DIY Foot Drum

[Brendan]

OK - so here's one I built with my brother last time I was in Canberra. Haven't wired it up - hence front cover not sitting properly. Also need to clear coat it and chamfer the edges a little.

[jugglindan]

That looks awesome Brendan. Very close to the sort of thing I am working towards. I know it's not wired up, but what are you using inside as the microphone? Have you tested with temporary wiring? How does it sound?

DC

[Brendan]

That looks awesome Brendan. Very close to the sort of thing I am working towards. I know it's not wired up, but what are you using inside as the microphone? Have you tested with temporary wiring? How does it sound?

DC

Nothing as yet - hence why I'm following intently. Didn't want to stuff it up with a couple of dinky piezo's and haven't really revisited to see alternatives...

[jugglindan]

Nothing as yet - hence why I'm following intently. Didn't want to stuff it up with a couple of dinky piezo's and haven't really revisited to see alternatives...

Ah, I see. Well, I am happy to be the guinea pig
There are three main designs I have seen: piezo, speaker, and a pickup mounted close to a metallic object under the stomping surface. I will try the first two.

[jugglindan]

OK, I have a 5" speaker that has a diameter of 135mm once I include the metal surround. That will easily fit into the 150mm width even if the wood was no more than 6 or 7mm thick. But the speaker is 50mm high (measured with digital calipers). So it's too big, especially the taper from 50mm to 40mm plan. I am happy to keep the box as is, and obtain a smaller diameter speaker. Or the box could have 10mm added to the height (tapering 60 to 50mm). That's getting pretty big though, so maybe keep it as is and I will get a smaller speaker if the piezo doesn't sound right.

DC

[FrankenWashie]

Hmmm... I am pondering how to go about this.
if we make it more wedge shaped, the you might over come the depth issue some what. But we will still end up wit a chunky enclosure.

Out of interest what size piezo did you test?

[jugglindan]

I agree that the box shouldn't get any larger. The speaker I have is just too large (it's a 5"). I can get a generic 4" speaker from Jaycar for $5. It will easily fit into the current planned dimensions. I was just at Jaycar today getting some parts for my current pedal and amp builds. I should have picked up one of the speakers.

The piezo I tested is a 3cm disk. It probably wasn't a totally fair test though, as the box was a bit dinky, making it hard to stomp with my foot. A lot of people use piezo mics in these, so it should work. The box Brendan built looks too small to house a speaker, so I suspect it has a piezo inside.

[Brendan]

I've got an old p bass pickup kicking around - may see if I can rig that up inside without a full commit.

[jugglindan]

I've got an old p bass pickup kicking around - may see if I can rig that up inside without a full commit.

Great. I think I linked to a design or two like that back on page 1 or 2. I would be very interested to see how it works out, even though I don't have any spare pickups laying around. I like that it is less likely to need a preamp while I am pretty much committed to building a preamp into my mini amp as an optional input.

[FrankenWashie]

So the Lab got a bit busy this afternoon.

I needed to do some rip cutting on a large chunk of QLD Maple and some mahogany that has been laying about.

This involved passing an 8” wide board through my bandsaw, with a 20mm ripping blade on it. Slightly scary. Push sticks mandatory.



I’m building 2 enclosures, one is more or less to the basic box specified by Jugglindan, the other is a FrankenLab twist version.

I decided to use some of the beech I had for the box sides; on the square box for DC, the ends will be Merbau, on the FL version sides and ends are beech.



The tops will be QMaple, the key decision for being 1/4” or 1/2” top?




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