Low Budget E drums.. PLEASE HELP

[steve_huck]

Heres the deal i love playing my acoustic drums they are nothin speacial but its a blast. I had a very cheap set of ion elec drums. They Sucked. AS i watch more and more videos on you tube i like the diy drums with the mesh heads more and more beacause i live in an apartment and would love to play my elec drums at 2 in the morn. I am on a very low budget though. I dont want to murder my acoustic set thouh. BUT i have a old little set i think i got 14" bass 8" nad 10" toms. With meh heads already. SO i was thinkin of get a cheap 12" tom off ebay and i would cut it to make two drum then i could use one 12 for a snre and 8, 10 , and 12 for toms. And i was thinkin of gettin the practice cymbal set and throwin some triggers on them(Any one tried this). So my main question is if i do this will i still be able to jam. Cause i am worried i will play too hard and break stuff. Also what are your experiance with ddrum triiger compared to diy triggers? I will also need to purchase a module i was lookin in to alesis trigger i/o. So please post your toughts i dont want to waste my money and not get what i am expecting. Alos open to any suggestion


Know it was alot of readin BUT THANKS ALOT

[Rocky_Roll]

Welcome.

It's a solid plan. I plan on building DIY triggers myself. You'll want to go that route if you don't want to spend 100USD on the ddrum redshots or 200+USD on the ddrum pro triggers, plus you can add dual zone triggers too. They've definitely done DIY cymbals with the plastic practice cymbals but they seem to be floppy. Good enough for a start. You'll want to do a lot of searching through the web and here of course.

If you are patient, you could look for a cheap used Yamaha dd-55. You could practice on that as well as convert it to a drum module at some point. Hellfire's got a link on his site.

Keep us up to date on what you end up doing. DIY's tend to be rather unique. Do a google for DIY bucket drums

[steve_huck]

But could i make the practice cymbals dual zone. And i am worried i am gonna play it to hard and braeak it. I read about jman taking real cymbals and coverting them Any links on that?

[Rocky_Roll]

Break a rubber pad? I suppose it's possible. You could always trigger up a frisbee. They are pretty cheap

You should check out reviews on Mesh heads (Pearl, Hart) vs DIY.

[steve_huck]

the toms i got that are 8 10 and 14" kick have diy mesh heads i did on them the 10 actually has a diy trigger in it but i couldnt get it to trigger right but i think it was the ****ty ion module i couldnt change many featues. I think i can build my triggers and i can do my own mesh heads. I actually like them more they are stonger if you ask me

[Rocky_Roll]

Sounds like you are on your way! My acoustic kit that I'm converting came with mesh heads. I'll try DIY double-ply mesh heads whenever they give out. BTW you can do up to 3-zone cymbals. Check out http://www.toontrack.com/edrum_for_free.asp. Good luck on picking a drum module. If you are good with electronics, do a search for Megadrum.

You may need to register with toontrack to view the links.

[steve_huck]

deal is i work 2nd shift so i play at night as much as i hate i am about to put mesh heads on my full size kit and live with it. cause i cant afford the triggers and everything right now. Jus wish i could silenece the acoustics enough to play them

[Rocky_Roll]

Since you work 2nd shift, you might try scanning pawn shops for a used drum module also. I've been too lazy but I imagine some shops would carry them. I've seen at least one post here about a module from a pawn shop.

BTW, Megadrum would require using a decent spec'ed PC and some MIDI drum sounds software.

[steve_huck]

I think i am goin to get the trigger io eventually but i have to quiet it down around here so i guess i am goin deal with mesh heads and practice cymbals until i can aford the triggers and the cymbals

[vjboc]

And i was thinkin of gettin the practice cymbal set and throwin some triggers on them(Any one tried this).

I used the pintech practice cymbals for 5 years. I took an L bracket and sandwiched the piezo between the bracket and the cymbal 3 to 4 inches from the bell using small bolts. Then I put the jack on the other part of the bracket. I took some rubber and placed it on the playing area of the cymbals. It worked great. They were all single zone.

[evil1rox]

Hey dude.. just scanning your thread quickly...

Make sure you use some electrical tape or some sort of "buffer" between the mesh head and the bearing edge of your drums. If you don't the slight movement of the mesh heads when you strike them will wear away the bearing edge..making your drums pretty much useless if you want to go back to standard acoustic heads at some point.

E