Hi, I’m going to get an electronic drum set soon and i was just wondering what each piece of it does? For example, it comes with 3 "toms". What exactly do toms do? It also comes with a dual zone snare pad. what does that do? Also, when you use the kick petal is that the bass? And finally, it comes with a second kick petal for the highhats. Why would I need a petal for the highhats? As you can tell I’ve never really dealt with drum sets but I am very interested in learning. If you could tell me everyhting I’ve asked then it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
What do they do? All pads basically do the same thing, they take the pressure from you hitting the pad, turn that into a voltage and send that voltage to the controller to trigger a sound. If the pads are dynamic then the amount of voltage depends on how hard you hit the pad. The harder you hit the pad, the higher the voltage and the louder the sound. The sound made by the pad has nothing to do with the pad itself, but rather which channel on the controller it is plugged in to. So if you plug the bass drum pad into the snare channel and kick it, you’ll get a snare sound not a bass drum sound. The controller that comes with the kit is what makes the actual drum sounds and it will have different inputs on the back that should be marked something like snare1, snare2, hi-hat, bass, tom1, tom2, tom3. In a basic setup toms 1 and 2 will be in front of you and tom 3 (your floor tom) will be to your right. You will plug these into your tom 1 – 3 inputs. Your snare pad has a dual zone which means there are actually 2 triggers in that pad, one for the head and one for the rim which allows you to do rim shots or cross sticking. So the trigger for the head will produce snare drum sounds and the one on the outside (rim) of the snare pad will make the sound of a stick hitting a metal rim. The kick pedal is for your bass like you said. Real hi-hats are two cymbals placed on top of each other and on a stand with a pedal that allows you to close the two cymbals together with the pedal to get different sounds and that’s all that this pedal is emulating. I hope I covered everything and it made sense to you. If you don’t plan to take lessons you should really invest $20 in this video to get you started. You have a lot to learn!! Enjoy and good luck with the drumming.
http://books-videos-music.musiciansfriend.com/product/Hudson-Music-Getting-Started-on-Drums-DVD?sku=940202
What do they do? All pads basically do the same thing, they take the pressure from you hitting the pad, turn that into a voltage and send that voltage to the controller to trigger a sound. If the pads are dynamic then the amount of voltage depends on how hard you hit the pad. The harder you hit the pad, the higher the voltage and the louder the sound. The sound made by the pad has nothing to do with the pad itself, but rather which channel on the controller it is plugged in to. So if you plug the bass drum pad into the snare channel and kick it, you’ll get a snare sound not a bass drum sound. The controller that comes with the kit is what makes the actual drum sounds and it will have different inputs on the back that should be marked something like snare1, snare2, hi-hat, bass, tom1, tom2, tom3. In a basic setup toms 1 and 2 will be in front of you and tom 3 (your floor tom) will be to your right. You will plug these into your tom 1 – 3 inputs. Your snare pad has a dual zone which means there are actually 2 triggers in that pad, one for the head and one for the rim which allows you to do rim shots or cross sticking. So the trigger for the head will produce snare drum sounds and the one on the outside (rim) of the snare pad will make the sound of a stick hitting a metal rim. The kick pedal is for your bass like you said. Real hi-hats are two cymbals placed on top of each other and on a stand with a pedal that allows you to close the two cymbals together with the pedal to get different sounds and that’s all that this pedal is emulating. I hope I covered everything and it made sense to you. If you don’t plan to take lessons you should really invest $20 in this video to get you started. You have a lot to learn!! Enjoy and good luck with the drumming.
http://books-videos-music.musiciansfriend.com/product/Hudson-Music-Getting-Started-on-Drums-DVD?sku=940202
References :