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Thread: LED lights on an electronic drumset

  1. #1

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    Question LED lights on an electronic drumset

    Hi everyone, new member here, 1st thread.

    I'm no drummer (GASP! Don't flog me!), instead I'm the sound guy/tech geek/lighting op at my place of worship, and I've been asked to try to spruce up our show during youth's worship. We already have some SFX lighting in place, and it looks good, but I'm trying to create a lighting effect that is custom to our electronic drum set. This will be only one part of the future look for our show, and I'm hoping to get an answer to a question of mine.

    My idea is to wire up each drum pad with it's own array of LED lights, so that when the pad is hit, the LED will light up, and varying on the strength of the hit, the brighter the LED will light up. Each pad is connected to the control panel of the drums by what looks to be a 1/4" mono audio cable. You all know how these sets work. The pad is hit, a signal is sent through the cable, and the control panel receives and interprets the strength of the hit. It then produces a MIDI according to the signal.

    Sweet.

    So now I need a way to trigger the lighting of an LED array based on the strength of the pad being hit. From what I understand, due to the cable being of mono 1/4" design, all the control panel is looking for is a closed circuit. So, is there a way for me to create some sort of 1/4" "pass through" cable/box that will be in between the pad and the control panel. When the LEDs are off, it will still let the signal pass through. But if the LEDs are on, it will sense a signal, pass the signal through without interference, and also trigger the LED array? This, for me, sounds to be the most effective way to light up each pad individually.

    This to me would be a great way to modify the drum set without being destructive, and also could be removed and used on other sets if need be. Just plug and play I suppose.

    So...is this idea bogus? Ideas?

    Thanks a lot,
    Greenhorn ironorr

  2. #2

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    Default Re: LED lights on an electronic drumset

    Welcome to drumchat ironorr! Sounds like a lot of fun, I hope it works out. I have never heard of velocity sensitive led lights but it does sound very very cool.
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  3. #3

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    Default Re: LED lights on an electronic drumset

    Quote Originally Posted by ironorr84 View Post
    Hi everyone, new member here, 1st thread.

    I'm no drummer (GASP! Don't flog me!), instead I'm the sound guy/tech geek/lighting op at my place of worship, and I've been asked to try to spruce up our show during youth's worship. We already have some SFX lighting in place, and it looks good, but I'm trying to create a lighting effect that is custom to our electronic drum set. This will be only one part of the future look for our show, and I'm hoping to get an answer to a question of mine.

    My idea is to wire up each drum pad with it's own array of LED lights, so that when the pad is hit, the LED will light up, and varying on the strength of the hit, the brighter the LED will light up. Each pad is connected to the control panel of the drums by what looks to be a 1/4" mono audio cable. You all know how these sets work. The pad is hit, a signal is sent through the cable, and the control panel receives and interprets the strength of the hit. It then produces a MIDI according to the signal.

    Sweet.

    So now I need a way to trigger the lighting of an LED array based on the strength of the pad being hit. From what I understand, due to the cable being of mono 1/4" design, all the control panel is looking for is a closed circuit. So, is there a way for me to create some sort of 1/4" "pass through" cable/box that will be in between the pad and the control panel. When the LEDs are off, it will still let the signal pass through. But if the LEDs are on, it will sense a signal, pass the signal through without interference, and also trigger the LED array? This, for me, sounds to be the most effective way to light up each pad individually.

    This to me would be a great way to modify the drum set without being destructive, and also could be removed and used on other sets if need be. Just plug and play I suppose.

    So...is this idea bogus? Ideas?

    Thanks a lot,
    Greenhorn ironorr
    Lighting can be controlled through midi so you may want to look into that.
    And not to be a kill joy but keep in mind that constant flashing lights have been know to trigger seizures.

  4. #4

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    Default Re: LED lights on an electronic drumset

    I agree with Mdee, lights triggered by drums strokes isn't the best idea.

    I was actually explaining a similar concept yesterday, I said if they had such a thing on electronic drums, nobody would buy them.

    However, if you set it up so it triggered only on the bass drum and crash, that might be a good combo of effects without half the audience prone drooling on the floor. I say play with it, and whatever your final result, reduce by half.

  5. #5

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    Default Re: LED lights on an electronic drumset

    i use led lights, but, not on stage

    if you ask a drummer what time it is?!? they're likely to respond with a time signature "oh, it's 4/4"....


  6. #6

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    Default Re: LED lights on an electronic drumset

    I have a pair of ADJ par profile led lights, that can be contolled by a dmz 512 contol board, or can be run on their own. They have a built in mic with sensitivity adjustment, to change to the beat, but on stage with all that other racket, guitar, bass, they end up being sorta "deaf" almost, so i took it out of that mode, and just set them to auto fade and auto pattern/colour change and that worked pretty well...I doubt you have to worry about someone having a seizure regardless of what you do....

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