Playing Smart: A Drummer's Guide to Modern Technology
By: Dross
Triggers:
What are triggers, and how do they work? Can triggers help you cheat and deceive the masses into thinking you're the next Derek Roddy, when in all honesty you've got double bass like Rikki Rockett? Welcome to PLAYING SMART, and the first of many articles to come on how you can harness the latest advancements in drumming technology in order to play smarter and therefore faster, sound better, compete with today's advanced drummers, add new dimensions to your bands music, and save yourself, your record label, and ultimately your band, money.
A trigger is a sensor that transmits an electrical charge to your sound module (or Trigger to MIDI converter). The trigger essentially tells your sound module how "hard" you hit a drum or other percussive device. Your sound module then reads this data and "fires" the sound that you've selected off to your recorder, amplifier, or PA system. There are single zone triggers and dual zone triggers. A single zone trigger transmits hits to the drum head itself while dual zone triggers transmit hits to both the drum head and rim to cover things like Cross Stick and Rim Shot hits. It is typical for drummers to use single zone triggers on everything but the snare drum. However, today's more advanced drum modules and soft-synths can accommodate dual zone triggers on your toms and floor toms as well. You should essentially think of triggers like a microphone. They are the "ears" of whatever you are using as a sound source.
Do not be deceived by the abundance of ignorance and prejudice against triggers. Triggers are not going to be able to help you "cheat". On the contrary; if your double bass becomes choppy at high tempos or with certain sticking patterns on top of them, triggers are just as likely to expose you, if not more likely than a microphone. Remember, triggers are similar to a microphone, and any advantages or disadvantages will be coming from what you plug them into, not from the triggers themselves.
Personal computers have come a long way since the '80s and '90s. Hell, they've come a long way since the beginning of this decade! With that, the sounds you are now able to tap into through the use of triggers are jaw dropping. You can literally get the quality of a thirty thousand dollar drum production for a grand or less if you have the "know how". In a live scenario, you can use your triggers and sound source to level out your volumes so that even if you get quiet when you start playing thirty-second note double bass or blasting, there won't be an audible volume drop. For the sake of space, I must keep things simplistic, short, and to the point, but we'll cover these things in future issues. Lastly, let me say I didn't have room in this issue to cover troubleshooting trigger issues like misfires, false triggering, and crosstalk, but perhaps we'll get that posted in a separate area at SickDrummerMagazine.com shortly after this is released.
Be sure to check out the follow-up to this article here:
As always, your questions, suggestions, accolades, and hate mail can be sent to: Dross[at]SickDrummerMagazine.com
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