electronic drum trigger substitute

[breeze]

Can I use a standard (momentary contact) 1/4" footswitch instead of a pad or trigger, or do these devices create some kind of signal? Thanks.

[Mark Hammer]

Pads and trigger sources will provide something that has the appropriate signal properties. A simple momentary switch wired to a 1/4" plug CAN have the needed properties, but often it may not.

There are a surfeit of circuits posted around the net describing ways to shape the signal arising from a simple button press to conform to what the drum "brain" needs to see.

[Enzo]

It has been a while, but in my limited experience, trigger inputs need some sort of voltage pulse. A simple switch won't provide that.

I once made a trigger footswitch for a guy. A momentary stomp switch that would trigger a drum sound whenever stomped on. I used a 9v battery and a cap and a resistor in simple circuit to provide a spike pulse whenever stomped. The drum machines I worked with were not too picky on the trigger waveform. After all, the actual triggers are just piezo sensors and you whack them.

[defaced]

I did a quick search online and there are a few tutorials on making DIY drum triggers. They all use a piezo device to generate the signal. This matches up with what I remember from the drummer from Nothingface (Chris Houck) saying about the triggers he made for touring. He mounted them inside the drum to reduce his setup time.

Drum Triggers DIY
The piezo this guy uses, and I think Houck also used, were Radio Shack part number 273073, 1.99 each.

[breeze]

Thanks for your replies. That's a good site. I'm not sure if it is worth going thru all that (to me). I came across a Drumkat MIDIKITI. It does not have onboard sounds. It takes the trigger or pad inputs, and converts to MIDI. I have a Kurz K2000 with decent drum samples, and I've been "playing the drums" on the keyboard. I thought it would be cool to have a few foot pedals to access some of the drum sounds, but wasn't sure if a momentary contact switch would work, or maybe, hurt the unit.

[quartz]

Hi Breeze.
You could try those triggers. Not expensive and 100% efficient.
Foam cones trigger for do it yourself electronic drum on eBay.ca (item 200354127288 end time 18-Jul-09 12:16:01 EDT)

[Bill Moore]

Way back in the last century, many of us playing acoustic drums bought some of the Syndrums to add to the set. I took the electronics out of the "drum" and mounted them in a RS enclosure, and used the "drum" with it's piezo for a trigger. I already had a small board for mixing my mics, and the electronics, found out by accident that the 57's would also trigger the Syndrums.