Triggers & Drum Machines

[Gear_Junky]

Hi, all! I've got a Boss Dr.660 drum machine and I'd like to put triggers on my acoustic drumset. Can this drum machine be used as the "brain"? If so, how would I connect all the triggers? Is there a device that would "mix" them into the MIDI port and would the drum-machine still let me assign the voices?

Thank you, any help is apreciated.

 

[Tim Brown]

Hi Gear_Junky,


If you can solder, you can build a Trigger to MIDI Interface (a TMI), other than that-you'll have to look on E-bay for a used D4 or DM5 for the cheapest route-or Yamaha made one that sounded really good, but I can't remember the model offhand.
Here's the TMI from Paia Electronics-it's an Electronic kit that you build.
http://www.paia.com/midibrn.htm


Hope this helps,
Tim

 

[Gear_Junky]

Thank you for that info, Tim! I can solder (sorta and my father can help with schematics, but is that for sure that this will work with my drum machine? Will I be able to assign voices to each trigger? Have you (or anybody) done something like this? Thanks.

P.S. Looking on ebay for a DM5 is a good idea, too.

 

[jmorris]

Tim, I think you answered a question I just posted.(was very busy,did not get a chance to preview question). I can use a DM5 kick sound triggered by the accoustic kick to creat a better sound right. I can have two tracks of kick drum, one DM5 and one accoustic kick. Jim

 

[Tim Brown]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jmorris:
Tim, I think you answered a question I just posted.(was very busy,did not get a chance to preview question). I can use a DM5 kick sound triggered by the accoustic kick to creat a better sound right. I can have two tracks of kick drum, one DM5 and one accoustic kick. Jim<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes,
I do it all the time. If I want a different sound than my Kick is getting. I'll record the Kick Track with the Kick drums on to one track. I'll gate and limit going to tape-and set it up for Maximum volume on the track-then take the Track's output-and feed that to my DM5 via a send on the board, then bring the output of the DM5 back into the system.

I have the DM5 outputs and a Sampler hooked up to a second mixer(a Carvin Studiomate) that's brought back into my Mackie 1604VLZ.

If you have enough separation of tracks-you could essentially replace your entire drumkits sounds.
I personally don't like the tuning on the Toms of the DM5-they aren't tuned "far enough apart" to me-so I normally just use my regular tom sounds.

It works like a charm for me.

Tim

 

[John Sayers]

i find when using a DM5 to replace live drums that its a good idea to record the midi signal rather than the sample and then advance the midi track , (it's an option in most sequencers) in millisec to make up for the trigger delay. Then put the original sound up against the midi driven sample and advance the delay until they phase. It really affects the feel!