Drum Triggers

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 5:48 pm

OK, so I am starting my own little studio (really little) and I am looking for somewhat cheap ways to get a really clean really powerful sound. My friend said he recorded with a guy that uses a small pro tools set up and uses triggers for the bass drums and toms. I listend to the recording and holy sh*t was it good!!!! I guess this guy built the studio on a huge budget and doesn't have all the greatest mics, but with the triggers it sounded really nice. He also said he used the snare trigger WITH an SM57. I guess they recorded the trigger and the mic as seperate tracks and jsut mixed them?

real question time.... Will triggers really help me out, and what brand should I get, and what would I need to use them. I guess my final question would be "Is it cheaper than buying different close mics for the drums, and which one will have better sound?"

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 5:53 pm

You can get clamp-on triggers cheaply at any major music store. For dedicated triggers I just bought a Roland TD-3KV ($1,000) and I can't say enough good things about it. You can run any sampler or VSTi from it using MIDI and it's just a really great little kit. I've been playing it all day. Thumbs Up

http://www.roland.com/products/en/TD-3KV/

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:09 pm

Calgary, how does the feel of that kit compare to the bigger V-Drums with the "drum head" look? I liked those, but damn they're expensive.

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:39 pm

I'm shocked with how good they feel, that's been the biggest surprise of the whole thing. I expected them to feel a bit cheap, and I also expected using a pad for a hi-hat pad to suck but I'm totally surprised. It feels very tight and natural. The mesh snare makes a world of difference, without that it's nowhere near as natural feeling. The stand system allows you to quickly set them up very precisely. These CY-8 cymbals are surpsingly natural feeling and feature swing response with a chokable rim.

That being said, the larger kits with all mesh heads, a dedicated hi-hat trigger and more sophisticated drum brain blow these kits away.

For $1,000 though these are shockingly good. For a home studio these are definitely worth it, you could easily have in any competent session drummer and they'll be able to pull off decent tracks with one of these if you are MIDIing them into some decent drum samples/VSTi.

They're quiet enough to play at night also so that's also convenient. Also the kick pad handles a double kick fine. All in all a great little kit for the price.

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 10:46 pm

OK I just tested them MIDIed directly into Groove Agent. Amazing. The drums all correspond by default and the kits sound great. The latency is about 8ms without any crackles so that's fine for playing in real time. The recording in Nuendo compensates for the 8ms anyhow...

The only down side is that the kits in Groove Agent are a bit unbalanced. I had to turn down the kicks and turn up the cymbals. The upshot there is that with my handy BCF2000 and BCR2000 by my side, it's a piece of cake, I have full control in real time over all the parameters of each drum within each kit. I can tune them, change the veolcity settings, the ambience, volume, etc. just by using the knobs on the BCF and BCR.

All in all I have to give this excercise 10 thumbs up. The TD3-KV into Groove Agent (1.0) is a heck of a combination. Now to go test it out in Sampletank and Artist Drums. I suspect I'm in for some drum mapping this time, there's no way I can be so lucky to have it line up like it did with Groove Agent.

PS when playing through Groove Agent you lose the choke function on the cymbals.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 12:23 am

ok, I also might ad I am talking about acoustic drum triggers.

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:27 pm

Roland RT-Kit 1

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:41 pm

You can also get inexpensive generic clamp-on triggers for acoustic drums at any large music store for about $25 apiece. Thumbs Up

Here's a look at the playing field, Pintech have a bad reputation for some reason BTW...
http://www.harmony-central.com/Drums/EDW/triggers.html

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:25 pm

how would I get triggers into my computer? I am guissing I can use the triggers, then like an electronic drum set module thingy, into my interface? Is there an eisier way?

Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 9:35 pm

Triggers typically need to be converted to MIDI, you can do this with any inexpensive used drum module or a trigger to MIDI converter such as the roland which gives you 6 triggers to MIDI. Roland has some decent little acoustic triggers for $15 each which work great with these units from what I've read. Here's a used unit on Ebay for $50-ish for example which would do it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Alesis-D4-16-bit-Electronic-Drum-Module_W0QQitemZ7374440451QQcategoryZ38069QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Or the Roland brand new:
http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-ROL-TMC6------.html

Bottom line is that triggers are triggers, they just send a signal. To use that to drive your sampler or something like DKFH you'd need to converter the signal into MIDI data and that typically requires either a converter or a drum module. Thumbs Up

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:52 am

are there any new midi converters on the market with more than 5 inputs (new) that are not going to cost an arm and a leg? I like the price of the unit you showed me but I know my own kit alone is gonna need 6 triggers.

Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:24 pm

The Roland TMC6 is a 6 trigger unit, The hi-hat controller is considered a trigger. Other than that, yes there are a few units around, best is to search eBay and Google and see what's all out there these days. There are even DIY projects out there...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=Trigger+to+MIDI+Converter&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

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