eDRUMin in Live Touring Environment

[mobleywho]

Hello,

I'm a professional musician interested in eDRUMin as a potential tool for my live rig. I'm curious whether anyone has had any experience touring/playing live shows with it. Particularly curious about how it reacts to various conditions with regard to power quality and stage vibrations, which (in my experience with other products) tend to be the most important variables impacting performance.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[perceval]

I haven't done any touring with the unit.
but, for what it's worth...

The units are now encased in an aluminium box. They would withstand a few "drop tests", I'm sure.
The connectors are regular TRS, MIDI and USB, the USB being the flimsiest of them, but it is the square stronger one, so much better than something like USB-C.

Most touring setups will have some sort of travel case to house the various small electronics stuff. Everything could be housed in foam to prevent vibrations either while playing, or while travelling. Since you plan to use the eDRUMin, you must have a laptop or something similar? A laptop would be subjected to vibrations as well, and I expect the eDRUMin to be at least as tough as a laptop, if not better.

Since the units are USB powered, it will be your USB dongle providing the 5V current needed for the unit. Using that will regulate the power going to the eDRUMin.

[Rob]

In a live environment, the level of sound on the stage is going to add noise into the inputs. You would need to include some extra headroom in your thresh controls to compensate for this. A global thresh compensation control for the entire device might be a good feature for use in live situations.

I'm not sure about power quality, as I've never testing this.

[perceval]

Adding noise to the inputs is for any triggered pads, not an eDRUMin issue.
It would be the same thing for a commercial module, Roland, Yamaha, 2Box, etc...
It's very nice that we have the graphical interface with the eDRUMin, so you get to see the level of noise coming through the triggers from ambient sound and can place the bar (threshold) above that.

Like I mentioned, if using something like a 110v to USB, like a phone charger, 110v fluctuations will be lost in the conversion to 5V.

[mprinz]

I actually never thought about that any vibration is being picked up by the piezos.
But would that really be an important issue?
Of course you need to now that before getting wrong triggers but then ...

I was wondering if there is a difference in noise level between computer USB power supply or the DC power jack?

[Rob]

It might be interesting to use an input to pick up ambient noise and use that signal to filter all the other inputs. As for USB vs DC, they should be quite comparable. Both sources all well regulated and filtered on their journey down to 3.3V.

[perceval]

I can attest that vibrations from a live music environment will be picked up by the piezos.
Piezos can be used either as pickups, like we use in e-drumming pads or guitars, or as a speaker, like they are used in computers for that "beep" sound.

If you put a piezo to your mouth, add some gain and speak, you will hear yourself.
At home, in a quiet environment, the ambient noise is kept at a minimum, but in a live setting, especially if you use stage monitors instead of in-ears, those sounds will make their way to the piezos and induce noise.

It's important that at sound check, you fire up the app and check the noise floor, then adjust your threshold accordingly.
You will lose some like very faint ghost notes, but it will not trigger out of order.

[mprinz]

I can attest that vibrations from a live music environment will be picked up by the piezos.
Piezos can be used either as pickups, like we use in e-drumming pads or guitars, or as a speaker, like they are used in computers for that "beep" sound.

That's clear ... But I think, I somehow missed the fact it can influence the instrument on live gigs. Maybe, because I come from the acoustic kit.
But with regard to acoustic kits, it's the same... the mics pick up the ambient noise, as well. If they use some gates, they will also loose subtle notes.
Right?

[mobleywho]

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up stumbling across and used eDrumIn4 and DDT MS140C at a price I couldn't pass up on. I cut down a 22" bass drum and built a hybrid kit around it using 8" and 10" Alesis pads for toms and a Triggera Krigg (not pictured) for a kick. A condenser on a gooseneck will pick up the crash and hi-hats.

If this works well, my plan would be to eventually expand to an eDrumIn10. I'll be road testing it for the first time on Saturday. I'll report back if anything remarkable happens.

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[dsteinschneider]

@mobleywho - I'm using a normal 5 piece kit for my studio. I've been thinking about creating a second kit for small venues and jam sessions. Your design is interesting. Please let us know how it holds up. Thanks