I'm a drummer...again. I played drums starting in 5th grade through college, then focused on bass guitar (because of the band I was in) and got out of the drumming business. However, I never quite lost the bug and as of about 3 years ago, I got back into it, buying a couple of kits and joining a band (which has morphed into another, different band, but I digress...)
A friend, let's call him James (since that's his name), recently bought a set of electronic drums. I'd previously had a set in the late 80s and they were pretty horrible, so my opinion had been pretty well set against electronic options. That was until recently. James got me thinking and then I had a chance to talk with a local musician who has been playing "silently" for years. The motivation for their band was eliminating the need for monitors allows them to have in-ear monitors that represent the full mix, eliminating the need for a sound man (read: more money for the band) and having players that are in tune with what the audience is actually hearing. No monitors also means no surprising feedback loops.
But a step beyond going without monitors is the quest for the "zero stage volume" band. That means that drums are somehow silent (with electronic drums or triggers installed on acoustic drums w/ mesh heads) and no guitar amplifiers. If a drummer can get comfortable with an electronic set, surely a guitarist can forego his amp, can't he? This is a more difficult thing to overcome than you might think.
Guitarists are on an eternal quest for tone. This is equated to what sounds you hear when the guitar is played, and it's the sum of the guitar, the guitar's pickups, and signal processing that's happening in the guitar, the effects that are used (i.e., foot pedals, integrated effects units, rackmount effects, etc.), and the amplifier. The amplifier is a pretty important part of this signal path, since it typically includes a tube-based pre-amp, a tube-based post-amp, and speakers that are finally responsible for actually producing the sound. While the amplifier is important, it's an oddity in the amplifier market that causes amps to not just be part of the signal path, but also to be part of the problem.
You see, most guitarists seeking "tone" are using all-tube amps, and they're looking for that "warm" tone from overdriven tubes, which means that the signal going into the tubes is slightly more than the tube can handle cleanly and it causes the signal to be distorted, but distorted in a way that adds harmonic frequency overtones to the signal. It ends up making the signal sound bigger, "warmer", and gives it a little bit of attitude. The problem comes in that you really need to be pushing the tubes to their max to get this kind of effect, and most tube amps are built to handle so much power that the amp really needs to be BLASTING sound in order to "warm" up the tone, which means that it's going to be really loud on stage. Contrary to most guitarists theory on the topic, this is not a good thing.
There are three options to get guitars to "zero stage volume":
- Plugging in direct to the PA and foregoing the amp
- Attenuators
- Isolator boxes
Personally, I like the first option. I believe that in most cases, the tone that most guitarists strive for is generally lost before it gets to the audience by virtue of running through a lesser microphone (generally placed in front of the guitar amp), a lesser solid-state amp in the PA, and PA speakers which aren't optimized for guitar tones. However, there's something to be said for keeping the guitarists happy and feeling like they are getting a great tone (regardless of what the audience is actually hearing).
The second option is a funky one, but interesting nonetheless. Basically, it places additional load between the amp and the speaker and absorbs the signal that would otherwise be really LOUD at the speaker and reduces it to a more sane volume. The downsides to this approach are that these almost universally impact the tone in some way, guitarists who like loud will be disappointed, and it usually means modifying the output path of the amp in a way that makes it difficult (or at least inconvenient) to switch back and forth between using the attenuator and not.
Finally, the isolator box. This approach just basically says "hey, you are a guitar player and you need to play loud to sound good, so play loud and we'll contain the volume in this box". The upside is that nothing is really modified, but the downside is that you have to carry another box to the gig.
Again, I like option 1.
Anyway, I was mentioning my new project. I recently purchased the Roland TD-4S, an electronic kit that is intended to be small, compact and portable. Part of its portability trades off the system's expandability. Where most electronic drum modules take 16 or more trigger in puts, the TD-4 has a DB-25 which connects to a hard-wired cable harness that connects to each of the triggers. I kind of like the appeal of the "more trigger ports" option, although the TD-4 only supports the triggers that are wired. So here's my project: build a DB-25 breakout panel that exposes each of the triggers as a 1/4" jack input. That would allow me to eliminate the wiring harness and use standard mono and balanced 1/4" cables.
"But, Shane", you say, "your wiring harness works fine and your DB-25 interface is going to disallow any expansion, so why would you do this?". Because I can, my friend. Because I can.
And also because I already found the pin-out diagram online:
Wish me luck, or sanity...or both.
