Introduction
(A little teaser: MegaDrum in flesh and in action. (thanks to jodev, slayer666 and others!) See pictures, pictures, pictures and a video)
MegaDrum is a simple and easy to
build yet very powerful MIDI drum trigger. It can be used with
many varieties of Edrum kits/pads/cymbals to produce MIDI signals
which can be fed to a computer with drum sampling software,e.g. BFD, Toontrack, Addictive Drums, to produce wide
variety of drum sounds or it can be connected to a drum machine. It
can be compared with Roland
TMC-6 but with more inputs and more capabilities. This is a
DIY project and uses widely available and very inexpensive components. MegaDrum
gives you flexibility in what modules you want to build and what components to
use. (New!) And thanks to a contribution from Synthex, MegaDrum is now fully
plug-n-play with an optional PIC18F2550 USB MIDI Board! See Forums for latest news/develpment/discussion.
Here are the main features of the MegaDrum drum trigger that make it
different from other drum triggers:
- Atmega based. You can choose Atmega8, Atmega32, Atmega324P or even Atmega644. Several versions of firmware are provided for 12MHz, 16MHz or 20MHz versions of these chips.
- No need for an expensive programmer. Programming is done via a simple
cable.
- USB powered. No need for a separate power supply.
- Different MIDI I/O options: standard MIDI or one of optional USB Boards: (New!) PIC18F2550 true USB MIDI, USB over FTDI232, USB over AVR-CDC (Atmega8 based)
- Potentiometers free design. You don't need pots at all and this saves quite some money.
- 9 (3 for Atmega8 board) levels input gain set individually for each
channel.
- Supports Dual Zone Piezo-Switch pads.
- SysEx support. MegaDrum can be controlled from a computer.
- Can save 2 or 4 configs and 7 or 13 Drum Maps (Atmega8/Atmega32)
- Individual midi channel, dual/single pad, auto/manual sensitivity and curve settings for every channel.
- CC Choke support on every Dual Zone piezo/switch pad.
Also, of course, it shares many features common among other drum triggers:
- 19/21/31 velocity sensitive trigger plus HiHat Controller inputs giving in total 20/22/32 channels. HiHat controller is auto/manually level adjustable. Each inputs (HiHat controller and Kick are excluded) can either be configured as Single inputs or joined into Dual Zone inputs (both piezo/piezo and piezo/switch pads are supported).
- Multilevel Crosstalk suppression support.
- 10 Different types of velocity curves. Each channel can be assigned an individual curve.
- Retrigger, Threshold settings.
- 16x2 LCD with VU meters.
- 4 button user control buttons with quick jumps: when in the menu you can jump to another pad channel settings by hitting this pad while holding HiHat controller pressed down.
