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DIY Stompbox problems (Is TAH still around?)


Chicken Monkey

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My band is recording our second album, and for this one, we're eschewing MIDI drums for the real deal.  We're a country/roots group, so we're not getting anything too complicated.  I've done my share of drumming, so I'll be handling most of it.  A lot of it is really simple--rim clicks and such.  We've got a couple of tunes that would benefit from a little kick drum, and I was planning on using my home-made, piezo-based stompboard to fill that role.  It was a good idea:  with the snare mic'ed in one channel, and the stompboard (through a wah pedal to lower the tone), would go into another channel, and never the twain shall meet--anyone who's recorded drums knows that eliminating bleedthrough between drums is the holy grail, and I thought I'd hit it.

The problem--my stompboard is picking up the snare, and LOUD.  It might as well be a microphone, except it sounds like it's coming from a well--piezo's don't make good mics.  I've got the board up on some magazines to insulate it a bit, and it didn't make the least bit of difference.  Any one have clue on how to get this done?

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Chicken Monkey wrote:

 

 

My band is recording our second album, and for this one, we're eschewing MIDI drums for the real deal.  We're a country/roots group, so we're not getting anything too complicated.  I've done my share of drumming, so I'll be handling most of it.  A lot of it is really simple--rim clicks and such.  We've got a couple of tunes that would benefit from a little kick drum, and I was planning on using my home-made, piezo-based stompboard to fill that role.  It was a good idea:  with the snare mic'ed in one channel, and the stompboard (through a wah pedal to lower the tone), would go into another channel, and never the twain shall meet--anyone who's recorded drums knows that eliminating bleedthrough between drums is the holy grail, and I thought I'd hit it.

 

The problem--my stompboard is picking up the snare, and LOUD.  It might as well be a microphone, except it sounds like it's coming from a well--piezo's don't make good mics.  I've got the board up on some magazines to insulate it a bit, and it didn't make the least bit of difference.  Any one have clue on how to get this done?

 

Might try stuffing your stompbox with spray foam insulation...

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Chicken Monkey wrote:

 

 

. . . The problem--my stompboard is picking up the snare, and LOUD.  It might as well be a microphone, except it sounds like it's coming from a well--piezo's don't make good mics. . . .

 

For all practical purposes, your stompboard is a microphone. Piezo's convert vibration into electric current. So do microphones. It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. In other words, you have feedback without the howl. I've built a total of one stomp box and didn't have that problem but the box was sealed so that probably minimized the feedback issue. The "coming from a well" part is probably due to resonances in the box itself. I'd recommend you convert to a sealed box. Terry Allan Hall's suggestion also seems reasonable.

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Considering I took the piezo from a telephone (IIRC), then it makes sense that the snare sounds like it's coming through a telephone.  I think I'm going to stick the element firmly to the board--right now it's just taped on, but I think if I either put it in a "hockey puck"--wooden sandwich, filled with paraffin, glued to the stompboard--or attach it to the board directly with adhesive (I'll see what we've got in the basement caulk collection), any sound will have to be strong enough to actually vibrate the sheet of plywood, rather than just moving the air around the masking tape attaching the piezo to the plywood.

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