Sometime back in 2013, within the context of the eDrum and “The MPC-slab era” of  the PercussioNeuron, I decided it was not enough to just use acoustic triggers on my kick and snare (to send song-specific additional sounds to the PA), but then I wanted all 4 shells to get cybernetic shadows.

So I scored a set of dDrum triggers. The big ugly bulletproof red ones with the XLR connector.

Whelp, after a year of abuse, the kick trigger stopped working.

First, we’er not dealing with the traditional piezo disk (common to Roland and other manufactureres) which can be part-ed at local Rat Shack (and hacked into acoustic pickups)

…we’re dealing with a specific match-stick piezo embedded medium density foam. Which I could only find:

• here on eBay
• here on Zeppy

So,
$8 and 4 days later, it’s TO THE BENCH !

Where we…

inspect the damage:

 

 

..amputate the piezo (destroying the foam host).

 

 

take apart the body, careful to preserve the wiring

 

 

test the new piezo for electrical spiking:

 

 

Prep the surface for the new peizo, with scraping…

 

 

…and solvent

 

 

thread and tailor the new wires (remember to short RED to X)

 

…solder…

 

 

and we’re done !

 

Total down time: 1 week.

Total bench-time: 1 hour.