linked to the D4? Just curious, I'm not a drummer or a keyboard geek I'm kinda lost with this stuff.
I can't wait to make this kit happen, I've D4's for about $300 cdn.
Look on line, there are all sorts of sites about building your own electronic drums.
There's a Yahoo club you can join. All electric drum pads work virtually the same way, some designs work better than others. You can convert
a Remo Practice pad into an electric drum for under $10 in electronic parts (a trigger, and a jack), and a drill.
ddrum pads, and V-drum pads all use the same parts, but with just different ways to mount the piezo element. I got into electronic drums back in the 80's with a Pearl and Simmons electic kit. I picked the pearl set up used, and the first thing I did was tear one of the toms apart to see how it worked! LOL!
You can not imagine my shock to find that I was beating on a piece of paneling with rubber on one side and a trigger glued underneath it. No wonder we all had wrist problems from playing on those things!
It was like hitting a desk.
If you want to trigger a sampler - stay away from the Alesis units. They are fine for triggering the internal sounds, but the actual Trigger to Midi Processor is really slow. I learned the hard way.
I would suggest either a Ddrum or v-drum sound module with TMI for that.
The ddrum (I use a ddrum 2) is the fastest trigger to MIDI converter on the market, but the V-drum is close behind. The ddrum leaves the Trigger in the analog domain, while the V-drum units convert to digital right away....and this conversion is what causes the V-drum's processing to be a hair slower.
Look for them on E-bay. I picked up my ddrum2 for $400, and the sounds within it are incredible as far as I'm concerned - it sounds exactly like a drumkit. I also use it to trigger
a Yamaha A3000 Rackmount Sampler.
You can pick up used Sampler's for virtually nothing on E-bay - everybody is dropping them now that they can Sample on a PC. (for my purposes - I prefer the rackmounted sampler, I've got the sampler and the ddrum2 unit in a rack, along with a few other rack pieces...)
I'll get you some links for DIY electric drum sites, and post them here. (I have a list of them on another HD... my PC crashed a few weeks ago and my main HD bit the dust, so I can't just copy and paste them.
Tim
