2009 / 2010 e-kit

I set out to build my own e-drum shells and renovate my kit to a more modern e-kit. Here were my thoughts and goals for this purpose:

1. Implement mesh heads for quieter playing for when I am using headphones.
2. Use my kit as a standard e-kit for my personal drumming, and to dual purpose it for 'Rock Band' / 'Guitar Hero' use. The mesh heads for quieter playing would come in handy here, too. I hear a lot of complaints from people who own them, about the plastic thwack noises from the 'drum kits' that come with the games.
   
3. Utilize standard drum shells for a more pleasing look and for tom mounts on the side of the drum instead of the middle of the pad.

With these thoughts in mind, I planned on replacing my current setup with a similar shell setup. Currently, I use 8 pads in two rows of 4, all 8" in diameter, with 2 bass drums, also using the 8" pad design. The issue with this setup is it is not very mobile, as the bass pedals don't attach to the bass drums and are screwed down to the riser I built out of particle board. So, easy multi-use for me and the PS3 games was out of the question. I decided I could build a kit that could be multi-purposed and usable for both of my desires.

I want to add a huge THANKS to Don, my drum teacher / drum building mentor for his help. He provided me a loaner step drill for drilling, he guided me through the lug and drum leg layout, advice on wrapping, etc. And some good prices on the parts and various bits. Visit him here: Portland Drums and Don's Drum Studio.

I got started with 8" shells that I bought off of Keller's overstock Ebay store. I got 2 shells that were 8" in diameter and 18" deep. I figured I could cut them down myself, and get my 8 shells, and they would all be about 4.25" deep. Then I got 2 shells for the bass drums 18" in diameter, and 9" deep. I was set to do a complete replacement of my kit.

Along the way, fellow e-drummer (AxeGrinder or 'Ron') sent me a 13" shell that was used for an e-tom. I decided this needed to be my e-snare. Now, 8 toms seems a little ridiculous, since I was planning on using 2 of them as 'snares' as I do in my current layout. With the addition of the 13" snare, my layout may be too much. I guess it's always nice to have backups, eh?

Mesh drum heads

Home made mesh heads made from a fiberglass screen material found in the hardware store. I also used old drum rings from old drum heads. I trimmed out the mylar head, and used a dremel to 'route' out the old glue. I pressed in my head into the rim, and glued it. I used Gorilla Glue - which expands, so the yellow bubbly stuff is Gorilla Glue. Trim with an exacto blade, and it's not nearly as ug-o-lee.

8" diameter Tom drums

8" shells cut from the 18" long stock pieces

Gouge from me and my table saw will be hidden with some finish work (rubber hose trim). Just wanted to show some of my hardships. The finished product came out great. Just wait.

Wrapped shell - cheap vinyl sign material in a metallic copper color. Not quite the brilliance in the pic, better in person, but still nice. Also shows how the gouge is minimized.

Mounted on my rack. you can see the difference between this new one and my old ones (above it a bit) , and even the middle step of experimentation - the 'hybrid - old pad w/ mesh head - lower left in the image.

Back side, you can see the l-rod mounting on the Superstrut rack, and the jack hanging free. I need to decide how I am going to attach that jack. I'll probably drill another hole for it.


Top view, the green dot is my 'trigger foam' - a 2" Nerf bullet cut in half to a dome. This is done for the padded trigger - most drum pads on the market use a dense foam to make cylinders or cones for this purpose. I have seen folks selling these cones for $8 each. I got 10 'domes' for $5.

Bass drums!

Bass Drum shell - drilled for hardware - lugs and legs.

Bass Drum shell - drilled and wrapped in the copper wrap I found at the sign store.

Bass drum with hoops - no hardware

Hoops, no edge finish

Both drums 100% done. Electronics installed, hoop edges finished - I used some copper foil tape that Meran has. Since she does stained glass, she has scads of this in her shop.

E-snare!

Here is the 13" shell - it was used with a different lug pattern (6 lugs, I am using 8) and had a big hole in it for a tom mount or something. I used some wood filler to patch the holes and sanded it to mostly smooth. The wood is super soft, but it doesn't really matter a lot; I will be covering the drum in a wrap.

I decided to go a little extravagant on the snare, so I got rims and lugs in a black powder-coated chrome. I found some really cool hardware at Ego Drum Supply; mostly they had some really cool colors that you could get hardware in. Anyway, I figured copper and black was pretty cool, so there you are.

Electronics installed. I have a hole cut in the bottom clear drum head while I am working on it - eventually it will also be converted to a mesh head. I built this drum to be dual-zone, so there is a piezo under the head, and on the shell. I am still working on isolating them from each other. Dual zone is new to me; I am pretty content with one zone drums.

Finished and on the snare stand I bought. I bought it for the hammered brass acoustic snare I got a while ago, and will probably be buying a 2nd stand so that I can have both available.

New hi-hats!
So, I got these new electronic hi-hat cymbals. They are cool; the controller is in between the cymbals, and they work with a drop clutch (critical for double bass drumming!). I got these in trade from a buddy of mine. Sweeeeeet.

Top view - pretty. He tried to give me a set in a dark red, which would have kinda been cool, but I think the color would have worn on me. Basic black for me, thank you!

Underside, two connectors, one for the trigger, one for the hi-hat mechanism for detecting how 'open' they are.

The guts. Kind of. They are in the cylinder in the middle. Suffice it to say - it's in there!

Full Kit!
The next task was putting it all together. I went a new route on the rack - I still use the Superstrut, but I am phasing out the keyboard as a sound source, and going with a drum module (the Alesis DM10). And I am keeping the trigger IO for RockBand / Guitar Hero and for potential expansion into the DM10. Anyway, instead of having one rack that is 4 feet long, I used my mini e-kit and just doubled it, so I made 2 smaller racks at 24" long each, and angled them for a more ergonomic feel. The entire right hand side pulls away, moving easily into the media room for PS3 game playing.

Okay, okay, I need to clean up the cables. Agreed.

The bass drums will have a mesh head on the rear, too. Eventually.

Side view: 5 toms, 2 bass drums, snare, 2 crashes (with choke!), dual zone ride (bow and bell), and my newest gear, the Pintech hi-hats with the controller in between the hats.

Bird's eye view.

Squirrel's eye view of the bass drums. I still need to adjust the left pedal; it's riding higher / closer than the right pedal.

Well, that's it, thanks for viewing. It took me a long time, but since I was traveling a lot last year, I had my time split up with the game room remodel, other household tasks, and whatnot. I got this project done a little before the game room was done, but final setup had to wait until I could do it in the game room. I still am waiting for the new DM10 module, and I need to clean up the cables. The right bass drum seems to be double triggering, so I need to figure that out.

Gaming Room!

We decided to rebuild the room that is downstairs and in the back - it had been used as a 4th bedroom, but we decided it was to be my gaming room (and drums). It was always smelling kinda musty, and we thought there might be a mold issue.

The original layout:
The room was a long rectangle with a closet on one long side, cutting into the rectangle, making the room narrower where the closet was. On two sides, the walls are underground w/ concrete behind them; the outside wall is a short wall, with a window. The 4th wall shares with the library and has the door. We took the door off the hinges because the swing pattern was annoying. There was a 220 heater in there that didn't work, so we also pulled that (and the wires) out.

The plans:

1. Move closet to the end of the room. This will shorten the room rather than narrowing one end. leaving more usable space.
   
2. Pocket door! No swing pattern, and a door we can close to keep pesky animals out. (Cat) Soccer w/ D&D minis DENIED! (Dogs) random place in the house far from the usual use pattern to find a spot to pee in if humans aren't paying attention; after all, it is further from the main living area of the house. (dog logic)
   
3. Redo outside facing window wall for mold and insulation concerns and extend the wall 1 inch inside to cover the concrete footing rather than having the drywall end on top of it, making it easy to add baseboard molding. Also add a vapor barrier and enlarge some electrical outlets from 2 bangers to 4 bangers.
4. Seal the concrete floor and wall footer with a moisture blocker.
5. Add a ceiling fan and better lighting. Lighting was one bulb on each end of room. Not enough light to even read. New lighting has 2 bulbs in the fixture by the closet, and the fan has four bulbs; fan is over the gaming table. Also, added a light in the closet.
6. Install speakers into the closet header for built-in sound, connecting to built-in shelves (see number 7). This includes running speaker wire through the new walls for easy and hidden connections.
7. A built-in shelving unit for stereo components - including a 4-plex of power outlets, the speaker connections, and generally more game room storage.
8. Look for different shelving options for games and miniatures. (We were using free-standing cheap book shelves.)
   

The Build:

1. Closet. Pretty good, some issues with plumb-ness and square-ness, but that's to be expected with my level of framing skill. Built-in shelves on one side, and the built-in unit to the right of the closet came out pretty good. Power and speaker cables were run and look pretty good. Problem is, header is waaaaaaay too small for any decent speakers to be embedded as planned. We compromised and found some Bose wall-mounted speakers that are of a good quality for the price.



2. Pocket Door. We hired Jerry (our contractor) to help out with this. The pocket door was bought from a local builder's supply called ProBuild. They aren't open on weekends, but they are way better on supplies than Home Depot, though Home Depot is open on weekends. I try to go to ProBuild whenever I can when my planning allows for it. The key to hiring Jerry was to try to install the pocket door without removing both sides of drywall (leave the Library drywall there). He managed to do it, and we were all very happy with the results. (Library wall still shows screw heads; those will be fixed once all gaming room stuff is placed in its new home.)








3. Outside wall. Added 1x2s to the 2x6s to add the depth necessary for covering the concrete footer. Replaced the insulation, added a vapor barrier, and added 6 outlets to the wall - 8 up from 2.(Now there are two new 4 bangers.) New drywall - used the mold proof stuff; nice.





4. Water proofing. Drylock brand water barrier painted on floor and footer, 2 layers. Had to scrape up 2 layers of crappy asphalt tiles and clean off the glue. Also had a bunch of pock marks where floor anchors were used into the concrete for the old closet and the carpet tack strips.
5. Ceiling fan and new lights - other than the fact that I've never seen the electrical wire pattern that was used to connect the two ceiling lights, (5 wires: red, white, black, blue and green) this went well.
6. Built-in speakers. Unfortunately, the header for the closet wound up to be too small for built-in speakers. We found some appropriately-sized Bose speakers that will mount on the wall above the closet. Not quite what we wanted, but it'll be okay.
7. Built-in shelf. Not only 3 built-in shelves, but an old recycled kitchen cabinet we bought from the Re-building Center for $5.00. Yup!! Five bucks, some sanding, paint and it was almost a perfect fit - within a 1/2" or so. Pretty sweet. And it has a cool slide out shelf.
8. We found a book store going out of business, and bought some book shelves. My friend Matt helped me hang them on the wall. They are tall - 7 feet high. and we got 2 that were 48" wide, and one that was 42" wide. They were designed for paperback books, so they are only 6-8" deep. They will be perfect for all my gaming stuff, especially minis. The big blank area will be used for map display.
   







9. Flooring. We decided on carpet. We put in 1/2" Celotex insulation and then 1/8" masonite board on top of that. Then, we were ready for the carpet. After a visit to Home Depot, Lowes, and a random flooring store, we found a place called Great Floors which seems to be an overage outlet for carpet; not a huge selection, but what they do have, is reasonably priced. They have full rolls of carpet and a lot of extra leftover rolls priced better. We walked in and found the exact color we wanted on one of his remnants. AND it was only about 10% too big for the room, so it was perfect. We had it installed; the first guy whined a lot about the lack of "proper subfloor", and the next couple to come out were way more accommodating and did the job well.
10. Trim work. Trim around the closet, window and door all match trim that is upstairs in the house in one of the rooms. This has become the trend in the house.
11. Paint. Meran did a really cool faux paint job in the room, a random pattern with 3 colors. We'll see how easy it is to touch up. [Meran says it was surprisingly easy to touch up after James installed the built-in cabinet and knicked up the paint.]
    
12. New table! My 4x6 piece of plywood with fold-up table legs has seen its end. We found a really nice table and chairs at CostCo, and got it. It's narrower, so it fits better, and longer. And looks really good, to boot! And has much better chairs to sit in.
    

Well, that's that. it took us WAY too long to get it done, but now it is. We're ready for gaming!

Mini E-Kit, part duex

To start, I want to make some notes about the edrum offerings coming to the market - a sort of a note for the future.

Last year, PinTech offered a new hi-hat that has the controller between the cymbals, and is the first electronic hi-hat that works with a drop clutch. This is still unique in the market today. Here's a secret you'll hear only here. I might be getting one for free.. more on that later.

The Alesis DM-10 was released standalone at Winter NAMM, which was this past weekend. I am personally looking forward to this module. It's a lot like my Trigger IO, but has onboard sounds. AND it will have the ability to have uploaded sounds replace the sounds on the module. Not just stock sounds that modules come with - specially crafted VST sounds built for the module. VST companies like FXPansion and ToonTrack will be offering kit downloads. These 'high resolution' kits will take up the entire module's memory, so instead of 100s of sounds, you will be limited to one kit, but with the VST's quality, it should be worth it. Of course, you can load other kits and reset the module back to factory defaults.

Pearl has a new edrum offering, the "E-ProLive". Interesting, they have a module called the REDbox. but put the picture of it right next to an Alesis DM-10.. hmmmmm. Maybe Pearl didn't spend a lot to develop a new module, which matches feature-to-feature of the DM-10.

DM-10:

REDbox:
Anyway, Pearl has some cool features, 'drop-in' pads so you can convert your edrum set to an acoustic kit with just a head change. These look great for someone just entering the e-drum market but who still wants the look of traditional acoustic drums. They may just have something here. Then again, they may price themselves out of the market... Whatever; good luck to them, tho.

Also, Yamaha is entering the foray again with new drum heads. The last few years have been rubber (Yamaha and even some Roland kits) vs. mesh (Roland's claim to fame). Well, Yamaha introduced a new drum head - silicone! Check out Yamaha's DTX900 series.

Now, onto the regularly scheduled program. After my last post, New Year's Day came and went. I assembled the e-kit for a day of Rock Band / Guitar Hero. I added the cymbals to it and mapped it out for playing.

After a few hours of playing, I like Guitar Hero drumming better than Rock Band drumming. Guitar Hero differs slightly with 2 dedicated cymbals (yellow and orange) and three drums. They do some interesting switch-overs with the two cymbals. Both are entertaining, so we all win. Whitten got the most seat time on the drums on New Year's.

So, same kit as before, but with 3 cymbals added. For RockBand, I mapped the hi-hat to yellow (if you've played, this is obvious), the ride to Blue, and the crash to green. It pretty much matches the drum mapping, but you get the choice of what to hit now, a cymbal or a tom. I even tried something clever: in the game, Rock Band maps an open hi-hat to blue, so I mapped the hi-hat to yellow on closed, and blue on open. Realistically, it works, but due to extra triggering, it really messes up the game play.

For Guitar Hero, I mapped two toms (left and center) to the same color, and both the ride and the crash to Orange, hi-hat still yellow, and right tom to the low tom color. This worked out okay; there was some difficulty getting back to the hi-hat for some cymbal crashes during a ride segment of the songs. But, it still worked out pretty well.

The kit was sitting kinda close to the PS3 - I've gotten a longer USB cable. I am hoping that doesn't introduce any lag. We'll find out the next time I play.

Mini E-kit

I've been working on a new set of e-drums using acoustic shells. I am still working on the final arrangement for a full posting of THAT project. But, as was the plan, I was going to use part of the full kit to use as a mini kit for the PS3 - for Rock Band and Guitar Hero use.

Key to this was finding out that GH4 came with one of those cheap, lame drum kits, but it had a MIDI input in the kit. I figured if the drum kit came with a MIDI option, then a MIDI converter without a crappy drum kit would soon be an option. Well, not an official one, but I did find one. IF you are on the Rock Band or Guitar Hero forums online, you'll probably find the 'Seth' MIDI-PS3 adapter. Well, I did, and I bought it. It took me about a year to finally hook it up to a drum kit, and play with it. Basically, my existing drum brain (to MIDI) is an Alesis IO. This then sends MIDI to the 'Sethbox' converter, which acts as a PS3 adapter and controller - it's got all the buttons like the square, triangle, circle, x and the Start PS3 and select buttons. Much like the drum kit controllers for the PS3 or any other console.

So, on to the details and pictures!

Implements of construction: hacksaw and file for cutting and de-burring the strut, nuts bolts, washers, wrenches, brackets, braces, extra strut, flannel shirt (cutting strut outside in the cold!) and an extra 1/4" patch cable. And, etc.

This is it. I built the rack out of my typical Super Strut rack construction. The feet are 18" long, and the verticals and horizontal are 24" long / tall. The 18" bass drum (12" deep) fits in great, with some room to spare. I am happy how this ended up fitting together.

Rotating around a bit, you can see the toms and snare. I opted to use my e-snare on a snare stand like a typical drum kit rather than 4 toms mounted on the rack. Mostly for space reasons. I'd need a longer bar for 4 toms, and I like the visual of the snare.
The white caps on the strut are to minimize clothing and carpet snags from the cut ends of the strut - even tho I filed it smooth, can't be too careful for Meran!

Another angle. One tom head is white - it's the first mesh head I got - I bought it. Making the black mesh heads myself is more cost effective. The green 'dots' are nerf gun bullets (2" in diameter) cut in half to serve as a dome for the piezo underneath. Roland vdrums uses foam 'cones' and cost about $8 each. I got 10 'domes' for $5.

Mostly straight-on front view. I plan on making the back resonant head out of mesh eventually. I cut a hole in the mylar head because I was getting some resonant sound from it when it was whole. I'm trying to cut down on as much acoustical noise as possible.

Higher angle

Top view, it's pretty compact!! I plan to add my electronic hi-hat and 2 e-cymbals for more realism during play. All it takes is duplication of Rock Band / GH colors on the game to map to the additional bits. Example: Blue is used in Rock band for a middle tom, a ride and the open hi-hat sound. I can map the second (middle) tom to blue, my electronic ride, and the open action on the hi-hat to all blue, so depending on the song I can use it more realistically. Or not, choice is yours on which blue to use.

Left side, nothing too new here

The "bits". The Alesis Trigger IO - translates the piezo signal from the pad to a MIDI signal. This normally goes to a laptop, keyboard or other MIDI sound source to produce the sounds.
The little white box is the 'Sethbox' or 'sethmeisterg's EDRUM-USB adapter" converter. Built by a RockBand forum member named Seth. This takes the MIDI signal from the IO and sends it to the PS3 for game play. It's also got the standard PS3 controller buttons - Square, Circle, Triangle, X, Select, Start and the PS3 button. It's also got flashing LEDs to indicate mode, setup and hit registers. I am impressed; it came with 20+ pages of documentation for some super customization and setup options.

Who's ready to give it a try?