Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

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Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

Postby glenn.szymanski » Sat Feb 04, 2023 2:01 am

I'm going to retrofit 3 of my mesh head drums.

Which piezo have people that the most success with Megadrum?

As far as not being too hot and works best for positional sensing? Sends the correct wave type.
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Re: Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

Postby airflamesred » Sat Feb 04, 2023 2:57 pm

Answers will vary for sure. Many other things to consider, placement, glue, position etc.

koby drums - Triggera krigg/Bix - megadrum - Kontakt........... Samples from all and sundry.
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Re: Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

Postby glenn.szymanski » Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:12 am

Thanks for replying.

This is a Roland PD-120 pad. I just ordered 3 replacement foam cones. The original ones felt very "squishy" when I took off the original mesh head.

I took some photos of the center and rim piezos, but the max file size to upload on here is 256 kb :(

the center piezo seems to be 1 and 1/16 of an inch

the rim piezo seems to be 1 and 3/8 inches

I'll try private messaging you
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Re: Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

Postby ignotus » Tue Feb 07, 2023 7:27 am

Sounds like it has a 27 mm piezo for the head and a 35 mm for the rim. The safest bet are Murata brand piezos. Whatever you do, just avoid cheap Chinese ones.
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Re: Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

Postby glenn.szymanski » Tue Feb 07, 2023 9:03 pm

ignotus wrote:Sounds like it has a 27 mm piezo for the head and a 35 mm for the rim. The safest bet are Murata brand piezos. Whatever you do, just avoid cheap Chinese ones.


Thank you for the information. How do I tell if they are the cheap Chinese ones?

Will those piezos work on Megadrum without any kind of voltage divider? Will they produce the positive wave needed for positional sensing?

I went to the Murata website. Looks like they offer 2 different models. The 7BB and the 7NB. Difference being brass or nickel. But then there a bunch of different part numbers with different resonant frequencies and resistances.

https://www.murata.com/en-us/products/sound/diaphragm
Megadrum ARM32, Roland PD-120, Yamaha PCY155, Alesis Control Pad, Korg Wavedrum, Yamaha VL1-m, MacBook Pro, Muse Receptor Quattro
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Re: Which piezo works best in DIY edrums with Megadrum?

Postby ignotus » Wed Feb 08, 2023 7:55 am

You want the brass ones. As for resonant frequency, I don't really know what Roland and others use, but the piezos I buy are 4500 kHz and work fine. My uneducated guess is that the resonant frequency doesn't matter that much and is more relevant when using the piezo as a buzzer, not a sensor.

By cheap Chinese, I mean the piezos they sell on Aliexpress and ebay and don't state the brand nor any technical details about them beyond their diameter.

If you have the positional sensing board, you don't have to worry about the first half wave polarity - that's what it's for. And if you don't have it, positional sensing will be a struggle anyway. And a voltage divider shouldn't be required either.
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