Drumpads

[FantomXR]

Hey people,

I'd like to add some drumpads to my MIDIbox. Is there anyone who did this before? Do you have an idea which sensors to take and where to get the rubber for the pads?

I know... these days those drumpad-controllers are affordable. But that's not what we are talking about here, right? ;-)

Best,
Chris

[goyousalukis]

Chris,

I've been wanting to do the same thing. I have a bunch of piezo pickups like this: https://www.amazon.com/Vktech%C2%AE-Trigger-Acoustic-Pickup-Guitar/dp/B016CW1WK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522070751&sr=8-1&keywords=peizo

I've made several contact mics for acoustic string instruments before with piezos. What you sandwich the piezo between will change the response. I was thinking I would cut up a mouse pad to start with. Maybe back it up with a piece of thick foam. 

I'd imagine a MB128 could be directly hooked up to a piezo via an AIN input board. I'm sure it has been done before, but I haven't seen it.

Justin

[slo]

Thomas Henry's book "The Electronic Drum Cookbook" shows a pad of conductive foam between 2 copper clad boards and a schematic of support circuitry. The circuit outputs a 5v pulse, but no velocity, there is a sensitivity adjustment.Link

[gerald.wert]

You could use the spark fun or adafruit 4x4 pads and cut the piezo down to fit where the leds are. would run you maybe $50 or so for all the parts if you used their board, pad and frame. If you can machine parts or have time and patience with a drill and file you could do it a bit cheaper. You could also cast and mold the pads from silicone.

Check this out too they offer "thick pads and the sensors:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/mpcstuff/m.html?item=301515084828&hash=item4633b3141c%3Am%3AmuVDO-jgali2LUAqVpfIjXA&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

 

[Psykhaze]

Hello,
Nice "hardware" informations : https://www.edrums.info/ - https://www.toontrack.com/forum/e-drum-workshop/design-2z3z-choke-capable-cymbal-by-pfozz/#p46574
Regards,
Jerome

Edited March 26, 2018 by Psykhaze

[Psykhaze]

Also , Force sensing Sensors from Interlink might worth the look too to plug on AIN : https://www.interlinkelectronics.com/fsr-406. Then a silicon plane on top and you have a rubbered drumpad :)
regards,
Jerome

[Zam]

Hello

To have a resistive element reacting to pressure !

Old school: carbon powder inside bag

Ultimate old school: asbestos powder inside bag...

Best

Zam

[borfo]

I'm developing a finger drum controller, like Future Man's kit (dude who plays drums for Bela Fleck), or like a Zendrum...  I've been experimenting with piezo pickups in different casings, connected to a teensy 3.6, and those seem to be working pretty well in terms of registering the relative strength/velocity of different hits.  My take was that MIOS wasn't really equipped to handle reading piezos right now, and that some amount of work would be required to add that capability, but also that designing a Teensy-based drum sensor wouldn't be too much work...  And that my design was essentially for a standalone drum controller anyhow, which could be connected to a Midibox via MIDI anyhow, so figured I'd just do it standalone.

Would be cool if MIOS got the ability to read piezos, but from my experiments the reading algorythms are pretty dependent on the physical configuration of the sensors (like, when you put the piezos in different casings, they read differently, and the algorythm has to compensate to avoid triggering from vibrations when you hit neighbouring sensors  - would be possible to make a one-size fits all solution, but there would have to be some built-in calibration functionality).

I might be into helping with an effort to incorporate piezo sensing into MIOS if that was a project that would be of interest to people though - would open up a bunch of neat options for MIOS based projects...  But it may be too much purpose-specific code to throw into a codebase where most people wouldn't be using piezos...  And a standalone Teensy based system makes some other neat options possible, like using capacitive touch to sense drumskin damping, motion sensor effects modifying drum sounds, etc.

For casings, I've been experimenting with little foam-packed plastic and metal containers, with piezos mounted on the lids, and also with sandwiching piezos between hard rubber adhesive pads (sandwiches made of 3M adhesive hard rubber feet a few mm thick, clear rounded epoxy plastic stickers, and some various other materials).  Both work well.  Also playing with ways to mount lots of sensors on one instrument without having hits on one sensor affect others - vibration isolation by mounting all the sensors on rubber/foam pads, etc.  Anyway, from what I've found so far, because of the nature of drum sensors and all the associated acoustics/vibrations, there are a lot of implementation-specific things that a one-size-fits-all algorythm would have to take into account - considerations that don't exist when you're reading tact switches, encoders and pots...  A MIOS implementation would have to be pretty flexible in order to be useful.

I've got a launchpad pro, which is velocity sensitive (force sensing resistors, I think), and I find it doesn't really give as good a "feel" for finger drumming as the piezo sensors do...  That might be a calibration issue, I guess, but I think the piezos give a more accurate read of hits.

Edited March 30, 2018 by borfo

[borfo]

Wow - just found a pretty cool looking DIY pressure/velocity/position sensor design that looks like it could really work well for drums.  Pretty inexpensive to build as well, by the looks of it.  Check this thing out: http://madronalabs.com/DIY

Definitely looks to be worth experimenting with.

[ssp]

search and you shall find.. yep its been done before..