Beat Bug with V drum snare

[drum4Him]

I just ordered a beat bug (www.luglock.com), an add on device which tracks your tempo on it's display. On acoustic snares it gets velcro'd to the edge of the batter side head.

Has anyone used this on the vdrum snare? Did you use it as it was designed and velcro'd to the mesh head? Were you able to use a Y adapter from the already existing triggers?

Bottom line as well, ... once you got it working, did it help you be more consistant with your tempo?

Thanks,

d4H

[drum4Him]

Ok .. so do I. But when set free of a click, that's where the beat bug comes in. It reports back the tempo you are playing. I don't think any Roland product has that feature. Let me know if I am wrong.

d4H

[RonBon]

>Has anyone used this on the vdrum snare? Did you use it as it >was designed and velcro'd to the mesh head? Were you able to >use a Y adapter from the already existing triggers?

>Bottom line as well, ... once you got it working, did it help you >be more consistant with your tempo?


I have had one for years but never tried it on my V-Drum snare. I'll go home tonight and try it out. Mine came with rubber bands not velcro though. Nice upgrade on the velcro. I'll have to add that.

Not sure what you mean about the use of a Y adapter. The unit is self contained execpt for the power input.

Update... Nevermid about this question. I just went out to their Website. They have changed the Beat bug and it is now called TempoRef.


Mine was an L shaped unit that "hung" on the side of your drum and had a pickup mounted under the part that "lipped" over onto the drum head. On the bottom it had a power input. It was held in place against the side of the snare using rubber bands. Crude but very helpful when the guitarist swears your slowing down.

I'll still give it a try tonight.

[drum4Him]

RonBon

If I am correct, the beat bug can lay on top of your drum head or have a trigger signal going into it. A trigger is supposed to come with it when it arrives (hopefully) this week.

I was thinking if I have a Y adapter, (Stereo Male on the single end, 2 stereo females on the dual side) The male would plug into the vdrum. On one of the dual females, I could plug in the beat bug. In the other, my signal going to my TD-10. This sounds too easy though.

I was just trying to avoid putting the trigger or beat bug on top of the mesh head. The V snare is unique from an acoustic, so some experimenting will be needed.

Bottom line, has the beat bug helped you? I get accused alot of slowing down.

d4H

[RonBon]

Absolutely it helped, but mainly from a confirmation stand point.

When I was young and playing in my first band I got accused of letting the tempo slip a lot, but when I got the Beat Bug it confirmed that I was not. I was the only one in the band that had ever had any form of lessons or formal training so the rest of the guys played by "feel" and felt they could "feel" it slipping.


What was nice was when I was playing a particularly hard part of a song I could glance down and verify that I was on tempo or make a quick adjustment if not.


Once I won the guys in the band over we started plotting tempos of each of our songs and making fine tuning adjustments as to what sounded better when played live versus recording. I would say it single handely tightened our whole band up and took us to a new level of performance.

It also boosted my credibility in the band and allowed me to dictate what the tempo should be. Which, isn't that our job any how?


From a personal stand point it showed that I had a tendency to speed up coming out of an 8th or 16th note fill across the toms or that I had tendency to slow down after a set of flam/kick combinations or some choppy section of a song.


Log story short... Worth every penny!

[drum4Him]