Back in the early 1990’s, when I was assembling my recording rig for the second time, I decided that I needed something to help me get a more realistic drum sound. I figured these drum pads would do the trick.
These were coupled with my Alesis D4 drum module (which has 12 trigger inputs for pads such as these). What these allowed me to do was bang on these pads as if they were real drums, and give more interesting nuances than the single hits you could get from striking a key on a synthesizer.
Most of the time I would sit in a chair with both drum pads cradled in my lap, thumping the bass drum sounds with my right thumb on one pad, and the snare drum with the fingers of my left hand. You’d think I’d drop the damned things, but it was an oddly comfortable way of doing it. And it let me grab grooves as opposed to patterns.
Obviously, this didn’t work for everything. I had to layer in other sounds such as toms and cymbals. But I was able to get reasonably convincing drum sounds out of them.
Now that I’ve put together another recording rig, I’m damned glad that I hung on to these pads. Thanks to GigaStudio, I have a whole world of percussion sounds at my fingertips. Given the nuance these drum pads and my Alesis D4 will allow me, I don’t imagine that most people will every be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s sampled.
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Purchased:
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Jun 18 1993
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Body:
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Plastic
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Head:
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Rubber
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Manufacturer:
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Purchased:
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Hames Music
Gaffney, SC |
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Price:
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$200
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“I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day.”
– Todd Rundgren
