building an electronic drumkit

[Guest ιυιron]

scenario - despite never having had a lesson, my brother is a kick-ass drummer. he got a cheap kit when he was about 15/16 but promptly split all the cymbals in about 4 places and completely destroyed the snares, which was the end of that due to the impracticality and cost of drums.

however, him and his gf are moving into a new flat with two living rooms and so we were thinking of getting him a drumkit which in turn will mean we can start a proper band. the only problem is that unless we buy a super expensive kit, he'll just destroy it while drumming to dragon force. having a real kit also means that all other instruments have to contend against the volume with decent amplifiers and is annoying for those in the vicinity.

 

now knowing that electronic drumkits are actually far more expensive than drumkits i figured that i could somehow build one up from parts on ebay. i figure that by bypassing any sort of sound module we can save alot of money, and run it in to his laptop where i can install some pirated software and potentially a decent soundcard.

 

logistically though, i need to know if this is possible - to firstly buy various triggers (the snare and cymbals being the most expensive?) and connect them to a midi box, and then to run some sort of program to which i can assign any manner of velocity triggered samples with relative ease? or at least to the level where i can make him a load of patches which he can access?

 

also, on a EKT sort of note i'm thinking this could go even further, triggering loops and midi sequences and all manner of things with the drumkit?

[Guest Soothsayer]

Get cheap drums and put MIDI triggers on them, and Remo Muffl's.

 

Electronic kits outright suck for several reasons(either you get the really expensive Roland one that feels like a real drum, or you get a less-expensive kit that no self-respecting drummer would feel comfortable playing, response blows). Really expensive drumkits just aren't worth it(there are a million ways to make a cheap kit sound great, Muffl's are a good start, removing front bass drum head, etc.), and Craigslist usually has some amazing deals on cheap-middle of the road kits.

 

Also, if your bro plays really aggressive-style, I'd suggest getting a cheaper Tama kit. Those seem to take a decent beating.

[pylonbitch]

i got a roland v-drum kit recently for 700 quid and it's awesome.

 

doesn't feel exactly like real drums, but as near as dammit.

 

it's the td 3kw or whatever, and i believe it's a new range which means suddenly you'll be able to get the old version (i don't know the model number).. either second hand, or ridiculously cheapo new.

 

highly recommended.

[Guest Dr. Elemeno von Hat X: PhD]

spend hours scouring the city, risking arrest, to collect the most bizarre, the most awesome, ghetto drum kit ever. pots, pans, recognizable pieces of local landmarks, etc

[Guest aeser]

hart pro kits are aces for this shit.

 

getting real drums and putting triggers on them is dumb (and huge).

 

you can buy them piece by piece here

 

but they're pretty expensive when all is said and done.

 

then you need a trigger module, which accepts the pulses from the trigger pads and converts them to midi and triggers off the drum samples in the module, or can output the midi to another sampler to play different drum sounds. trigger modules range from the low end like an alesis dm5 for about $300 to a ddrum d4 which last i checked was about a grand (but is way more responsive and sounds better).

 

[Guest ιυιron]

hey thanks for the advice people, ive been doing alot of research recently. very interestingly and especially on the EKT tip, i found this:

 

http://www.electronicdrums.com/frames/byo_frame.htm

 

what ive gathered is that a well done DIY kit can equal even the best electronic kit as it can be produced from very hardy responsive practice pads (and acoustic triggering was never an option, way too much hassle).

 

not too sure if i want to go full in on this though, i would also need to buy the rest of the instructions and would be a big undertaking. currently eyeing up this:

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...A:IT&ih=016

 

it seems like the right choice as a) all the drums are fullsize and mesh (realism) and b) its cheap in comparison. however, was thinking of building a rimshotted snare with a strong practice pad as my bro bashes the shit out to the extent that he used to go through a pair of sticks every few weeks.

 

onto the midi part though - on that particular 'traps' drumkit im presuming it has only a conventional midiout, which means that ill have to use a midi-to-usb cable in order to input it into his laptop for battery vst shiz. his laptop is 1.6ghz, 500mb with a conventional onboard direct-x soundcard, so would the latency be so bad that it would be unfeasable?

 

also, on the issue of a trigger module (google has failed me) is there any USB device which quite simply transfers only the inputs to midi with some tweakable sensitivity/velocity parameters? ie. not a 'drum module' but just a 'trigger module' as aeser said?

 

ta!