Electronic drums are fairly expensive for a decent set.
I own an acoustic set already which I could have setup to be triggered, but I would like something that can be fairly silent.
Many cheap electronic drum sets use pads with rubber, and a hard material underneath.
This creates for a noisy, non-musical sound for anyone around including the player themselves, if they don't have the headphones cranked up. Think of someone practising drums on their mouse pad.
Roland V-drums use a mesh skin which is pretty silent, and come in the standard drum sizes and mount to acoustic drums.
In this project I cut the cheapest Ebay single drum shell I found in half and turn them into electronic drums.
The project started a few years back and I put it on the back burner, I have a much better setup tool wise now, to help this project come to completion.
Pictures show the progress made on the 4 shells I've done so far. Triggering is done with piezo's.
After more delays I've managed some progress on this project. A bunch more drums were found at the bin, Dad has cut them all in half, so I have more than enough now. I purchased a used drum rack on the local buy/sell. Between my normal drums and all the electronic shells it should be a nice kit, probably too much , again! I've reasearched some of the ways people are doing diy mesh shells, we'll have to wait and see if I experiment or just shell out some $.... Hoping to get into this project a little more over the next couple months!
From an electrical point of view, trigger pads can be of the following types:
Mono Pads, using one Piezoelectric sensor for the head. Usually kick-drum pads or older and less expensive pads.
Stereo Pads, using one piezo sensor for the head and an additional switch for the rim. If the rim switch is triggered, the signal strength is determined by the head's piezo sensor. Mostly rubber pads and cymbal pads.
Stereo Pads using two piezo sensors, one for the head and one for the rim. Mostly mesh-head pads.
Three-way Pads using one piezo sensor and two switches. Roland's three-way cymbal pads (CY-12R/C, CY-13R and CY-15R) work this way, the piezo triggers the bow, and the switches trigger edge and bell.