As a drummer in central London, I spend a lot of time going to different practice rooms and using their house kits. The convenience is great, but the kits are unpredictable, and some can sound less than ideal. Even quickly retuning every shell can take up a significant part of a two-hour practice slot. I needed a way to improve my sound without dragging a full drum kit across the city.

Hybrid drumming

Hybrid drumming combines an acoustic drum kit with electronic triggers, samples, or backing tracks. The acoustic drums still provide the dynamics and most of the sound, while the electronics add control by layering more polished sounds or triggering sounds that would not be possible with an acoustic kit alone. With this in mind, I decided to put together my own hybrid setup. It had to be:

• Compact enough to fit in my backpack for journeys on public transport.
• Quick to connect in an unfamiliar room.
• Robust enough that I would not worry about losing cables or breaking fragile parts in transit.
• Affordable.

Several popular standalone solutions are available for this scenario, such as the Yamaha EAD10 and the Alesis SamplePad Pro. For me, however, these options were either too expensive, too cumbersome, or too limited in functionality.

The key component of my setup was a Roland TM-2 trigger module. It lets me attach triggers to an acoustic kit and play sampled sounds through the PA whenever I hit a drum. I chose it because it is battery-powered, feature-rich, and compact.

For the triggers, I used a Roland RT-30K acoustic kick drum trigger and a Roland RT-30HR dual snare drum trigger. Together, they support a range of hybrid drumming configurations.

Iteration I

For the first iteration, I added an audio interface and a USB-C adapter so I could connect a microphone and record rehearsals directly to my phone. Running a cable from the TM-2 into the PA enabled the hybrid setup while also supporting playback from my phone, allowing the whole band to listen back to rehearsals immediately. I mounted the audio interface under the trigger module using a cut-up piece of clipboard, then added Velcro to the sides of the TM-2 to hold the triggers.

Although this setup had lots of good functionality, it introduced many small cables that were tedious to keep track of. Also, whilst the TM-2 comes with a mounting attachment I found it too cumbersome for my needs. For this iteration, the module simply sat on the floor, which made changing settings difficult.

Iteration II

Next, I made a more refined mount from a scrap piece of wood and the mounting component from a drum riser. This allowed me to attach the system directly to the bass drum. I also removed the audio interface and microphone components to streamline the design.

Overall, these improvements made the setup much more usable and portable.

Iteration III

For the final version, I reduced the weight by replacing the drum riser component with a lighter percussion mount. This also let me add another playing surface by mounting a Roland BT-1 bar just above the module. The module itself is mounted on a board with a clamp that attaches to the percussion mounting post. The same clamp can attach to any standard side-mounting post around the kit, allowing for even more flexible configurations.

Reflection

Overall this setup meets all of my needs and has enabled me to explore different ways of playing despite logistical limitations. In the future, I would like to adapt it to be used as a drumming module in a purely electronic kit and potentially see if it can be made even more compact and portable.