Hi All,
I've had a Crimson II SE for a while now. Not being a real life drummer (I'm a guitar player), I didn't notice anything too out of the ordinary. Even after getting EZ Drummer 3 and enjoying that software.
Anyway, I got an Edrumin 8 so I could have more control over configuring the triggers and to access more features of EZ Drummer. After setting everything up, I noticed that my kick pad sensitivity had to be really high compared to other pads. 16 vs 3 to 5 for all others. It was also triggering when I would place my foot on the pedal without actually hitting the pad. Lastly, if I used a stick to tap the shells of other pads, they would not trigger. But with the kick would.
So I open up the pad. There is foam in the center, the piezo is mounted below that on its own foam, which is normal after doing some research. My specific problem is that I think the piezo is mounted upside down. The piezo is face down on the acrylic mount, with the foam on top of it protruding the where the mesh head would sit. picture attached. Comparing it to a YouTube video of a kick pad piezo replacement, I believe that it's upside down.
So if it is upside down, any suggestions on fixing it? I don't just want to yank on the foam. Maybe I unscrew the acrylic mount and heat the glue to get it off? I just don't want to screw up the pad/piezo.
Any help or suggestions appreciated.
Welcome to the Forum !
The Foam looks to be on top of the Piezo/Ceramic/wires (wires look suspended not laying on the plate)..which is Glued to a suspended reflection Plate.This is normal.
If it were truly upside down with the ceramic/wires directly on the Reflection Plate , the ceramic would have been easily broken by now or wire off and the trigger non functional
The early/discontinued design was a normal tom attached to the Tower...Piezo was centered in the drum.
The advantage of this design was it allowed you to change sizes..I still have some..most are 10"..12" is a little unstable.
The Piezo is now offset/below center to keep from being destroyed by direct contact with the beater and the foam picks up vibration off the Mesh Head and the large Foam in center absorbs the beater hit and helps keep vibration off the tower from the beater.
If sensitivity is set too high the tower becomes overly sensitive and anything attached to..like the pedal.
The newer towers are using Reflection Plate Tech and the Tower itself is now the entire trigger.
Some of the early designs of the Newer towers had the Piezo directly glued to the Tower which made the tower too sensitive,but all the beater hits weren't being detected with the large foam dampening so some would lower the beater closer to the Piezo.
Everything looks in order , you need to adjust the settings...Sensitivity as Low as possible..Threshold as High as Possible.Then adjust Re-trigger to how fast BPM.
It's over-sensitive for the foot pedal as the Tower is the trigger and the sensitivity is set way too high..make sure you selected the right trigger in eDRUMin..try side mount..not center mount.
I would adjust the settings and go through and select different/various trigger presets.
Experiment and adjust edge sense.
It will take some dialing in as there are no Alesis trigger presets in eDRUMin as Alesis triggers are not Officially supported.
The majority of manufactures are using cones...single cone on a Piezo..not Reflection Plate with Piezo attached and a column or columns transferring vibrations to the Reflection Plate.A number of the newer Alesis toms have2 Piezos for the head with a Blend "Sensitivity' knob.
