(I am modifying this post as all the images stopped working thanks to Photobucket's recent money grab on what was a free service for years)
Some time ago I made what I thought was the final mod to my DM10X pads. You may if you are a regular on this forum remember that . ..
1. I have made my shells taller by around 10mm.
2. I used something a little bit like the rubber rod method that is on the Strike kit
This system worked fine for months and months. However I started to notice that one of the 12" toms was double triggering. Seems that over time (and pounding) the rubber 'rods' of KFlex I used were getting squashed, and not returning to original height. Therefore some of them were not making proper contact with the head. That and the inexact science of cutting K-Flex with a razor blade.
There has to be a better way. And I think I have found it (90% sure). This is a work in progress.
It was an annoyance to me that something as simple of the Jobeky dual zone side trigger could turn any drum into a working and responsive edrum pad,
yet I had to have foam, a circle of metal, much double sided tape and several rubber rods.
Before you read on note, my DM10X pads are taller than standard. If you want to try this at home extend your pads first.
I did this the hard (what was I thinking?) way..
http://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.php?topic=5348.0
And the easy way with wooden embroidery hoops.
http://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.php?topic=6833.0
This is a good time to recover you shells anyway.
Now that that is out of the way, here is the state of my experiment with a side trigger on a 12" DM10X pad.
(I striked out the lines above as I reckon the solution below would work on a regular 12" pad. )
First as a test I took off all the rubber 'rods' and moved the peizo to the top. Then I mounted it on a little circle of rubber, with a little square of rubber on top.
This idea came from my bass drum fix.
More about that fix here
http://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.php?topic=6785.0As a test this worked very very well. Great in fact.. The sensitivity was down from around 55 to around 30 and the head was responsive to the most gentle hits. I am on to something.
But I got thinking. Why do I need a circle of metal at all? Time to hack.
First I removed all the foam and metal. Back basics.
Then cut a square of foam and put it ...... You'll see in the image below.
(this was a mistake!!!)
That is a square of double sided tape on top.
This next shot shows the final mod.
And the money shot..
So. how does it play. Amazing. However, I should NOT have put the foam inside the void. I can't play the top head without triggering the rim and no amount of settings for send , receive or threshold fixed the issue.
The top head was so good I was tempted to disable the rim. But no. I'll get it working.
Here is how i plan to fix it.
1. The mod needs to be mounted on top of just 2 or 3 of the ribs and not down between 2 ribs. The purpose of those ribs on the base is to reduce the amount of impact from the top (This is why the original design had a donut of foam sitting on the ribs ). The way I have it the hits are traveling directly to the base of the pad.
2. I need to alter the rubber holding of the peizo. The top piece is around 8mm above the bearing edge before I put the head on.. So the whole mod gets squashed down when you put the head on. The mod should only be 2mm or so over the bearing edge. Gently does it.
A little fine tuning and tidying up and this mod will be a winner. (and FINAL. Really. Enough already)
One of the thing I am hoping for with this mod is to allow different head tensions without altering the performace of the pad. Imagine having the 4th tom head loose like a big floor tom and it still triggers. Time will tell.
More on this mod soon.