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Recently aquired a Drumfire DF500, which has 5 seperate (in/out each) drum synth channels. They were originally triggered with piezo contacts that you clipped on to drums etc

I would like to be able to play all channels, whether it be manually with some sort of pushbutton gate? Or perhaps automatically with a sequencer of sorts? Both?

Help my dumb brain

Some manual devices I've considered are the Synthrotek Arcadian (but only 3 gates), the ADDAC 304, Krypt Modular Keyboard Warrior, etc...I also found this one, https://reverb.com/item/63457843

which would help with one of my next issues...power, a box, etc....as I am not a modular user at the moment, and don't currently have anything like that

Congrats on the new drum synth!

In my experience, the DF500 is pretty forgiving with respect to what you feed into the trigger inputs. I trigger mine with a drum machine. You could conceivably just hook a pushbutton up to some low voltage (like a AA battery) and trigger them like that, but do note that the shape of the trigger can affect the resulting sound.

Example: triggering off a tight closed hihat can sound different than a trigger with a wider footprint, resulting in something approximating dynamics.

With respect to the keypad listing, I'm interpreting that as a passive CV processor, in which you can cut up or slice in an existing CV train to feed whatever is downstream. I do not interpret that as a CV generator, which is what you'd want to trigger the drum module - but again, it looks like hanging a small battery off the input to chop to the outputs would do the trick.

Piezo transducers do not generate a huge signal, so the Drumfire has onboard gain to tailor each channel to the size of signal you're feeding it (sensitivity), I have triggered mine from my guitar - though held notes result in an open span of noise and not a well defined drum sound.

My TL;DR advice is: if you're going with a manual push button be quick on the tap/release because the time you hold the trigger ON will affect the sound.

(edit, I seem to have mentioned the trigger quality affecting the sound quite enough on this post - I had to grab mine and fire it up to be sure I wasn't talking out my ass - so forgive the repetition)

I seem to have lost track of things as usual

...Crochambeau thank you! I figured as much, re minimal signal to trigger. Perfect that you have an actual DF unit for first hand experience

I ended up tossing together a basic controller for it! Built from an old busted Fender channel switch, some small momentary push buttons, five 1/4" jacks, & a AA battery.

Here's a test clip I recorded when I finally had extra time to get it wired. More to come once I clean up/repair the unit, and get more familiar with it...Naturally, I already have ideas for a better conroller design for the future


(Sorry for the ratio, wasn't planning to upload it)

Eggcellent vid, Jero! Glad it has led you down a tube of future triggerings

Haha thanks, yeah it should be fun!
...I also noticed sonething interesting, while plugging in the cables...apparently I generate enough voltage to trigger it, simply by touching the end of the cable!

So the next device will have a 3x3 keypad grid (5 main isolated, plus 4 wired to multi hit) with a touch panel as well...and I have one of those little Simon toys that I want to hack to make a random auto trigger/interactive thing

...might be worth seeing if I can use a color change/flicker LED to automatically alter the sound on one of the channels as well

Anyone have one of those EHX Clockworks kicking around?

Jero wrote:I seem to have lost track of things as usual

...Crochambeau thank you! I figured as much, re minimal signal to trigger. Perfect that you have an actual DF unit for first hand experience

I ended up tossing together a basic controller for it! Built from an old busted Fender channel switch, some small momentary push buttons, five 1/4" jacks, & a AA battery.

Here's a test clip I recorded when I finally had extra time to get it wired. More to come once I clean up/repair the unit, and get more familiar with it...Naturally, I already have ideas for a better conroller design for the future


(Sorry for the ratio, wasn't planning to upload it)

That's brilliant, I had never considered just holding a trigger open and running it like a standard oscillator. THANK YOU.