480threephase

I play in a band and am in the process of designing some of our visual effects. What I'm stumped on is this one...

I want to trigger a ring of LED's around the ring of one bass drum when it is hit, but when the snare is hit then use a different color of LED's. i want to use 4 different color groups then recycle back to the first set. other effects on the drum are going to be used but if i can just figure out the triggering circuit i can replicate it for the others. i have to be concerned if a sound trigger is used in the drum to make sure it isnt so sensitive that the ambient noise will set it off. ive considered using some sort of inertia switch for the trigger, but the switch between colors has me stumped.

im an industrial electrician with plenty of experience reading diagrams, but my experience w/ electronics is limited, so if you have any suggestions, please dumb them down for me! still trying to learn this branch of electrical work.

Analog

If you attach a small speaker to the drum body, facing inward, it will act as a transducer when the drum is hit. Then you can use that to trigger a basic digital circuit to do the leds.

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480threephase

ok. i understand that much, now how do i choose the right size speaker and is there a way to adjust the sensitivity of the speaker so that it doesnt pick up the ambient sounds. we have 4 other instruments playing out of 1000 watt system.

3v0

Analog:
Can he tell the difference between a snare drum and a non snare with band pass filters.

Or go low tech and put a sensor on each drum of interest.

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Hero999

It's best to use a piezo disc fixed to each drum, they're cheap and easy to get hold of.

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480threephase

that was kinda what i was leaning towards was either some sort of inertia sensor on the heads or a piezo switch, then i could figure out the logic on my own. appreciate it guys.

Gaston

they make drum triggers that attach the the drum heads. im not sure how they work but you could probably google drum trigger and learn a lot

480threephase

cool. thnx alot. i found some for about 7 bucks a peice. essentially they are just piezo transducers that input into a drum module, so i could get some piezo transducers and just use them to gate my circuit. i think ive got it figured out now. thanx everyone

Hero999

You can get piezo transducters for much less than that. Maplin isn't the cheapest place and they sell them for less than that.


http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?...=3202&doy=26m3

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Torben

Make sure you insulate them from too much vibration or shock with foam or something. Compared to a drummer, those things are amazingly fragile. Especially if you're playing live. Also, be careful how you mount them as it's easy to get cross-triggering from one drum to another via the hardware (depending on how the drums are mounted).


Torben

480threephase

the pricing was for a drum trigger set up for an electronic processing machine. i didnt price the transducers. im probably going to mount them towards the outer rim inside the drums and use adhesive foam to cushion them, then just go from there