Drum triggers?

[freeze]

Hi,

the drummer of our band was interested in playing with triggers, in particulair for the bassdrum, but we don't know much of the technical side of things.
I saw at the official Alesis site, they sell a drum module (DM5) that would handle the job, but according to our drummer, there is software available that we could run on a laptop that would trigger the drum sounds (but then we'd have to get some sort of hardware to connect the trigger sensors to the laptop?). This way, he wouldn't have to buy the module, but just the trigger sensors and software. Any kind of information is more than welcome!
Thanks!

 

[dreamcatcher]

There may be a way to rig recording software to do it just off the mic feed, if it had a side-chain compressor/limiter type plug-in. You'd have to set up a synth tone, usually around 50 or 30 hz, constant, and run it into the compressor plug-in. Then you'd set the compressor/limiter thing to open up at a certain threshhold (the volume of the kick) to hear the triggered tone, and gate it at whatever time length you want.

Another option is to get an effect processor that has a sample feature, or even a cheap old sampler, with a trigger input. For example, my Yamaha SPX900 can sample a really short time, and the sample can be fired by a trigger input, and some can even fire off a sound input that is loud enough so you could use a crappy mic to do it. The trick, then, is to make sure the response time is reasonable, so if you buy something used just to do this, try it out first.

 

[freeze]

Thanks for the reply Dreamcatcher, but I'm not really interested in sidechaining stuff. The idea is to use drum trigger sensors (no mics) to trigger samples (not synths). Guess it's not that easy to synthesise a great sounding kickdrum...
Thanks anyway!

 

[oscar drummer1]

is the best to play with triggers because is some of the most important to have control in the hands

 

[freeze]

is the best to play with triggers because is some of the most important to have control in the hands

heh?

 

[Meandor]

I would advise that you stick with hardware drum modules (not software running on a PC, much less a laptop)... You'll get better response time.