Originally Posted by
ironorr84
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
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