As some of you may know I purchased my first drums ever recently in the form of an ancient 1990's S&S Industries drum trigger kit, Pintech Visualites, all attached to an old Gibraltar rack, controlled by an Alesis DM4. It's fun, compact, but the triggering isn't ideal. You can read more in THIS THREAD.
Anyway, rather than investing my time dinking with the S&S triggers I trolled Craigslist for a cheap used acoustic set to convert. I came up with a person selling TWO complete Groove Percussion 5 piece kits with pedals, thrones, hihats, and ride/crash, plus a Groove Percussion double pedal super cheap. I figured I could just resell them for my money back and then some if I opted not to convert.
Obviously I did or I wouldn't have this thread.
So countless hours of trolling, searching, reading, and accumulating links and how-to photos and graphics I took the plunge recently and purchased WAY TOO MUCH crap to do my conversion. Seriously, it's been a lot more involved than the simpleton DYI conversions seem to indicate.
I've been keeping all receipts and by my calculations I've spent $12.03 plus tax on just the Beatnik hardware and a Neutrick stereo 1/4" jack. That doesn't include any of the electronics nor a mesh head. Figure another $2.80 for the foam for a cone, $0.50 for a piezo, and lets say $0.30 worth of wire, heat shrink wrap, and zip ties. Brings it to a total of $15.63 to convert a single acoustic to electronic. Plus a mesh head. Damnit, and a wire to connect to the brain.
Round up and assume $20 worth of stuff to take an acoustic and be able to trigger with it and connect it to a brain.
I purchased all Hart mesh heads for the kit for a total of $160 shipped for all 5 drums. So I'm up to $260 for converting JUST the drums. The cymbals will probably cost another $140 or so to convert two 14's, two 16's, and a set of 14 hihats. Just a rough guess. So $400 plus a brain (I'll try to build a MegaDrum), plus the cost of the actual drums and cymbals. Just throwing out numbers to others to consider and help base future decisions on.
But even so I guess that doesn't sound too expensive when you consider a basic TD3 kit starts at almost $1K, plus a bass pedal, plus a throne.
Anyway, onto my first batch of pictures!
Red drum kit. This is what I envision the completed kit containing once completed. Pictured in the back is the S&S kit. All this crap, plus my computers (plural) and workplace desk is currently all jammed into my 12x12 home office. I can barely move.

Rubber expansion nut or well nut, however you prefer to refer to it. They're branded expansion nut at any hardware store. Picture shows the raw nut which is rubber with a threaded insert bonded inside and the nuts installed on a piezo plate. Figured this photo is educational for anyone who's never used one before.

And this is what it does for your peizo plate. The bottom rubber flange is in between your cross bar and the piezo plate. As you screw the screw the threaded insert moved downward towards the plate and creates a rubber bushing on the top of the plate, thus a big rubber sandwich is born!

I stated with the blue kit as my test kit to screw with. I figured I'd make my mistakes with the blue kit first and have honed my skills to perfection by the time I move to the red kit which is what I plan to keep. Since both kits are identical I could theoretically simply uninstall the crossbars from one and stick in another. Or maybe I'll create two kits and sell one off. Haven't decided yet.

One tom with a broken piezo and my first cone set on top to test the crossbar depth. Unfortunately I'm going to have to lower the crossbar all the way and will still have the piezo 1/4" above the drum edge. This is using 1 1/4" 10-32 screws per Beatnik's specs. He didn't say to use washers between everything which I did and that likely ate up some adjustability. But even without washers it doesn't leave a huge amount of adjustability. I'd go with 2" screws for connecting the corner braces and crossbar on my next build. I'd be easy enough to swap them out as well, just a little time and yet another item to buy! JOY! haha

Note my cone is actually pretty conical it's just my camera angle is titled which makes the whole thing look lopsided. I did a jig as pictured in the stickies. I just punch out three circles, stack them, put the base on wax paper so it doesn't stick to the jig, and turn-and-cut. Pretty easy and I enjoy looking at reasonably attractive cones. However, if professional factory made cones were available for $4-$5 each I'd probably just buy them and save myself the headache.
At this point I just have to fully assemble one tom, test with my DM4, and assuming successful cut more cones and install all the piezos. Heads arrive Monday, and viola! Onto cymbals.
Anyway, rather than investing my time dinking with the S&S triggers I trolled Craigslist for a cheap used acoustic set to convert. I came up with a person selling TWO complete Groove Percussion 5 piece kits with pedals, thrones, hihats, and ride/crash, plus a Groove Percussion double pedal super cheap. I figured I could just resell them for my money back and then some if I opted not to convert.
Obviously I did or I wouldn't have this thread.

So countless hours of trolling, searching, reading, and accumulating links and how-to photos and graphics I took the plunge recently and purchased WAY TOO MUCH crap to do my conversion. Seriously, it's been a lot more involved than the simpleton DYI conversions seem to indicate.

I've been keeping all receipts and by my calculations I've spent $12.03 plus tax on just the Beatnik hardware and a Neutrick stereo 1/4" jack. That doesn't include any of the electronics nor a mesh head. Figure another $2.80 for the foam for a cone, $0.50 for a piezo, and lets say $0.30 worth of wire, heat shrink wrap, and zip ties. Brings it to a total of $15.63 to convert a single acoustic to electronic. Plus a mesh head. Damnit, and a wire to connect to the brain.

I purchased all Hart mesh heads for the kit for a total of $160 shipped for all 5 drums. So I'm up to $260 for converting JUST the drums. The cymbals will probably cost another $140 or so to convert two 14's, two 16's, and a set of 14 hihats. Just a rough guess. So $400 plus a brain (I'll try to build a MegaDrum), plus the cost of the actual drums and cymbals. Just throwing out numbers to others to consider and help base future decisions on.

But even so I guess that doesn't sound too expensive when you consider a basic TD3 kit starts at almost $1K, plus a bass pedal, plus a throne.
Anyway, onto my first batch of pictures!
Red drum kit. This is what I envision the completed kit containing once completed. Pictured in the back is the S&S kit. All this crap, plus my computers (plural) and workplace desk is currently all jammed into my 12x12 home office. I can barely move.


Rubber expansion nut or well nut, however you prefer to refer to it. They're branded expansion nut at any hardware store. Picture shows the raw nut which is rubber with a threaded insert bonded inside and the nuts installed on a piezo plate. Figured this photo is educational for anyone who's never used one before.

And this is what it does for your peizo plate. The bottom rubber flange is in between your cross bar and the piezo plate. As you screw the screw the threaded insert moved downward towards the plate and creates a rubber bushing on the top of the plate, thus a big rubber sandwich is born!

I stated with the blue kit as my test kit to screw with. I figured I'd make my mistakes with the blue kit first and have honed my skills to perfection by the time I move to the red kit which is what I plan to keep. Since both kits are identical I could theoretically simply uninstall the crossbars from one and stick in another. Or maybe I'll create two kits and sell one off. Haven't decided yet.

One tom with a broken piezo and my first cone set on top to test the crossbar depth. Unfortunately I'm going to have to lower the crossbar all the way and will still have the piezo 1/4" above the drum edge. This is using 1 1/4" 10-32 screws per Beatnik's specs. He didn't say to use washers between everything which I did and that likely ate up some adjustability. But even without washers it doesn't leave a huge amount of adjustability. I'd go with 2" screws for connecting the corner braces and crossbar on my next build. I'd be easy enough to swap them out as well, just a little time and yet another item to buy! JOY! haha

Note my cone is actually pretty conical it's just my camera angle is titled which makes the whole thing look lopsided. I did a jig as pictured in the stickies. I just punch out three circles, stack them, put the base on wax paper so it doesn't stick to the jig, and turn-and-cut. Pretty easy and I enjoy looking at reasonably attractive cones. However, if professional factory made cones were available for $4-$5 each I'd probably just buy them and save myself the headache.
At this point I just have to fully assemble one tom, test with my DM4, and assuming successful cut more cones and install all the piezos. Heads arrive Monday, and viola! Onto cymbals.
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