www.megadrum.info

Hi.

I want to convert a few A cymbals (crashes and splashes) to single zone E's with choke switches but I really want to avoid moving parts and I want to keep circuitry on the cymbal itself to an absolute minimum. I came upon the following circuit on Vdrums.com yesterday:



I thought: Maybe I could build a small board with a few of these switch circuits and simply put it between the input board and the main board of my Synthex-kit MegaDrum. That way the "switch" would be on the cymbal and the circuit would be on the other end of the cable, inside my MegaDrum.



The basic cymbal design I'm thinking about is a clear PVC coat on the underside that stops about 4mm from the outside edge of the cymbal. Then there's a 4mm strip of aluminum foil (some kind of brass foil would look better if I can find some) about 1mm from the outer edge of the PVC. The aluminum film is connected to Ring and the cymbal itself is connected to Sleeve, the Piezo is connected as usual to Sleeve and Tip. When a finger touches both the strip and the cymbal edge (like a regular choke grip), it closes the switch.

I really don't know much about electronics so I thought I'd ask: Do you think that a few meters of cable between the circuit and the actual touch surface would interfere and stop this kind of switch from working?

Another question: I assume I can get the 5v current needed for this kind of switch directly from MD with no need of batteries. Am I right?

I guess I should mention that I've also been looking at a different kind of touch switch (here and here) but that method seems to require the whole circuit to be on the cymbal itself. I would rather keep the cymbals as simple as possible and keep most of the circuitry inside my MD.

It also really seems like nobody has really gotten anywhere with the whole-cymbal-capacitance-switch method so far.

I realized I've been overcomplicating this waaay too much. This kind of touch switch (like my illustration of the cymbal in the original post) works on the MD without ANY electronics. To many of you I might be stating the obvious but I'm not an electronics genius and this was not obvious to me and this might be the case with a LOT of current and potential MD users. What I did not know is that it's really easy to make a choke switch for MD A2E cymbals with no moving parts and no extra electronics.

To clarify, I just built a crude prototype of this:



It's wired so: Piezo Ceramic > Tip / Piezo Disc > Sleeve / Cymbal > Sleeve / Aluminum Strip > Ring. It has no other electronics (no transistors or resistors) whatsoever and is plugged straight to a standard input on the MD. The head part of the input is set to Dual Head: Yes and the rim part is set to Type: Switch and Threshold: 30. The switch works flawlessly even with my very dry hands.

Here's a few photos of my crude prototype:






I might make a video of it when I have time if there's any interest.

There doesn't really seem to be any interest in this thread but I decided to make a demo video for the guys at vdrums.com and I suppose it won't hurt to post it here as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u24R07uJoo

Enjoy.

einkahumor wrote:There doesn't really seem to be any interest in this thread but I decided to make a demo video for the guys at vdrums.com and I suppose it won't hurt to post it here as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u24R07uJoo

Enjoy.

Thanks for posting this video and technical data.

I have my entire set disassembled at the moment; I am building metal isolation mounts and a curved metal rack to suspend all of my hardware and this part of my project has become more time consuming that I expected it to be. My set is both a "low volume acoustic" and "electric" all in the same set, so all of my effort at the moment is on the developmental side. Your idea has a lot of promise because I plan on using the Zildjian AE Cymbals on my set, (they are made of real metal and completely acoustic), your idea will aid me in converting them into being used as electric triggers.

Please keep us updated on your project, I know I will be putting the ideas to use.

- Bean

einkahumor wrote:There doesn't really seem to be any interest in this thread

I wouldn't go that far. I am interested because all my triggers are diy. Any diy trigger info is interesting to me!

Nice demo by the way. Do you have a life expectancy for your touch switch? Right now I am looking at various materials and I'm not sure what to use.

Replies! Yea!

Bean wrote:I plan on using the Zildjian AE Cymbals on my set

Do you plan on dampening them with PVC? I'm no expert but I think undampened Gen16 AE's will be very hard to trigger accurately because of the ongoing vibrations after the actual stick hit. Dampened however, they could very easily be modified with such a switch using aluminum, would look amazing. Very expensive DIY AE2E cymbals though.

kupooglop wrote:Do you have a life expectancy for your touch switch? Right now I am looking at various materials and I'm not sure what to use.

I've only had it for a couple of weeks so I don't know. This switch has no moving parts so it should last pretty long, far longer than film-switches.

I will keep you posted on my build and comments and ideas are welcome of course. I'm still working on another prototype and then I need to source some materials for the "final" versions so don't hold your breath.

einkahumor wrote:Replies! Yea!

Bean wrote:I plan on using the Zildjian AE Cymbals on my set

Do you plan on dampening them with PVC? I'm no expert but I think undampened Gen16 AE's will be very hard to trigger accurately because of the ongoing vibrations after the actual stick hit. Dampened however, they could very easily be modified with such a switch using aluminum, would look amazing. Very expensive DIY AE2E cymbals though.

I hope not to dampen them at all. The Gen16 AE's have a fast sudden attack with a soft resonation that occurs after the initial strike of being hit by a drum stick. The stick strike is much louder then the cymbal sound. I have some ideas on how to condition the single from the piezo so that the MegaDrum will only get exposed to the "fast sudden attack" part of the stick strike. I will not know for sure that this idea will even work until I can get the cymbal set to test with, the product is not yet released. I use Superior Drummer for my cymbal sounds and trigger the cymbals by round sheets of polycarbonate fused to thin sheet of copper alloy. I use the alloy side of the DIY cymbal as the strike side and the polycarbonate side to dampen the variation. My DIY cymbal is a far cry from what I hoped for it to be; it is acceptable as a trigger device however it is useless as an acoustic cymbal.

Eventually I hope to use the Gen16 AE's as low-volume acoustic cymbals with the low-volume side of my DIY drums as a full acoustic only set. The drums that I made have 2 inches deep shells with a mesh head on one side and an Evans hydraulic head on the other side. When I hit the mesh head it resonates the Evans head enough to sound just like an open drum at a much lower volume. I have a rubber plug, (normally used on test-tubes), between the mesh head and each piezo so I get no false triggers from the resonation of the drumhead. The MegaDrum will allow me to fire up the computer and use this acoustic setup to trigger Superior Drummer. I must have split personalities because I love the edrums for its flexibility in sounds and editing/recording, however I just haven’t been able to let got of having a real acoustic drum set.

The drums I made can’t be heard in the next room when used on the low-volume acoustic side. My DIY cymbals are however very disappointing so the Gen16 AE’s should save me from my dilemma. I can also flip the drums over and strike the head side for a louder version of the same sound.

When the day comes where I have finally reached my goal on this project I will post all of the details so other can utilize and expand upon it for their own use. Why settle for less if you can make something better yourself! The electronic drum industry is a big disappointment to me, the MegaDrum project is much better than that of any product I have ever seen sold the retail market. Your idea poses an easy solution for cymbal choke without visual compromise.

-Bean

WOW! I've just purchased a sheet of Mylar/copper (the thing used to make flexible circuit board). And i was thinking to make traditional filmsw for my crashes. But if MD detects so a little current, your project is the best way to go.
I'll try it asap.
Thanks!

Sounds good. Let us know how it goes.