MOTM

This is further justification for building whatever drum trigger
interface to support the model of "a piezo disk wrapped in something you
whack."

I did some reading on http://www.harmony-central.com/Drums/EDW/.  It
seems like your fancy pads will either have two piezos or one piezo and
a switch. I have one of these switched pads myself -- the idea is you
hit the pad and then grab it with your other hand as if you were choking
a cymbal.  I haven't seen a lot of electronic drummers who demanded to
be able to do cymbal chokes this way, they're just as happy to hit a
different pad or pedal or whatever.  Either way, if you have a module as
proposed so far, you're set.  You just might need two piezo->trig/gate
things per head, and perhaps a little adapter that goes from one TRS
phone plug to two TS phone jacks (not hard to build or find at Radio
Shack) so you can get both of the piezo signals or the piezo signal and
the switch into plain old TS 1/4" phone plug terminated cable.

It's all piezo disks in any manufacturer's electronic drums, except for
some of the integrated controllers that use FSRs like the DrumKat.
DrumKats are still in production, but relatively expensive, and there's
no hope of hacking one to put out anything but MIDI.  The FSRs used in
the Alternate Mode products can last for as little as 6 months of
regular playing, production quality varies, and they cost hundreds to
replace, replacements only being available from the manufacturer.
Piezos last somewhat longer, can be replaced for less than US$2, and are
available at Radio Shack.  FSRs generate a much cleaner pulse output
when you whack them, extremely few crosstalk and false triggering
problems, and you can also get "aftertouch" if you push your stick into
them.  It's amazing to see Mario play them.  www.alternatemode.com

You can buy a bunch of Remo practice pads, epoxy some piezos to coffee
can lids and shove them inside, and so have drum triggers as good as any
*and* delicious home brewed coffee.  Or, you can go buy mesh heads with
exotic foamy cones to transfer energy from the head to the piezo, and
drum shells made of some kind of "acoustically dead polymer".  Either
way, they give out basically the same signal.

On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 07:54 -0500, Greg Amann wrote:
> Well they have stereo 1/4" plugs so you get the centre pad but the  
> rim is shorted oot.
> 
> PLL, BFG
> 
> On 16-Jan-06, at 11:51 PM, jfm3 wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 2006-01-16 at 21:07 -0500, Greg Amann wrote:
> >> [...] my sexy Roland meshy pads (they are stereo and use a bizarre
> >> technology that I have not spent the time to figure oot)
> >
> > I'm not sure, but it's probably just two piezos that they analyze
> > cleverly and simultaneously in the host.  What happens if you plug  
> > them
> > into a trusty D4?
-- 
(jfm3)