Transcript for the video "How I Made My Drumkit, Part 11"

Introduction

“Hi my name is Marcel and I would like to share with you how I made my electronic drumkit and how you could be making your own electronic drum kit.” This is the line I used in each of the videos in a 10 part series that I made 10 years ago. The last few months, this series has gotten more hits than it got in the 9 years before that. Also, my number of subscriptions quadrupled. It seems people want to know more about my kit. So it makes sense now, to share with you what has changed in my drumkit since I made these 10 videos and why I made these changes.

A lot of things are the same, so most of the changes I made can be called ‘updates’. Some of them will be interesting to all drummers, but some details might only be of interest to ‘electronic drum nerds’ out there. So to try and keep all of you onboard, I will put the details that might bore the average drummer in a frame with this text [NERD ALERT]. Nerds can pause the video and read the text, others might want to move on to the next chapter in this video.

Because there it a lot to show and explain, I plan to make a few update videos. In this video, I will show you the changes in the drumkit hardware. In part 12 I will go into the electronics and the Roland TD-50X module in particular. In a few months, I would like to make another video about my software, which should be part 13. Next year I hope to make a video about lighting. But for now: let’s look at the drumkit itself.

1. New drumpads

I made my first drumkit in the end of the 80’s. I was a big fan of symmetry and it didn’t make sense to me to have pretty much all of the elements to my right side. So I created a drumkit that was centered around 9 pads that were placed in three triangles. Including cymbals and footpads, over the years my kit has had d on average 20 components (between 17 and 23 pads). A few years ago I made my current kit smaller, it is now a 16 piece drumkit. The first thing that will stand out: I bought a few Roland mesh pads. The reason is that these pads have a better bounce compared to my rubber pads.

First I bought a Roland pad to be used as a snare, I chose the PDX-100, because I prefer a 10” size over 12 or 14 inches. A few years later I bought two PD-85 pads and I use these mainly for Hi-Hat sounds. As you can see from the top view, I still do not use a dedicated Hi-Hat set. I have always played Hi-Hat on pads. I do however use a Hi-Hat pedal, which I will discuss later on. The latest change in pads, is that I removed the outer two pads from my kit. So currently, I use four 10” size rubber pads, two 6” rubber pads and three Roland mesh head pads.

The rubber pads are the ones that I made myself. In the last few years, the foam layers have perished so I had to replace the foam. Also the playing surfaces needed to be replaced. I found a material that is used as carpet underlay. That feels a bit less bouncy compared to the neoprene I used 10 years ago, but is it less expensive. The overall design of the pads remained the same.
If you want to see how I made these pads, check out Part 4 of this video series. 

2. New cymbals

My older videos will confirm that I have experimented a lot with self-made cymbals. I wanted my crash cymbals to bounce, to show the audience when they are hit. But the thinner cymbals always broke down in a few months. When I made them thicker, they did not bounce enough. So I did not find a good compromise between bouncing and durability. So a few years back, I got sick of that struggle and I bought a series of Roland cymbals.

I now use two CY-8 as crashes, a CY-12C as a china and a CY-13R as a ride cymbal. That is, when I play rock music. When I play electronic music, I often use the two larger cymbals for electric sounds or loops. I understand that many drummers prefer larger cymbals, especially for the Ride. But I like my kit to be compact, so I do not really care for large sized cymbals or pads.

[NERD ALERT]
You may have seen that my Roland CY-12C and CY-13R do not show white plastic on the bottom. Although I do appreciate electronic drums that do NOT look like acoustic drums, I do not like the look of the black and white cymbals. So I decided to make them all black. Because I did not want to paint the cymbals, I decided to use adhesive plastic foil instead. It works on the flat surfaces, but it does not stick to the plastic in the curved areas. So maybe painting may not have seen a bad idea. But even though there is a little bit of white left to see if you look closely, the audience will see all black cymbals.

3. The change in pedals

As I explained, I do not believe it is logical to have pretty much all of the elements of a drum kit to your right side, simply because that is how drummers have always played. Likewise, if you play electronic drums, there is no need to play a Hi-Hat setup where the foot and hand are aligned vertically. Why would you want to cross your arms to play Hi-Hat? So I have never played a traditional Hi-Hat on an electronic kit. But I have used Hi-Hat switches and pedals through the years.

About 10 years ago my drumkit had 4 trigger pedals and in some years I had a Hi-Hat pedal and in other years I did not. At one time, I used 5 pedals… 4 trigger pedals and a Hi-Hat pedal. I confess, that was a bit much (for just two feet). Just as I have taken out two pads, I have also taken out one trigger pedal. I currently have two pedals on either side, but on the left side the left pedal is a Roland FD-7. In rock music I use the FD-7 as a Hi-Hat pedal, as it is intended. But in electronic music I often use the Hi-Hat -pedal to trigger a single sound, like a handclap or tambourine.

[NERD ALERT]
You might think that using a Hi-Hat pedal to play a single sound, will result in a fixed velocity. That used to be the case in the 90’s. But nowadays, most modules offer you the chance to close the Hi-Hat slow or fast, and hear different volumes/velocities. So the same applies when you play other sounds. But playing other sounds with your left foot might feel strange, for several reasons. Because of the timing of the pedal, or the lower travel/height OR the fact that your left foot may not be accustomed to playing as actively as your right foot is (assuming you play right handed)
If you want to see how I made my Footpads, check out Part 5 of this video series.

4. New switches

In the TD-50X you can assign control functions to 2 pads and 2 footswitches. The functions that I use most often, are kit increment/decrement and “ALL SOUND OFF”. I prefer to advance to other drum sets by hitting a pad, but for “ALL SOUND OFF” I prefer to use a footswitch. Earlier this year, I recorded a few YouTube videos in which I needed a footswitch to mute all sounds. For those occasions, I placed a switch in the middle. But recently I bought two footswitches that I have incorporated in my drumkit permanently.

The footswitches are momentary switches. The one that I use to mute all sounds, for example at the end of a song, is the one on the right. I chose this position because I do not need to mute sounds while I’m playing a groove. So when I want to mute all sounds, I can remove my right foot from the kick pedal and press the footswitch. The other footswitch is placed on the left side, I can press this one with my left foot. That means that I can press this footswitch while playing a groove. I may move this one to the middle though, time will tell.

Like many other drum modules, the TD-50X module has a single footswitch connector, but it is a stereo input. So you could use a double switch, like the BOSS FS-6. But I prefer to place one switch at either side. If you need to, you can easily use an Y splitter to connect two mono switches into a stereo footswitch input. As you may have guessed, the signals from my footswitches run through my multi-cable, together with all the cables from the pads and cymbals.

5. The updated multi-cable

Whenever I changed my kit in the past 10 years, that often meant I had to change the multi-cable. As you might have seen in older videos, the connector I use has a large amount of pins (72!). If you are thinking about creating a multi-cable, think about the future. You might want to increase the number of pads or add switches, lights, etc. Changing pins in a cable like this, is not an easy task but having to start all over again… that would take even more time. So think long and hard before you choose the amount of pins and the type of connector. In this picture you can see I have added a few cables on the left side, that I am not using today but might use in the future.

As I mentioned before, my current drumkit holds 16 pads and cymbals, excluding the Hi-Hat pedal. Since my current module has only 14 pad inputs, I can’t connect each pad to a separate input. But since some of my components are mono pads, there is a solution. About mono and stereo: in the old days, all electronic drumpads were mono. After the introduction of drumpads and cymbals with a second sound on the rim or edge, most pads now have stereo connectors. If you have a number of mono pads, you can combine them using splitter cables, or insert cables.

In theory, a splitter cable enables you to connect two mono pads to one stereo trigger input. In the module, you assign one sound to the head of the pad, and another sound on the rim of the pad. You could then play the two sounds on the two mono pads. Whether this theoretical option is available to you, depends on the type of module and the type of input. Generally, you can split a stereo input if it is designed for two piezos. There is a great Wikipedia page on VDrums, you can use that to check how many inputs of your module are designed for use with two piezos. As for creating your own splitter cable, you can find videos on YouTube (search for something like “Make a Drumsplitter Cable”).

[NERD ALERT]
So in order to connect my 16 pads to the 14 inputs of my Roland TD-50X, I have to use two splitter cables. I could have chosen to transmit signals of all 16 pads through the multi connector to my equipment and put the two splitter cables in my equipment flightcase. But I chose to incorporate the two splitter cables in the multi cable. That way I save pins in the multi-connector, leaving more pins for a Hi-Hat pedal, footswitches and lights.

[NERD ALERT]
A warning though: if you decide to connect two mono pads to a stereo input, the end result might not work as well as two pads on two separate inputs. In most cases, you may only be able to set a single GAIN or SENSITIVITY value. If the two pads are different in design or size, the result could be that only one of the pads will have the response you want (the other being too soft or too loud). So my advice is to only do this with two pads of the same brand and type. In my kit, the signals of two 6”pads go into the Aux3 input and the signal of two trigger pedals go into the Aux4 input. If you want to see how I made this multi-cable, check out Part 7 of this video series.

6. The current rack

That means I had to remove the two diagonal pipes, the curved rack is currently only standing on THREE legs. These diagonal pipes not only gave the rack some sturdiness, but it also made the rack look a bit cooler (if I may say so). If I were to make a new kit in the future, I would probably make the rack bigger again… and buy a bigger car.

[NERD ALERT]
Also, I would try to make all the cables run through the pipes. That would be great. But that is not possible with my current rack system. So I would have to design a new rack from scratch. Maybe. One day.
If you want to see how I made this rack, check out Part 6 of this video series.

7. The current electronics

In the past decades I have always used two or sometimes even three different drum modules. In Part 8 of this series, you can see an equipment flightcase with two modules: a Roland TD-8 and an Alesis D4. A few years later I used a Roland TD-20 in combination with a Roland TM-2. Currently, I use a single drum module: the Roland TD-50X. I will explain why I have been using two modules for all these years (and my thoughts on downsizing to a single drum module) in the next video, part 12 of this series.

In part 8 you also saw a netbook, running my own software. It has been replaced by a Windows tablet (currently a Micosoft Surface Pro 6). In that video you also saw an analog mixer, which I replaced with a digital mixer, a Mackie DL806. As you might have seen in other videos, this mixer is no longer in my equipment flightcase. The reason is that I only use this mixer at home, I do not need it during gigs. Again, keeping things more simple inside the equipment flightcase.

With my previous modules I recorded audio though the output jacks, when I record from the TD-50X – for these youtube videos – I use the USB output of the module. That USB cable goes directly from the module to my laptop. For sending and receiving MIDI - from my software to the module and back - I still use a simple Roland MIDI interface, which is USB powered. So to summarize: I did not only downsize in the amount of pads, I also downsized in the amount of equipment.

[NERD ALERT]
I planned to show a pad to input diagram in this video. Since this video is already quite long, I will put that diagram in the next video. In that diagram you will see that I have connected the cymbal that I usually play a China sound… to the Hi-Hat input of my module. And the two pads that I use to play Hi-Hat sounds… are connected to the Aux1 and Aux2 inputs. That is not a mistake, I gave this a lot of consideration. I will explain why I connected my pads this way in part 12 of this series!

8. The current software

The software that I showed in part 9 of this series has had updates in the past 10 years as well. I made this software myself (and for myself). I plan to add functions in the coming months, mainly to include a looping function. When that update is done, I will make a new video about the software. This will probably end up being part 13 in this series.
If you want to see a bit of version 1 of my software, check out Part 9 of this video series.

9. The current and future lighting

Just like the software has had updates, I have updated the lighting of the drumkit as well. I already had LED strips at the front, to shine light on my pedals. Last year I added LED strips to the curved pipes, to shine light on my feet. If you have seen drum cover and medley cover videos, you know that I like to play different types of sounds with my pedals. So these LED strips are meant to help viewers see and hear what I play on my pedals.

After I have added loop functions to my software, I would like to add a function to control lighting to my software as well. It would be great to integrate two RGB spots in my drumkit, one at either side. Firstly, I would like to be able to set a specific colour and intensity for each song that I play. Secondly, I would like to be able to change colour and intensity while playing (using MIDI and DMX). I am not sure how to do that right now, but that is a challenge I like to take on next year. If I manage to add these functions to my software, I will make a video about it!

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Well we have come to the end of this first update video, in which I have shown you the changes I made in my drumkit hardware in the past 10 years. But of course this is a never ending process. For instance, I have been playing on this drawing table chair for over 20 years. It is EOL for sure. I bought this barstool in an IKEA store that I like and I am currently testing with my practise kit.

In the next video I will dive into the Roland TD-50X module. I will show you a few functions that make it a great module for me, but I will also point out a few shortcomings or possible improvements. I hope Roland will watch that video and take notice, so the next version of the module will be even better!

I hope you have enjoyed this video. Like and subscribe and I will try and post a new cover or update video soon!

Click here for the transcript of the next video in this series