[lidrummer]

PFozz,
 
Thanks for the response with the additional info.  I think everything is starting to make sense now. 
 
Double Hitting of Main Piezo:
I currently have a sheet of rubber toolbox liner material between the a-cymbal and the plastic cymbal but it covers the entire surface area of both.  I also have the bow piezo mounted via double sided foam tape to the plastic cymbal near the bell with another pad of foam on top of it between the piezo and the a-cymbal.  I think that I should be able to fix this problem by adding another sheet and cutting the diameter of both sheets back to expose more of the edge of the cymbal where the edge piezo is.  This should also help isolate the two piezos from each other a little more.  Kind of like you did with your tape.  Also, I am going to remove the foam on top of the piezo to try to make it a little “hotter” than the edge piezo. 
 

 
> You may try to extend the “choking area”…
Funny you should mention this.  I was discussing my thoughts on the “under the plastic cymbal beam with the edge piezo mounted to the tip” design with some co-workers today.  They tended to think that this was probably not a very robust idea.  So, we came up with an idea to do exactly what you suggested…an arc of thin metal supported at the two ends.  I was actually going to mount the edge piezo directly to the midspan of the arc and place a rubber/foam dot under it (between the piezo and the plastic cymbal).  That way when I press on the plastic cymbal, the vibrations of the edge piezo should stop?
 
Thanks again,
lidrummer
 

[lidrummer]

Hey PFozz,
 
Great tutorial…very concise.  I’d like to ask a few questions if you don’t mind.  I have been playing around with Beatnik’s design (practice cymbal below an acoustic cymbal) and trying to modify it to work as a dual zone with choke.  I was going to try to modify it using a concept proposed by Cosmograph over on vdrums.com.  The basic idea is to mount the second (edge) piezo on a cantilevered beam on the underside of the cymbal.  This is supposed to give good separation between the bow and edge piezo.
 
Before going through all that work, I thought I would give your design a shot.  So, I opened up my Beatnik cymbal and mounted an edge piezo near the edge.  I hooked everything up via the Raper circuit and viola…to my surprise, I got edge sounds.  Although I really had to crank up the resistance on the potentiometer to prevent the edge sound from triggering with even the slightest hit.  I wasn’t ever to get it to go away for moderate hits so I probably need more resistance (I am already up to 100K).
 
Anyways, my real question is about the choke capability.  I got the cymbal to choke under two conditions:  (1) if I hit the edge fairly hard and (2) if I squeezed the edge near the piezo (sometimes).  So my question is, could you explain how and why the choke works and do you have any tips on how to improve it’s behavior (ie. not choking when striking it hard and improving the consistency of choking while squeezing the edge).
 
Thanks,
lidrummer

[lidrummer]

Michael,
 
That looks like a great (and very clean) design.  I would like to try making something like this.  Do you happen to have any more details on the construction, materials, etc. that you could share?
 
Thanks,
lidrummer

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