Report on Triggit triggers

[wildhorse5678]

As previously reported i got a set of Trigitt trigers a couple of weeks ago. Owing to holidays its only today that i have had opportunity to upgrade my module to the new op system and try out the triggers.

The acoustic set im using is Sonor Select Force jungle kit ...16" kick, 10 + 14" toms, 12" Tama snare all  with normal plastic drum heads.

First, i had not used any type of trigger before but i found it quite easy to fix them to the metal hoops. For the wooden hoops of the kick drum, the trigger also came with an additional rubber spacer and it took a bit longer to get the possitioning right.

I then connected the triggers to the Dumit5 unit. I chose toms 2 and 3. As well as kick and snare.

It was quite easy to select the trigger setting for the new triggers in the drumit5 unit. I connected the unit to a roland drum monitor.

Initially i found it difficult to tell if the triggers were working. This was because i could hear the acoustic drum sounds. I found that i had to turn both the output volume of the Drumit5 unit and the volume on the monitor up fully before i could tell that there were other sounds being tiggered in addition to the natural sounds of the acoustic drums themselves. 

The real drum heads mask a lot of the different characteristics of the different inbuilt kits, so you cant hear the same layers and sublties of the sounds that you do with the mesh heads on the 2box pads. However, running through the 100 sets, it did become obvious that there were differences... But they are not as pronounced.

However, remember that i was playing a small kit of drums and what this system did do  was make them sound HUGE in tone and fattness of the sound.  Particularly the 16 inch kick drum and the toms, not so much the snare.  The rim triggers worked fine ... You just have to remember that not all the kits do have rim sounds.

I havent yet played this set up with my band... Or via a PA.. That will happen next week as we have a gig lined up in one of Sheffields top music pubs.  Ill report back any comments.

Oh one last thing the ”synth drum sounds" particularly are not as pronounced because of the acoustic drum sounds ... It may be when fed through a PA they will be more prominant.

[digitalDrummer]

We'll have a full review of the triggers in the August digitalDrummer.

[welshsteve]

As previously reported i got a set of Trigitt trigers a couple of weeks ago. Owing to holidays its only today that i have had opportunity to upgrade my module to the new op system and try out the triggers.

The acoustic set im using is Sonor Select Force jungle kit ...16" kick, 10 + 14" toms, 12" Tama snare all  with normal plastic drum heads.

First, i had not used any type of trigger before but i found it quite easy to fix them to the metal hoops. For the wooden hoops of the kick drum, the trigger also came with an additional rubber spacer and it took a bit longer to get the possitioning right.

I then connected the triggers to the Dumit5 unit. I chose toms 2 and 3. As well as kick and snare.

It was quite easy to select the trigger setting for the new triggers in the drumit5 unit. I connected the unit to a roland drum monitor.

Initially i found it difficult to tell if the triggers were working. This was because i could hear the acoustic drum sounds. I found that i had to turn both the output volume of the Drumit5 unit and the volume on the monitor up fully before i could tell that there were other sounds being tiggered in addition to the natural sounds of the acoustic drums themselves. 

The real drum heads mask a lot of the different characteristics of the different inbuilt kits, so you cant hear the same layers and sublties of the sounds that you do with the mesh heads on the 2box pads. However, running through the 100 sets, it did become obvious that there were differences... But they are not as pronounced.

However, remember that i was playing a small kit of drums and what this system did do  was make them sound HUGE in tone and fattness of the sound.  Particularly the 16 inch kick drum and the toms, not so much the snare.  The rim triggers worked fine ... You just have to remember that not all the kits do have rim sounds.

I havent yet played this set up with my band... Or via a PA.. That will happen next week as we have a gig lined up in one of Sheffields top music pubs.  Ill report back any comments.

Oh one last thing the ”synth drum sounds" particularly are not as pronounced because of the acoustic drum sounds ... It may be when fed through a PA they will be more prominant.

I have toured triggering the 2box with Ddrum triggers which triggered great, almost NO dampening at all and on a pretty resonant Tama Starclassic maple kit. The kick was the only challenge. If I was a single pedal player, it would have been fine, just some fast double kick stuff it didn't trigger perfectly unless I dampened the kick drum, which I did and it was fine. Until the triggers themselves started failing, systematically! (not great if that happens mid show) So I have been eager to check out these new triggers when I tour later this year.

But I thought I would suggest some tips that worked for me in terms of knowing if it's triggering well (you said you couldn't tell because of the acoustic noise of the actual kit)
1. Decent monitoring! I only had one 15" active wedge to my left for the first two weeks, then I opted for a headphone amp as my monitor as my I has my own mix, seemed like a better option than having to dick with a 15" active wedge, especially when stages can be a bit tight for space. I used a cheap Behringer 4 channel headphone amp that I had lying around doing nothing. I used my Bose headphones with shut out enough of the ambient noise to check a fantastic mix in my head without having the "din" of the rest of the band's amps and monitors confusing your perception of the on stage noise, which will change due to your threshold of hearing lowing through long and loud gigs.
2. If it's an acoustic representation your going for, it's a good tip to tune the drums as near as damn it to the note of each drum otherwise you'll notice the two-tones (triggered vs acoustic) conflicting. If you're using a kit which is an electronic sample (TR808 kick snare, Simmons) then this doesn't matter.
3. Careful setting up of gains and thresholds for each drum. This is a given but worth noting.
4. Selecting trigger type. You mentioned tom 1, 2, 3. Not sue if you meant "pad" or the new acoustic algorithms or not, again this is a given but I thought I'd mention it.
5. Don't get obsessed with drums false triggering a little. In my early days of triggering it a real problem but once you set gains right and threshold, a little false triggering especially as it will be very low on the velocity curve (not 30 or below) will actually make it sound a bit more realistic. After all, when you whack a snare, the rest of the kit will ring a little anyway.
6. A little bit of muffling can make a massive difference. As I explained, the acoustic noise and the sampled trigger together can be an amazing thing to hear together, oh boy! But I found a little muffling, Zero rings or Moon Gel, makes the samples stand out a little more. And this isn't to do with better triggering, though you might find that as a side effect on really ring floor toms, but just for you to pick out the sample.
7. Adjust velocity curve. In a perfect environment, the normal curve is perfect with pads and makes for a damn near perfect representation of an acoustic drum. But as we know, live with everyone else blasting at 104-106 db can be a different matter. I found having a more heavy curve on kick drum, slightly less so on toms and only a little on the snare will make the ghost strokes stand out, tom flurries and fast funky kick drum patterns definable. Of course, too much will make it sound robotic, but on a gig or a rehearsal, try starting with the next curve (can remember if it's linear or Pos1) and try and make out the improvement. Obviously you need to be able to differentiate between the sample and the acoustic noise of the kit.

Hope this helps.

Steve

PS you mentioned not all sound have rim voices. Are you talking about snare or toms? It's my understanding that the TrigIt toms are single triggers whereas the snare as the piezo for the rim too.

[wildhorse5678]

Since I did my initial review, I have been in touch with 2Box and they told me how to get the triggers to work properly. (I should have read the instructions  provided closer because all the info was there). In the Drumit 5 brain,  you have to select UNIT and then TRIG and then while hitting the relevant drum a hard as possible turn up the GAIN knob until the LEVEL is raised to 0Db.   Then the sound of the 100 inbuilt kits will be louder than the sound from the acoustic drum heads. If there is cross talk between the triggers or double triggering, these can be tweeked out using X-Talk and Thresh on the TRIG page.

Just to confirm that I did that and now the triggers work fine and all the sounds can be heard .

By the way on the 2box triggers both the snare and toms have rim triggering.

[digitalDrummer]

Wildhorse, did you have any problems attaching your kick trigger? I am in the process of testing and the snare/tom triggers work great, but I am having  trouble attaching the kick trigger. I think the review pack may be missing a part as there is a reference to a rubber washer, which doesn't appear to be included.

[hwasser]

I sold my 2box kit because we finally got a new recording/rehearsal room big enough for recording a drum kit. I bought a alesis trigger io because im only using triggers for toms and bass drum, recording midi only. I bought 2box triggers because I liked the drum it five trigger pads. However, these triggers are way too hot for the alesis module. Even with gain set to 0 the triggers are way too hot and I get lots of ghost triggering because threshold doesn't work no matter which value I set it to.

[welshsteve]

By the way on the 2box triggers both the snare and toms have rim triggering.

Yeah my apologies, I took for granted they'd follow suit of all the others I.e. Snare, two sensors, toms and kicks, one.

I'm expecting a pack plus some extras through the post any day now. I'm about to embark on a 90 or so date tour and am really excited to be using them but a little nervous as to their reliability, hence I've asked to be supplied with a few transducers incase I need to make some repairs. I did with every Ddrum trigger they make and even the pintech ones. The latter being a lot easier as they don't require any soldering, just a quick whip off the ashesive of the new transducer, snap in the connector and you're away. The downside is they don't work well with the 2box module, I had to dampen the drums down a LOT to get them to trigger okay.

So how have they been for you, any trigger failures?

[4johnny]

Does the  2box Trigit triggers alter or dampen the sound of acoustic heads?  I'm looking to make a hybrid kid recording my miked acoustic kit and midi from the triggers at the same time.  I'm hoping the Trigits don't get in the way of my acoustic sound... and are the Trigits easy to remove and re-attach without much fuss?  THANKS

[digitalDrummer]

Does the  2box Trigit triggers alter or dampen the sound of acoustic heads?  I'm looking to make a hybrid kid recording my miked acoustic kit and midi from the triggers at the same time.  I'm hoping the Trigits don't get in the way of my acoustic sound... and are the Trigits easy to remove and re-attach without much fuss?  THANKS

The triggers do dampen the acoustic heads very slightly. This may, in fact, be a benefit, removing some of the ringing overtones. But overall, you should be able to play normally. And yes, they are very easy to attach and remove - that's an integral part of the design.