E-Drum Do-It-Yourself: Acoustic to Electronic Conversions

Question PainterPainter	Your crossbar design runs from one tuning lug to the opposite at a fixed height determined by the depth of the original drum's hardware, from what I can see. Is there a crossbar depth adjustment mechanism that I'm not seeing? I've always assumed that the crossbar depth adjustment was required by the fixed height of the Roland cones- the only way to adjust head contact was to move the base of the cone around. Are you making this adjustment when you cut the rollerconey thing? If so, what's your procedure for determining rollerconey thing length, or height ( I guess)? I've already got 4 cut down tom shells, two of which have crossbars mounted in them. I figured out a method of adjusting the crossbars in those, but I firmly believe in eliminating moving parts whenever possible. If you've got a method that can't go out of true, then I'll go that way. What are your thoughts? I like the project boxes- they seem inherantly more robust than some of the other wiring techniques that I've seen. Do you find mounting the project box on the crossbar to be more convenient than on the shell? I'm looking at relatively frequent breakdown, and I'm wondering about cable connections that I can't see very well while playing. Do you use any kind of strain relief on the cables? What are you using to make the piezo mounting plates? Are those outdoor junction box covers? One last thing- any sign of side to side wobble? I built things so they couldn't twist, but now I'm wondering if it's overkill? Ordered heads today- I'll be using a TD6. Did you ever set yours up for your DIY setup? If so , I'd love to get a sysex dump before you sell it, if you haven't already. Thanks for all the info- you've got a great site, and if the rollercone works, I owe you the refreshing beverage of your preferance.
Answer	The roller cones were cut just about in half, but I got rather lucky with the cone height as I didn't do very many measurements. I'd recommend that since the cost of a Roland cone is equivilent to about 5 roller cones, you use 1 roller cone per cone which leaves you with plenty of room for adjustment - which brings me to the second question. Yes, the cone was the adjustment as I didn't (and couldn't) cut slits into the sides of the L bracket aluminum. By all means, you can definately try it; I kept in mind that the distance from the bottom of the hoops to the lugs is pretty much universal...the only difference is the length of the tension rods (determining the offset of the lug's screw holes). I liked mounting the project boxes on the crossbars because it allowed me to pull out the whole deal (except for rim piezos), kept the wiring job tidy, and preserved the shell which I didn't want to damage. However, if constant break down is a concern, then you may be better off drilling your own holes in the shells. Although not shown in the pics, side to side wobble isn't an issue because after realizing that they would, I drilled holes through the L-brackets and crossbar, then put a screw with rubber washers and felt to keep it from moving. As for the cone, well, that's why I just bought a big block of foam to try and manufacture DIY cones. I'll post the results soon. As well as the columns work, I just didn't like the idea of the possibility of wobble. Just make sure you keep the crossbar high and column height low.
Question PainterPainter	You're mounting rim piezos right to the shell. To what degree do you isolate the crossbar? (ie foam between shell and bracket, rubber washers, double sided foam tape) JMan mentions mounting his c-bars with velcro when doing 5-lug drums, which I think would give some degree of isolation even if unintentional. I understand the requirement to signal from both piezos simultaneously to produce a rimshot sound, so it would seem to me ( who's never actually done it) that good isolation would be needed so that crosstalk and sensitivity settings could be altered as little as possible. Or am I concerned about nothing? Or , ( another strong contender) am I missing the point entirely? (I know that a lot of what I'm asking will be self-explanatory once I've actually got things up and running- thanks for your patience w/ a newbie) The sysex would be awesome- I think that being able to look at someone else's settings would help me to dial things in much more quickly. I'm considering doing the firmware update to give myself two piezo tom options, but I'm a little scared. I'm sure that most folks do it, like it, and never have any problems to post about, but it seems that the folks who have problems have weird ones- kinda scary.
Answer	I used one rim piezo mounted perpindicular to the crossbar. See that little diagram at the bottom of the snare page. This is still working well, but I/you should definately try it with more piezos. The diagram on the toms page is basically how I isolated it with rubber washers and felt washers.

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