acoustic set with electronic kick

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zildjohn01

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hi all, i'm looking for a way to put an electronic kick under my acoustic set (to eliminate snare buzz/tom ring, so it'd hopefully be quiet or silent). i'm thinking of taking my bass heads off and putting the trigger in place of the front head... is there any way to mount an electronic trigger on an acoustic shell? or kick heads that are designed to be silent?

and if i got this trigger, could i plug it directly into a line in and process it with drumagog/replacer, as opposed to buying an electronic kit module and using midi?

thanks for the help
 
If you have a 20" kick, you could get one of those silent heads they use on Pearl Rhythm Traveler kits and put a trigger on the kick as if it had a regular head.
 
Are you concerned about sympathetic vibrations on the snare? Can't you just gate those?

Also, consider that the human senses detect all sorts of things that tell us that things are "real" and "right". For example, if I watch a movie with special effects and the shadows are not EXACTLY right, I may not realize that the shadows are slightly out of proportion. All I know is that it doesn't look right. It even gets more subtle - light reflections, etc... the brain knows what's supposed to be there and sends up red flags when something is out of whack.

My point here is that you need to be careful in your efforts to isolate the drum parts. You don't want to isolate to the point where the kit sounds like it was recorded in different rooms, on different days, with different drummers, and by different engineers.
 
it's partly for isolation, but mostly so i can freely edit the kick track separate from the rest of the set. actually the snare buzzing isn't a problem, it's more for isolation from the overheads. i downloaded a kick sample, along with recording and processing my own, and i could barely tell the difference between them when i put them with the rest of the kit, so it looks like it should blend well.

i ended up buying a mesh head and a trigger (actually i asked for it for christmas, if i don't get it i'll buy it anyways), i'm gonna see how they work out, and i'll post back here once i get it set up.
 
You may find that using the electronic kick is alot simpler and your recordings could benefit from it. Definitely go the mesh head route if you want to do a hybrid trigger. Yeah, it isn't the same as properly micing a real acoustic kick but it is definitely a more productive means to an end that will yield you more professional-sounding results. Check out vdrums.com and edrummer.com for more DIY conversion possibilities. Dig around the Showcase secition and you'll see some kits that'll make you melt.

There's quite a few drummers out there now who are investing thousands of $$ into hybrid e-kit recording setups because the convincng playability and modeling of the sounds have finally met the apex point to compete with acoustics in the recording realm.
 
Meh. There are still very few electronic kits that really sound authentic enough to fool someone who spends a lot of time listening to real drums. Electric drums are able to matched acoustic drums that have been processed, but I still doubt you'd see a jazz player hit the studio with an electric kit.

I spoke about how the ear picks up the most minute things? This includes when the drum attacks are EXACTLY the same, every single time.

That having been said, there's certainly something nice about having a few million drumsets in your arsenal. There's also something to be said about not dealing with mics, room acoustics, or unneeded crosstalk. One of my favorite bands is ApologetiX, a Christian parody band. In order to perfectly match drum tones to the original, their old drummer used an electric kit for every track, simply programmed to match up.

I just don't like 'em because no matter how sensitive they get, there's no way that 4 separate tones on snare drum (impressive for an electric kit) can match up to the hundreds of distinct, albeit subtle, tones on an acoustic snare. If you're seeking consistency and ease, the electric kit works wonders.

One final note: Most TV show drummers (and I would assume many other pros) use acoustic drums, but rather than actually miking, they simply trigger everything and go from there. It helps the sound engineer immensely.

Btw, is there a electric kit yet that can send multiple outputs to the board? Just curious.
 
i dont know what it is but derek roddy uses a really different trigger that is mounted on the side of his pedal, so that his beater still hits the acoustic kick, and a small box is hit by a tiny pin-like beater to trigger the sample. if you could find out what this is it may be worth a go.
 
BlackHawk2029 said:
i dont know what it is but derek roddy uses a really different trigger that is mounted on the side of his pedal, so that his beater still hits the acoustic kick, and a small box is hit by a tiny pin-like beater to trigger the sample. if you could find out what this is it may be worth a go.
Click to expand...

That would be the Axis e-kit that I mentioned above.
 
i though the e-kit used the beater flipped downwards and a button-looking thing attached in the bass drum hoop clamp? maybe im an idiot.
 
Nope, e=electric. The rubber thingee is just a piece of rubber that sticks into the hoop clamp. You can use the trigger with either that or normal drums, or a wall or a fake leg.
 
dkerwood said:
Btw, is there a electric kit yet that can send multiple outputs to the board? Just curious.
Click to expand...


Yesh. I have a DDrum4 brain that has 6 outputs, which you can assign the different sounds to independently for flexible mixing later on or in a live situation, you can let Johnny Knobs mix all the different elements the way he sees fit. I believe the higher end Roland modules might have even more outputs, I'm not sure. Even the inexpensive Alesis DM5 has a left, Right, and two auxiliary outs so that you can set it up for 4 independent outputs by panning the different sounds hard left/right on the main outs and hard left/right on the Auxiliarys.

I wonder though, in the original post something was mentioned about getting by without a trigger module. I've never tried it, but can't you actually plug the trigger into a mixer channel to get at least a simple signal which could later be used to trigger Drumagog? Might be worth messing around with if you dont need a good kick sound while tracking.
 
dkerwood said:
Btw, is there a electric kit yet that can send multiple outputs to the board? Just curious.
Click to expand...

The TD8 has 6 separate outs and the TD10 has 8... Not sure about the TD12 or TD20 but I assume they're comparable.

When reading your answer to the post, I was getting the impression that you either haven't had that much experience with electronics or your experience with them is pretty dated...

When you asked that last question I figured out which one it was (since the TD8 was released 7 years ago)....

;)

Electronics have come a long way both in the digital samples and the triggers/pads... The Harts and Rolands with mesh heads are amazing and DO allow the subtle nuances normally not associated with electronic drums of the past.

Jazz drummers using Electronics in the studio?

Omar Hakim, Gregg Bissonette, Peter Erskine, Marco Minnemann, Johnny Rabb, just to name a few...

Agreed... Electrics are not acoustics... But they're in use a lot more than you think

:)
 
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