Anyone use the Drumkat?

[rspaulding]

what is the most inexpensive way to have a velocity sensitive kick hooked up to the DK10?
I can't afford the FatKat for a while so are there any decent alternatives?

could I somehow use a cheap acoustic drum trigger like this one?:
Buy Pintech Acoustic Drum Trigger online at Musician's Friend

[rspaulding]

...actually I ended up building my own using a $2 piezo transducer from radioshack.. velocity sensitive and works great!

[brandondrury]

So you can build a trigger using a $2 part? I need to look into this. How is it working for you?

Brandon

[rspaulding]

it's only a prototype right now, so I plan to improve the design, but it's pretty awesome as is.

1 board
1 7x7 piece of plexi glass
1 joist hanger
1 mono 1/4' plug
1 piezo transducer (velocity sensitive sensor)
3 ft. or so of wire
1 dr scholls heel pad instert (so it's not so loud when the beaters hit the plexi glass)
1 papertowel (folded up between the plexi and piezo to dampen the over-sensitivity)
4" of packing tape
screws, nuts and bolts

pretty self-explanatory if you look at the pics...
piezo picks of the hits and it's wired to the 1/4 plug... into the Kat

somewhere around $20 all together
pretty sweet, eh?

I'm gonna make the final one out of a Gibraltar GBDP practice pad!

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5366/35921719zg3.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6984/15736315cx9.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/2429/11369019ip3.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8523/71337767im6.jpg

[brandondrury]

So the piezo outputs MIDI? Does it need to be plugged into a brain? I'm just curious what you do with that 1/4" output.

Brandon

[rspaulding]

well, the piezo picks up on the hits and can distinguish between different velocities, you wire the piezo to whatever connector you need (i need 1/4" to go into my drumkat)

It just works...

I got the idea from here:
Drum Triggers DIY