A2E Electric Drum Set: Acoustic to Electric Drum Conversion

This guide will teach you how to revitalize an acoustic drum set into an e-drum

An acoustic drum set and...

For drum heads:

• 3/8 inch OD vinyl tubing
• Fiberglass insect screen mesh
• Office stapler, staples
• Scissors

For piezo mounts:

• Wood pieces cut to the diameter of each drum size (1 inch by 1.5 inch should work well; only needs to be a bit over an inch across to fit the piezo though)
• Screws
• L-shape brackets
• 3m tape

Electronics

• 35mm piezoelectric sensors
• TRS Stereo 1/4''/6.35 mm Jacks with three conductors, this should work too

Thin gauge copper wiring

• Soldering iron and solder (you don't need a fancy one)
• Optional: Heat shrink wrapping and heat gun (or lighter) to secure connections
• E-drum module with necessary aux cables (one of many options here)

Ok so I made a (small) mistake and worked on the mounting brace after I had already attached the mesh heads but that makes it hard then to get the brace in from the bottom side so do as I say not as I do and things will go much smoother.

the steps outlined will be rinse and repeat for each drum head you want to convert

You can use the existing tuning rod screws and holes to mount the bar instead of drilling new ones

1. First, the OD vinyl tubing can be measured against the inside of the drum heads metal rim (lean towards it being too big rather than too small)
2. Then cut two squares of the fiberglass mesh that is about 1.5 inches bigger than the edge of the metal rim and trace the outside of the rim, staple the edges to hold the two together
3. Then make 8-12 holes evenly spaced around the line you traced and feed the tubing through the fabric
4. The ends can be attached with superglue, tape or cut to fit inside one and other with friction
5. Set your assembly aside for later

1. Check out this helpful explainer to understand more about TRS jacks
2. The jack can support up to two piezo (one is fine) that means you can have a trigger for both the rim and regular sounds on one aux cable. For my drum module, the ring is the regular sound and tip is alternate. You can look closely at which metal prongs are connected to which part of the aux jack to figure out which lead is which. The trigger and ring each connect to their own piezo, but the the sleeve is ground for both of them.
3. After soldering the copper wire onto each piezo and TRS jack you can optionally use heat shrink to keep the cables secure and insulated.

Now that the wiring is complete you can use the foam sticky tape to attach the piezo to the crossbar and then attach the drum head. The piezo can be topped with a cone cut out of foam just tall enough to touch the mesh head. The drum head will be put on the exact same way as a regular one, the tuning rods will tighten it down.

Well, that's not quite it...the drum will likely need lots of fiddling within the drum module controls to reach desired playability. Modules are calibrated out of the box for the drum set they are meant to be played with but are rife with configuration options. The sensitivity and threshold (how hard of a hit [how much voltage the piezo outputs] is required to register sound) settings, in particular, will need to be tuned to your setup so that the volumes of each drum are reasonably inline with each other and ghost strokes are possible. Also, the size, shape, and height of the cone might need to be changed to avoid double triggering Scroll to the module tuning section of this guide and watch this video to get tips on which settings to play with.