review of Drum-tec pro 14" snare and Edrumin

[Rob]

I have the metal shell, and it's triggering very well for me. As I was working with that pad, I found that the Real Feel mesh was preventing the hot spot suppression from working as good as it does on my Roland pads. I'm not promising that changing your head will solve the problem, but if you have a 2-ply mesh head kicking around, I would try swapping out the Real Feel for the 2-ply.

[gkurtenbach]

I have the metal shell, and it's triggering very well for me. As I was working with that pad, I found that the Real Feel mesh was preventing the hot spot suppression from working as good as it does on my Roland pads. I'm not promising that changing your head will solve the problem, but if you have a 2-ply mesh head kicking around, I would try swapping out the Real Feel for the 2-ply.

Thanks for the tip! Unfortunately, I don't have a 2-ply head so can't try it. That's okay because I've sort of convinced myself that I'm getting about as much as possible out of the single-cone setup--and thats why multi-cone pads are being produced.

Even with hotspot suppression turned off, I find the drum-tec snare is dramatically better than my roland 12" pad. Hotspot suppression helps a bit on the Roland but for me doesn't make it go away. The big difference is that rimshots are much more controllable and predictable on the drum-tec.

It would be nice if drum-tec sent you their new multi-cone 14" snare! I'd love to know if it's really an improvement.

cheers!

[Rob]

I have a Roland 3-cone pad. I don't think it's any better.

[AKA Wayne]

I have the metal shell, and it's triggering very well for me. As I was working with that pad, I found that the Real Feel mesh was preventing the hot spot suppression from working as good as it does on my Roland pads. I'm not promising that changing your head will solve the problem, but if you have a 2-ply mesh head kicking around, I would try swapping out the Real Feel for the 2-ply.

Hmm. Thanks for this tip. I use a reel feel and I think it pretty good in the HSS department but it could be better. I have an unused Roland head lying around that I will have to try out. Thanks Rob.

[gkurtenbach]

I have a Roland 3-cone pad. I don't think it's any better.

I'm very curious: how is it not better? Do you end up with 3 hotspots? Or less responsive because 3 sensors are being "averaged"?

[gkurtenbach]

I have the metal shell, and it's triggering very well for me. As I was working with that pad, I found that the Real Feel mesh was preventing the hot spot suppression from working as good as it does on my Roland pads. I'm not promising that changing your head will solve the problem, but if you have a 2-ply mesh head kicking around, I would try swapping out the Real Feel for the 2-ply.

Hmm. Thanks for this tip. I use a reel feel and I think it pretty good in the HSS department but it could be better. I have an unused Roland head lying around that I will have to try out. Thanks Rob.

Just to add to this thread, I asked drum-tec about improving the hotspot and they said you can't ever get completely rid of it but tightening the head or lowering the cone may help. I tightened my head and that improved things. Seems like it made the area outside of the hotspot a little more responsive--hence reducing the hotspot. I haven't tried lowering the cone.

They also suggested looking into their new multi-cone snare pro 3...

[mprinz]

So I sacrificed an old waterproof rubber glove and used it to tightly wrap the spokes. One side of the material is rubber and the other is cloth. I think anything that is very flexible and dense will work well. This has removed about 90% of the resonance issues and allows HSS and positional sensing to work properly. The another 5% can be resolved by adding a 10K-20K resistor in series with the tip signal, but I should be able to deal with it in the firmware so that the resistor is not needed.

This post is probably relevant to anyone using eDRUMin for DIY A->E conversions. Make sure your cross members are dampened, otherwise they will introduce unwanted resonance into the piezo signal and compromised performance.

Oh, men! I missed this post. I have some bitumen adhesive tape left from the car front speaker upgrade.
This is really heavy and sticky... Would this be a good idea.
I would like to try this because my signal looks not as smooth as on some other OEM pads.