I posted last month about my new Yamaha EAD10 drum recorder and mentioned that the built-in trigger was not working with my kit. I have seen that others have the same issue with various bass drums. One solution is to buy a separate trigger. These can cost abut £60. The EAD10 was fairly expensive, so I was not really wanting to spend much more right now. I had seen mention of DIY alternatives, so I opted to make my own.
I spent about £10 on the parts to make at least five sensors. I actually got ten of the piezo elements. I have done a fair bit of soldering, but this was a simple matter of connecting wires to a socket and it worked first time. I used some tape to fix the sensor to the drum head and have since used some velcro to secure the socket. I probably need to tweak the sensitivity as it may be a bit high.
The point of triggering samples from the bass drum is to get a variety of sounds that might require a more elaborate microphone setup. You can use triggers on the other drums too or use triggers independently to have more sounds. I just need to work out how to mount those.
I will say that the commercial triggers will be a lot more robust than mine, as they need to be if playing gigs. Mine are really only for use at home. If they break then it is no big deal.
Rock on!
▶️ 3Speak
