Drum Wagon - hardware

Getting a Wireless Zendrum To Play Nice With a Wired Roland Module

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:16:00 -0700

One of the best upgrades you can get for your Zendrum is the integrated wireless option. This adds an internal MIDIJet board along with a battery compartment for a single 9-volt that powers both the Zendrum board and the MIDIJet. I cannot say enough good things about this setup, it simply rocks. Once you've tried it you'll wonder how you ever got by being tethered with a MIDI cable! Of course keeping the option to go back to being wired is important too, if for nothing else than to have a "plan B" should things go wrong. For instance you may have forgotten to bring or charge your batteries, or perhaps there is too much radio interference at the gig. Whatever the circumstances, it's important to be able to go back to using a wired connection at will. Which brings us to the point of this article, because if you have one of the first crop of Z4 boards and utilize any Roland drum modules, you probably have discovered that a wired connection (i.e. not using the MIDIJet) simply no longer works! The Zendrum powers up fine, but no amount of banging on the triggers will register with the Roland unit. The official explanation for this that I've received from the Zendrum folks is that the Roland units expect just a slightly higher electrical current than the Z4 is providing at the MIDI port, even though the Z4 is adhering to the official MIDI specification. One workaround for this that I stumbled on is to rectify the MIDI signal before it reaches the Roland unit, by doing a pass-through on another unit. In other words, by placing an additional MIDI device between the Zendrum and the Roland unit, the MIDI data signal is boosted to a level that Roland can pick up on. This would seem to contradict the notion that the Z4 board is operating correctly and that it's the Roland unit that is at fault, but i can't speak to that -- I only know that using a middle-man approach here works. Of course that adds a bit of complexity to your rig, and it's not always practical to drag around secondary MIDI devices, so it's less than an ideal solution. I've received information from one of the Zendrum electrical engineers on how to affect a more permanent fix, as I will describe here. This fix involves opening up your Zendrum and taking a soldering iron to it. If you're not comfortable doing either of those things, then stop reading now. Even if you *are* comfortable doing this, I would encourage you to first contact Zendrum corp and discuss your options. I'm making no warranty against performing this fix, and I certainly won't take responsibility if you brick your axe. Nuff said. The fix involves shorting out one resistor on the main Z4 board, either R10 or R13. Removing one of these from the circuit path with increase the amount of current that leaves the MIDI port, bringing it in line with what Roland modules expect. The simplest way to short out one of these resistors is to place a blob of solder on top of it. As long as you are very careful about not getting solder anywhere else on the board it should be a piece of cake. Details of the fix plus photos of my axe under the knife... One thing I learned about my Zendrum is that the leads to the battery case are very fragile. It turns out that every time you swing the battery compartment out, the wires that are soldered to it twist a tiny bit. One of mine was just barely hanging on and indeed snapped off during reassembly. Call me paranoid, but I would try to limit how often you open and close the battery compartment. Over time I'm sure the lead will snap off on its own. If you ever find that your axe no longers powers up from the battery, this would be the first thing to check.

New Toy - Zendrum ZX

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:54:00 -0700

My new rock maple Zendrum arrived the other day! I truly haven't been this geeked about getting a new instrument in a long time, I feel like a five year old on Christmas morning! The learning curve will be steep -- general consensus is that it takes about a month to become proficient -- but it's going to be a fun, rewarding journey for sure! It won't be suitable for every gig of course, but for ones where it is, the benefits are simply huge. I won't have to tear down my kit, shove it in the car, unload and setup it up, etc. Nope, I'll be able to gig outta just one or two bags. What's more is I won't have to sit behind a kit to perform, after already having to sit in the car for an hour to get to the gig in the first place. Ergonomics and back pain avoidance aside though, it's pretty clear after fiddling around with it for only a short while that the Zendrum is going to allow me to do things that I couldn't do before, even with my electronic kit. Likewise there are things I won't be able to do at all with it, at least without some trickery (cymbal swells and press rolls come to mind). But I think that this just reinforces the fact that this isn't meant to be a drumset replacement, it's a completely different instrument. This is gonna be fun!

Shady Dealings

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:43:00 -0700

So despite my previous dragging of feet, I finally went ahead and preordered a TDW-20 after I heard through the rumor mill that Full Compass was offering them for around $360 USD, shipping included. What really gets my goat though is why this isn't their advertised price? At the time I placed my order, their reported list price was $599 and the price they were offering under their "low price guarantee" was $495. I'd never before encountered a situation before where phoning in an order resulted in a nearly 30% savings over an Internet price, especially one that claimed to have a "low price guarantee". Look, I'm not complaining -- $360 was low enough for me to take the plunge and buy the card. It does make me wonder though how many times I've gotten the shaft by paying what seemed to be the lowest price on the Internet. I guess we should all start getting quotes over the phone again.

TDW-20, Bittersweet Wait?

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:04:00 -0700

So the word that Roland was finally coming out with the much anticipated module update to the TD-20 has kinda knocked me off my footing. I've been waiting (sometimes less than patiently) for over 2 years now for this card to come out and you'd think I'd be overjoyed now that it finally has, but somehow the final product just doesn't seem like it'll live up to the waiting. At this point, I'm not even 100% sure I'll pick one up. Don't get me wrong, the TDW-20 does add a lot of new features -- but the MSRP of nearly $500 doesn't quite seem justified. The only features that I truly know I'd be interested in are the enhanced hi-hat resolution and support for fitting all of my kit collection onto one compact flash card. The rest of it, while nice, just doesn't blow my skirt up. I really was hoping for positional sensing and interval control on the toms, and while the unit does have 300 new sounds, I've yet to see a list or hear samples of what they actually are. Historically I've only ever found about 10% of Roland's sounds useful anyhow, so chances are there are only a few new ones I'd be interested in. *sigh* Maybe I'll pick one up if they drop below say $299. Paying anything more just doesn't make sense to me right now.

Chameleon Snare Conversion - Part 1

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:34:00 -0700

Started work on converting the 13" snare from the Chameleon kit. I don't anticipate running into any major problems with this one, seems pretty cut and dry. I am however looking forward to applying some of the lessons learned from my first attempt, with the 10" tom.

Here are some pics of the snare before I started: [More]

Converting the Chameleon Kit - Tom 1

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 08:06:00 -0700

I've finally begun work on the electronic conversion of the kit I purchased a while back. I'm starting with the high tom (10") since it should be the easiest to convert. Here are some pictures of the procedure. [More]

Kable Keepers

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:51:00 -0700

One of the more pointlessly time-consuming aspects of setting up an electronic kit is plugging everything into the module. For trigger inputs alone there are 16 cables that you need to plug in for a Roland TD-20. Digging around in a bundle of 16 jacks and plugging them all in can be a major drag, worse still, if you should mix two up and don't have enough time for a sound-check so that you can discover the mix-up, you're gonna be in for an interesting show.

Enter the Kable Keeper!

My loving wife put these together to help me out.

[More]

Tama Air Ride Snare Stand

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:27:00 -0700

Just got a new toy, a Tama Air Ride stand for my snare. This thing is perfect for mounting a PD-125, which is generally too small to fit into a standard snare basket comfortably. Air ride stands come in two flavors, one with Star-Cast mounts and one with just an L-rod. Since the Roland PD-125 already has an L-rod mount, I went with the latter. This is simply an awesome snare stand.. small yet massive, it hardly takes up any room between my pedals but doesn't wobble a bit while wailing on it. A perfect match for a Roland TD-20 kit. Daniel and I took some pics while setting it up: slide show

New Acquisition

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 11:15:00 -0700

I picked up this Pacific Chameleon kit off of craigslist for a song. Nothing fancy, but they really don't need to be since I'm just going to be outfitting them with triggers. I likely won't be using this kick since I've already converted an 18" one that I'm more fond of. Chameleon kits are so named because they have Mylar heads on one side, and mesh on the other. The mounts are set mid-shell so that the tom and bass can be reversed, so that you can quickly change from a live to a practice setup. A nifty gimmick I suppose, although I can't imagine using these as acoustic drums. What interests me is that they have smaller shell sizes and already come with a mesh head. The toms are 10, 12 and 14" and the snare is 13". The single-ply heads it came with are a bit too flimsy I feel, so I will be using them as the bottom heads, and using double-ply heads for the batters instead. I also picked up the triggers, cones and rim silencers I'll need off of eBay. I'm still playing around with ideas for the crossbar, but otherwise I'm ready to start the conversion process. I'll be taking photos along the way to chronicle the job.

Unintentional Symmetry

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:42:00 -0700

There's been much ado about hardware in the drum cave as of late. Up until recently I've been using my electronic kit for practice and group rehearsals, with the intention of using my aging acoustic kit for live shows. However, since being bit by the virtual drum bug, I've begun to loathe the thought of using the acoustics for anything of importance. The pros of the electronics just so far outweigh the cons. The sonic palette, the ease of recording, the overall reduction and control of raw sound output.. all very cool things. The only real con to using them is the look. Whether entitled to or not, some people still hold prejudice against the visual aspects of electronic drums. [More]