- Hey guys, I'm Sean Lang, and today I'm gonna talk to you
about the trick to triggering your kick
with a Roland TM-2 and kick trigger.
Now, if you look down here, this is the Roland TM-2,
this is the module, and this is where
all of the sounds are located in,
and this that I'm holding in my hand right here,
this is a kick trigger, it has to plug in to the module,
and it has a, this is the actual trigger right here
this foam piece, this is the piece
that contacts the drum head.
And the way it works is, it senses vibration
and you can set a cap on how much
or how little you want to activate it.
It senses the vibration, which sends a signal to the brain,
to the unit, the module, and then
that will then produce a sound.
And you have to plug that audio out
into a speaker or a PA system or headphones to hear it,
but there are a variety of different
applications that you can use for that.
The first thing that we have to do,
is we need to hook it to the kick drum,
and that will get us set up.
So, you need to make sure you're plugged in,
we're gonna come down here,
and you'll notice before I attach it,
this is an EMAD bass drum skin,
and this is a great bass drum skin, bass drum head,
but this ring can make it problematic
for certain brands of triggers.
We tested this one, and luckily it works fine,
but just be advised that if this is
the kind of skin you're using, you might run into issues.
So, we're gonna attach it, you wanna push it firmly
so that it is making contact with the bass drum head
as good as possible, and then you just need to tighten it.
So, we're gonna tighten it here.
And you need to make sure that it is on there firmly
because it is gonna be vibrating a lot
and if it's not on there firmly, it will pop off.
And that won't be good.
Get your wires out of the way,
you don't want anything pulling and falling off.
So, now that we have the trigger attached,
we have the module here, what we're gonna do
is we're gonna choose our sound.
And we also need to make sure that the connection is good,
so I'm gonna hit the bass drum, and we'll see what happens.
So you should be able to hear a sound,
you should also see that the trigger input is lighting up,
this module has two inputs, one and two,
and I have this plugged in to one.
And you see that it is lighting up.
Sometimes, you'll get an effect where
maybe it's lighting up and it's fluttering,
or it's not lighting up, that means that
you have the sensitivity too high or too low.
But generally, if you stick to the stock settings
and you have your bass drum tuned appropriately,
and muffled appropriately, it's going to work fine
(bass thumping) as is.
Okay so, it's hooked up nicely,
we're getting the sound we want,
this is a way to monitor yourself,
this is, more commonly this is a way
to get different sounds out of the bass drum.
You don't wanna have a whole bunch of different bass drums
all for different songs and different sounds,
but if you have a trigger, you can.
You can either change the sound entirely,
or you can blend it with your natural kick sound.
So let's check this out, right now
I've got a regular kick drum sound in there.
(bass thumping)
I'm gonna go to another preset,
let's see what this sounds like.
(bass thumping)
(bass and cymbals tapping)
You're gonna come up with a lot of silly things
that maybe doesn't make sense,
but that might also make sense,
it might be cool for the song
to have a little sizzle with the kick,
that'll totally change your sound and your tone.
(bass and cymbals tapping)
I think that's cool, you can also do the same thing
with different drums on the kit as well,
but this is just for the kick.
But you need to make sure it is fixed properly,
it's out of the way, it's plugged in nicely,
and then you just choose a different sound.
(deep bass thumping)
You know, try this out.
(steady drum beat)
For all the metal guys out there,
this is a very common thing,
you choose a nice punchy kick sound.
(bass thumping)
Actually, let's find a punchier kick sound.
(bass thumping)
That sounds decent to me right now,
and then you're just gonna go.
(metal drum beat)
This is also really beneficial
if you're playing electronic music,
because acoustic drums don't always sound
the way you want them to for electronic music.
Starting with the bass drum, so let's try that out.
(electronic drum beat)
So, you see guys, triggers don't need to be tricky,
and this is a very easy and
quite inexpensive solution for triggering.
The module itself retails for around $200,
the trigger for about $100 plus all the attachment cables.
Easy and inexpensive thing to add to your kit
that can greatly expand your arsenal of tones
and different sounds to play with,
and sort of open new horizons for you.
I really encourage you to explore triggers,
it allows you to explore new things on your kit,
and as you can see there's
nothing tricky or freaky about it.
So, next time you're in the music store,
maybe give it a thought and take it to your kit.
(steady drum beat)