[sdiy] Foot-stompin' music (idea wanted)

[Byron G. Jacquot]

>I'm looking for some ideas for sensing technology. The concept is a floor
>mat that you can tap your feet on to trigger drum sounds.

I've been there a couple of times myself.  My stepfather is a clog dancer
(heavy wooden shoes on a wooden floor...kinda like yokel tapdancing), and he
wanted to experiment with ways to amplify the clog dancing.  Microphones
were too obvious, so we tried other stuff.

He had a pair of 3/8" plywood sheets that he'd lay on the floor (usually
with a rug underneath).  We found a Simmons SDS1000 drum brain in a pawn
shop, and wired up some piezo transducers, one on each corner of the dancefloor.

It worked alright.  The crosstalk wasn't objectionable, particularly because
the acoustic "clonk, clonk, clonk" was present already.  The sensors were
velocity and position sensitive.  When you worked in one corner, it got
louder.  There's the obvious tradeoff between crosstalk and sensitivity.

I've since had some interesting results using piezos as straight-ahead
transducers in all kinds of places you wouldn't expect (I normally can't
stand the sound of piezo pickups in guitars or violins, but other places are
a little more forgiving)...like a plastic tub bass drum that's actually
usable in some situations.  They're really rewarding to experiment
with...just plug 'em into an amp or mixer, and use putty or tape to stick
them to things.

Byron Jacquot