17 replies to this topic

[ROB219]

I am in the midst of building, yet another, E kit. <>/smile.gif

This one is based on the Ludwig Epic Modular kit I bought a few months back.
What has prompted me to use this kit for electronic use in the fact I am also, at the same time, building a new A kit.

So, seeing as I won't be needing 2 A kits I decided that the Ludwig will be treated to some electronic goodness courtesy of Roland. But, it will also be able to be used as an acoustic kit too.

First quirkiness of the Ludwig is the 2 x shallow (8" depth) kicks, that can be ganged together to form 1 larger "drum", although 1 is the kick and the other merely a woofer.

I am over the shallow kick phase of my life. Mind you, I have been using just 1 kick for live acoustic work and it sounds amazing for a shallow drum of its size.

But, I have ditched the 2 drums in favour of just 1, deeper normal looking kick drum.

So I picked up a new shell, 20" x 16" from Tee Drums in the UK. Got it sent over, at great cost and quarantine fees (wood... ugh) <>/mad.gif

This is the blank shell:



Next up was to mark and measure the holes to mount the hardware:





While I am at it, I am painting 2 of the hoops back to black as well. The donor drums are a blue/black fade, but I will be changing out the colour as well. New kit... new colour.... thats how I roll
Seeing as I have 2 x hoops in blue and 2 x in black, 2 of them are going back to black. I will be using 2 x black hoops for my new A kit and 2 for the E kit.

Masked up and painted 1 today:





The "+" thing you see the hoop and shell mounted on is a rotating drum table I made, bearing raced, which makes painting a breeze... all I have to do is spin the table which turns freely, and spraying the paint is perfectly even. The finish it gives is brilliant.

I'll post up pics of new happening when I do them.

Rob.

[ROB219]

The new finish of the drums will be this:

[ROB219]

Ok, so I'll start to detail the new kit bass drum trigger setup. As I have stated earlier, it utilities an 8" mesh head, mounted on a support plate which mounts inside a 20" full size shell.
The pedal side will then get a false head to cover the support plate.

So, here we go....

The donor shell:



Trimmed it down to sit upon the support plate:



It will secure the 8" head to the support plate:



Now, in order to secure the hoop to the support plate, it will need the rod nuts to be fitted to the plate. What I did was remove the nuts from the donor drums' lugs.





Then, I sat the hoop on the head to mark the holes to drill to house the tension rod nuts. I drilled the holes so that the nuts sit tight in the plate.



tbc..

[ROB219]

...cont

In order to fill some back padding for the mesh, I needed to make a hole in the plate to accommodate it, and it will house the trigger mounting plate, which come later.



Holes drilled and nuts fitted:





Now the hoop has somewhere to attach





So that the hoop cannot move around, I affixed it to the support plate via 4 x angle brackets.



They'll mount in these positions:



What I need to do now is allow for the bracket thickness, so I remove some material from the edges:





tbc...

[ROB219]

cont...

8" riser hoop is now attached:



I then cut back any unnecessary MDF from the support plate. What this should do is reduce the amount of acoustic noise radiating forward from the drum. But it will attach to the drum at 6 points inside the drum, so therefor will retain rigidity.

And then I painted it black!







Ok, now that the support is done I needed to work out the inner padding setup of the kick trigger. What will serve as the trigger is a Roland style cone, mounted offset.



I cut out some foam to fit inside the housing, with another cutout to allow for the trigger cone:







The foam padding is held in place via a backing plate, which will also mount the bridge section for the piezo mount:



So it will compress the foam, I made an outer fitting ring, which will allow it to screw to the support plate:



tbc...

[ROB219]

cont...



So it cleared the brackets I made some recesses:





Glued and screwed:



Now, the piezo cone mount needs a bridge, so more MDF allows this to happen. A suitable hole is drilled for it to mount to:





Tentative mounting to check clearance:



Foam filled batter section:



tbc...

[ROB219]

cont...

Once happy with the mount, refit and painted to suit:



And lastly the complete support plate/Trigger assembly:




Ready to fit into this:

[ROB219]

I'll post up some pics of the wrap process soon, waiting on the wrap to arrive, possibly tomorrow I would say.

I may even make some new trigger mounts for this kit too... from 6mm thick clear acrylic. I have a huge sheet of it sitting here at work, so I'll "borrow" some for my needs! lol....

[ROB219]

Got my bum into gear last night and wrapped the shells!
Because I still need to use the kit as an acoustic for the next few weeks, that is why you'll notice the acoustic heads on them.

I am still waiting for a few bits and pieces to come in, new jack barrels are one of those things, so I will just use my old kit in the meantime if need be.

I think they look really good. Better than I was expecting actually. The wrap is a thick flexible vinyl, adhesive backed.
Its not like normal drum wrap that is a hard type plastic extruded film, this is very flexible and can be rounded and shaped if need be. But it is quite tough and looks like it will handle the rigors of drum duties easily.

So, here are some pics <>/laugh.gif

Starting the bass drum shell:





Freshly wrapped bass drum shell:



Putting the hardware on:



And the completed drum, ready for acoustic use (in the mean time):



Wrapped tom shells, there are 4 of them, I was doing the last one at time of pic:



Complete 10" tom:



Complete 16" floor tom:



More to come yet! I'm working on possibly doing a new trigger setup for the toms... still nutting out a design but we'll see what happens.

[ROB219]

Did some more work on the E kit tonight. Kick is complete and triggering beautifully! Also got one of the tome up and running (10") ... I stopped because I can't really do much more until my new suspension mounts come in. I can then fir them up to the other new kit and put the Ludwig suspension mounts back onto the Ludwig drums.

Interesting thing.... when I got in all my new lugs for the other kit they were fitted with 6mm metric tension rod nuts. I needed to get that kit up and running, and all my new tension rods I bought (80 of them..... <>/mad.gif) didn't fit as they are standard 12/24 thread pitch. Pearl are 6mm metric standard... as a reference.
Anyway... I swapped out the nuts and bought some zinc coated Allen headed 50mm M6 bolts. Thats a mouthful!

Gives the E drums a serious look I have to say. So I could remove the heads easily I knocked up a allen key to suit them.

So, that done its going well! I bought a Hart Maxxum 16" head off ebay tonight from the good 'ol US of A. Its a second hander, but near new so it will go well with the Roland heads. We can't get white mesh heads here....
Also bought a few new 43mm piezo's and a new cone trigger from Mr Quartz. These are for the 16" floor tom. Seeing as I used the trigger out of my 8" tom for the new Kick.

On a side note.... the 10" tom triggers magnificently! Its actually just like a Roland, and better than the donor drum it all came from. The rim is sensitive but there is no false triggering on hard head hits.... I even get perfect head, rimshot and rim only. EXCELLENT! Here is hoping the others turn out just like it.

Alright, enough rambling... some pics!

Kick internals in alignment. Fitting angle tabs attached to the lugs screws :



New jack fitted:



Kick Trigger assembly fitted:



Now... What I did next was to cut up my old Pearl 20" muffle head. Why I did this was to reduce the amount of sound. If I were to use a mylar head there would be too much resonance... and it would make the drum loud. I fitted a regular mylar head to the front, for "regular drum" looking aesthetics. A "Roland" decal made its way onto there as well.

Aligning for the hole:



My high tech hole sizing device... a pyrex dish from the kitchen! hahahaha:



Guide mark for cutting:



Hole cut:



...cont

[ROB219]

Cut head fitted and and checked for alignment:



Electrical connections made to the jack and a few posts added to support the wiring.



All finished!!



This pic shows the 2 x head alignment... perfect!



Ready to play:





And the shameless plug.....



....cont

[ROB219]

Work also started on the toms as I mentioned.

Fitting the electronics into the 10"



Done... well just waiting for my suspension mounts...



6mm Allen hex 50mm length tension bolts:



More to come... just had enough for tonight! <>/smile.gif

[ROB219]

Hey guys... been a while since I have been on here... sorry about that!

Anyway I thought I would post some (well overdue) updates about this kit.

Well... what can I say.... umm, its a tad different now!!!! All the Roland gear (except the mesh heads) are gone.
Replacing it is the Drumit5 module and accessories from 2Box. You may have heard a little about them... if not check it out! No "electronic" sounding kit here at all! These things run an open source system that allows you to upload your own soundsets. With full velocity control.

Basically.. you could record your own acoustic kit, every single pice, and load it into the module. Play a gig and your soundguy won't know it is your E kit from your A kit! How cool is that! Mind you it takes a lot of time to do those recordings... here enters VST's like SD2.0, BFD, Steven Slate etc.
You can, with the aid of freeware on the net, sample these VST based software programs, which you have purchased and own the rights to use, and load them into your Drumit5. Its great!!!!! Sound blows anything Yamaha and Roland are putting out.... even the new TD30 don't sound as good as real live recorded drum samples. Which is what the 2Box offers.

So anyway... I finished the kit off ages ago... got it all up and running. It looked like this:







So, introducing MkIII, featuring new items and colour:










Some features are:

2Box Drumit5 system
2Box cymbals
Based on my Ludwig Epic series drums
Custom DIY 20" ride
Custom lower HiHat base
Remote HiHat stand to angle HiHat pads.

I'll try not to leave it too far between drinks! Have fun and comments/suggestions very welcomed.

Rob.

[jim1453]

Rob, that is soooooo cool mate.....when do we get to hear it?

Come on then, HOW MUCH did it set you back?

[Hoppy]

WOW... with that orange glass glitter kit 2Box should grab you as an endorsee.
Looking forward to some sound/video clips too.

[Phill V]

That is epic. I'd love to see a video!

[ROB219]

Jim, mate not that much really considering. Once the Roland gear was sold off... I actually had money left over after buying the 2Box gear!!!! The wrap for the kit cost a total of $100 USD, and that was shipped and pre-cut to my specs. The ride I modified from a 20" acoustic ride, machined my own parts for it.
The lower hat, ance again from a leftover/surplus acoustic part.

So... actually in effect it cost me nothing to change the kit to what it is.

Thanks guys!

[eDrumWorld]

Beautiful Kits, Im Jealous!