As stated in my last post, I ordered a set of practice cymbals to convert to eCymbals. They were on clearance as blemished items, but I couldn’t find much wrong with them. The holes on a couple seemed like maybe they were a little ragged, and the 18″ seemed slightly warped, but they will still serve their purpose.

To convert them, I Continue reading ‘Bye, Bye Frisbees!’

In my last post I mentioned I was investing some more into my set. The weakest link in my kit to date was the hi hat contoller. I was using continuous controller/volume pedal, which worked, but it was backwards (down was open and vice versa) and not spring loaded. Hardly effective on a regular basis. So, in a break from the DIY spirit, I Continue reading ‘DI-Why?’

Well, some birthday money, and a need to use my own kit at church on a rather regular basis, has prompted me to put some more money into my DIY eKit. Maybe you know how it is; you get on Musician’s Friend to buy some strings or a pair of drum sticks, but you realize it would be silly to spend $5 on shipping $10 worth of gear. Continue reading ‘Splurge. . .’

I’ve been going nuts converting my remo kit to an edrum kit. My camera was broken and it took great restraint to leave the last pad alone until I could borrow a camera to document the process. I plan to do a narrative of the process of both making the heads and how I attached the piezos, but for now you can go to the Photos section and follow along. I’ve Continue reading ‘Everything Meshes’

Well, I got the Remo kit and overall was very pleased. It is in excellent condition, but three of the pads were modified pretty heavily. On what I’m guess were intended to be the toms, the previous owner had drilled out and/or removed a lot of the plastic material from the bottom of the pads. My best guess is that this was to change the pitch of the pads a bit, to they would be more realistic to practice on. Who knows, though. They will still work well for their intended use, although on one pad it will be somewhat of an issue to attach the phono jack, as there was so much material removed.

Well, this certainly didn’t fit in with my stated goals, but I couldn’t pass it up. I was on Craigslist and saw an ad for a Remo Versatilic practice pad kit for $50. I knew it was a good deal, but a little research told me that it was worth at least twice that. So, at any rate, this should give my build a nice jump start, and if I decide to make mesh-headed pads in the future, I will be able to get my money out of the Remo kit quite easily. The pads will probably trigger better than mesh triggers anyway, especially with my module. However, maybe I’ll make a mesh-headed snare pad to go with the rest of the kit. For that matter, I can also put mesh heads on the Remo pads (example here), if I feel I need to complicate matters; and I usually do. . .

It’s been pretty slow going with the edrums, but Santa was good to me this year. My Musicians Friend wish list had a few things related to the build and made it very simple for people to get me exactly what I wanted. I got a kick pedal, throne, and three Roland piezo cones. The pedal and throne were both Musician’s Friend “Pulse” brand, and I have to say I was really impressed with the quality of both items, and they cost about a third the price of one of the more popular brands. I used to be a lot more concerned with brand names. Most of my guitars are USA made Fender or Gibson, but the older I get (and the more kids I have), the more I find myself looking for true value. And while it’s not true across the board, the fact is that the factories overseas are now capable of making extremely high quality gear, and at a very affordable price.

I got a little caught up in the moment, as one can have a tendency on eBay, and purchased a Roland TD-7 Turbo module. I got for a pretty fair price, about $170, and it came with a rack mount tray and all the manuals. I was hoping that perhaps since it lived most of it’s life in a rack it would be in excellent condition, and I was right. . . almost. Apparently sometime after it was pulled from the rack, but I believe still attached to the rack tray, it was dropped. Something must have caught the volume knob on the way down, as it was way off kilter, and jammed against the faceplate. Continue reading ‘Drum Module’

Welcome to my site dedicated cataloging to the progress of my DIY electronic drum set. Please follow along as I stumble through this, hopefully hanging on to all my digits in the process.