So I have an acoustic drum set, and my band is getting ready to play some shows. But what I want to do first, is to trigger my bass drums for clarity.

What equipment do I need? And what does each individual equipment do (for learning purposes).

Thanks a lot!

The cheapest way to go is to find a used electronic brain at a music store/pawn shop
Buy some triggers
I have heard lots of people say how well the Roland triggers work for bass drum and they clamp right on to your BD hoop
There's a guy usptairs in my rehearsal building that plays blast beats and the triggers track every note
If you are not looking to get too complicated then pretty much any drum brain is going to have a decent bass drum sample

Once you get the concept of mechanics worked out then all you have to do is experiment
It is a good idea to try to listen to your sound combination through a PA
Headphones make pretty much everything sound good but it may sound like poop when you put it through a PA

If you have no PA to use then select a couple of BD sounds to chose from, talk to the soundperson before you get down to crunch time and see if they will give you a bit of time to chose the right sound for the room

Most sound guys are reasonable about stuff like that
Especially if you have done as much prep as possible
That way he will just have to make a choice for the room and do some slight EQ adjustments to make it mix well with your acoustic sound

This takes up time when you have to experiment on the spot with sensitivity setting etc...
You should have things like tracking/sensitivity adjusted as well so that there is no false triggering
Nothing is more of an irritant to a soundman than someone who doesn't know how
to use a piece of equipment
That almost always costs them time spent adjusting it

The key word here is preparation








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You say irritant, I say catalyst

First, don't buy anything electronic from a pawn shop as this is an electronic item and you don't really know what has been done to the item! I have been burned too many time by buying used electonic gear! Buy only if you get some sort of money back guarantee!

I would suggest the Ddrum triggers and an Alesis D4 that you know works soundly! The Dm5 has better quality sounds, but the D4 has more usable sounds at just slightly less sound quality.


Mike

http://www.mikemccraw.com
http://www.dominoretroplate.com

http://www.youtube.com/drummermikemccraw
http://www.myspace.com/drummermikemccraw

Yeah
I have a D4
I will be uing it as a MIDI pad controller
A sampler is in my future to offset the SPDS
It is skipping too much
I just need to separate the striking area from the processor
It would be nice to have some real separation in my pad setup so that I can advance the song with a more spread out configuration
No accidental striking of the wrong pad

I just need to learn how to use MIDI this summer when I'm up in Mpls








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You say irritant, I say catalyst

aive got a fully functional d4 and a 5 piece set of ddrum redshots I'm selling for 350.00 OBO contact me at cory@subtlekaos.com if your interested

Is this the Haakon in Minneapolis?








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You say irritant, I say catalyst

just thought id mention you dont need a trigger to clean up your bass drum sound. make sure its fairly well tuned and gaffa tape a coin where your beater/s hit and use a plastic or wood beater, they''l sound horrible until you mic it but the sound is phenominal through a good PA. i also use this technique when recording. but if triggers what u want. get triggers.