So I've bought an Alesis DMPad Ride 14" that is supposedly "triple zone" for my kit (DM-10 Mark I module) but shortly after getting it I discovered that it wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, I assumed that all 3 zone rides like these would be using 2-3 piezos but this one is only 1 piezo and 2 switches.
I have plugged it in (2 x stereo, out A to Ride 1, out B to Ride 2), switched ride mode to 3 zone and tried playing but had lot's of issues where bell would trigger with bow, couldn't set it correctly until I've discovered that it has that 1 piezo and 2 switches and then I've changed the mode of Ride Bell to switch and it worked... for a day, while it worked it did behave correctly as one would expect for switch zone so bell and "edge" (saying it in quotes since it seems I can hit it anywhere, as long as it's hard hit it still triggers that crash like sound typical for edge I think but it does mute when I hold it so I think that zone switch works) are not velocity sensitive, but today it stopped working.
I changed cross talk on the Ride 2/Bell ext.trigger setting and also tried different Send/Receive settings on both Ride 2/Bell and Ride 1/Bow and also the trigger sensitivity in both with no effect - regular hits trigger bow sounds, hitting it hard triggers edge sound, grabbing the edge mutes it but no matter how hard or where I hit on the bell or around it's area bell switch doesn't trigger, only way I can get a bell sound is by switching Ride 2/Bell to piezo but then I get both sounds at the same time and overall it doesn't sound correct, even though that way I get velocity sensitive bell I'm aware there is no way this can work right since there is only 1 piezo and I can then either get just the bell and edge (cross talk at 1-7) or mixed bow and bell sounds if set to 0.
I wasn't able to measure anything with multi-meter so I can't confirm if they work correctly, also I have no idea if this just short the circuit or work on the change of capacity/resistance.
My question then is, what could be causing it? I've written to Hellfire over on Youtube to ask if he has any ideas what could be causing it or if there is any way to modify this cymbal but he had no idea due to lack of experience on working with these. I'd like to first get the bell zone to work as it should (no velocity when switched to switch on ext.trigger with proper cross talk setting to not trigger bow zone by mistake) and then I'd like to try and mod this cymbal to add velocity sensitive switch zone on bell (edge can be left to work like it does, assuming the behavior described by me is correct right now) or buy a 2nd piezo and mount it somewhere in the bell area to hopefully have a proper 2 piezo 1 switch cymbal, again I don't really care about the edge, as long as it works correct it doesn't have to be velocity sensitive. I have no way of returning it though so I can't resell it and buy another one.
Also hope it's the right thread, it's my first one here.
Also so it's clear - I'm aware of this thread:
https://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.php?topic=2068.0 but to be honest... this doesn't tell me much, I'd need to get a clear instruction what to solder and where on that PCB since I'm not that great with electronics and I really don't feel like spending several hours researching how these modules work exactly and what values of what components need to be used, I'm hoping someone modded this Ride cymbal and can help, either ways will work for me (switch zone velocity or 2nd piezo but I'm aware that 2nd might be tricky to get good separation of zones due to vibrations).