Wut? Oh, it's just another one of my discussions on unnecessarily complex setups

[Cortexturizer]

So this time the topic is:

--- Using a mic to run your drummer's kit through your pedalboard ---

Looking for ideas and to learn from other people's experiences on this. I am a HUGE fan of Dub Trio so admittedly my desire to dabble in this stuff stems from there.

So, what I'd like to do is run a mic from my drummer's drum kit (or maybe one element of his kit, let's say the snare) and run it in or out of my pedals at will. I play dual mono (fake stereo?) and have two signal lines one being the main sound in amp A, and the other being a special effects (more in a sense that the lines I play through this are fillers with delay and some modulation, by special fx I don't think rain sounds or synth sounds or something) kinda sound that goes into amp B.

So I'd like to instantly (gradually would be better but I know this increases the complexity of the setup) be able to run that mic signal to my effects chain whenever I want while it would be muted otherwise. It would be nice if I could run both the guitar and that mic signal through the effects at the same time.

SO basically what I want to achieve from this is to capture some moments played on the drum kit and process them through huge reverbs and delays and distortion coming through my amp B and let them ring out when I disable the mic input (or switch it back to the guitar).

What kind of device would allow me to do this? Also, obviously, it would be great if the device could be smallest possible. Because REASONS... ya know?!



--- On commercially available semi-solutions: ---

I know that the guitarist of the aforementioned Dub Trio uses a Boss RC20XL for this (from what I could gather from super bad pics of his board that are available online) so what I am guessing he's doing is bending down, turning the MIC input pot from zero and up and then manipulates what comes out of the mic input with delays and verbs and then when he's done he turns the mic input on the RC20XL back to zero. This is my assumption but I don't know how he could be doing it otherwise.

I have a friend who uses a Korg Kaoss Pad for this kind of thing with great results, but this is not a "mic'd drums going through guitar pedals" scenario, he has to use the effects on the Kaoss Pad (which are great, lol).

I've looked into solutions like the Pigtronix Keymaster as well, and that just doesn't do what I need it to do, or I don't understand it very well.

There's also the new Cusack Pedal Cracker that looks interesting but that thing only accepts a mic input and not a guitar input as well. Bummer.

So I guess my problem could be summed like this - need advice on how to achieve mixing or instantly getting the mic signal in and out of my existing effects chain (so I don't want a separate pedal that only processes the mic signal (if I wanted that then the Cusack would be ideal)) without the need to bend down ideally.



--- On what I intend to do and need your help with guys ---

Whilst discussing this on reddit someone suggested me to use contact mics and that reaaaally pushed me into that direction, I don't know why I haven't used them before, they can do so much for my looping setup as well.
The cool thing about these is the effective "gate" you get cause if the drummer is not touching the element of the drum kit that the contact mic is attached to then there is no sound (obviously there will be some cause of the vibrations, but not a lot).

So in the end I settled to this kind of idea/setup:
- 3 contact mics, one for the snare, one for the hi-hat, one for the ride
- all of them going into a mixer that will preferably have individual channel volume controls
- the output fromt he mixer will go to a volume pedal
- from that volume pedal I enter one of my effect chains
- then I can gradually or momentarily infuse little moments of my drummer's playing into my rig and then manipulate that through huge reverbs and delays, maybe even loop that, etc



Do you guys know of a mixer project that would allow me to do this?
What kind of problems should I expect with this? Nothing is easy, so I am guessing there will be some.
I should note that I am not super concerned with the quality of the sound here, this is more an interesting gimmick that could potentially turn out well and interesting, I know that contact mics roll-off a lot of bass if you are not using an appropriate pre-amplifier but I am not concerned with that, if anything, that can only be a plus with what I want to do.

If ANYONE has read through all of this I salute you and owe you a beer.

Cheers and let me know your opinions!

P.S. The only reason the pictures are in this post is to prevent the tldr moment and to keep your brain going SOMEHOW, through all that is written.

[m-Kresol]

I read it all, I'll pm you my address for the beer

On a more serious note, I think the idea is cool, but unfortunately I have no idea how to do that. Usually Thomas form thcustoms is quite good at mixers and stuff like that. maybe he can chime in or you could send him a pm

[Cortexturizer]

Yeah he is my prime suspect for that kind of stuff as well! Interested to hear about potential problems, caveats, and whatnot of this kind of setup and all. Will be receiving my contact mics very soon so will report on how they even work on a drum kit!

[JC103]

The solution is quite simple actually.

Part 1: You need a mic, say a SM58 to start, an XLR cable obviously, and a mic preamp with a balanced +4dbv output at line level.

Part 2: You need a Re-amp box, lets say a Radial until you build one, mic pre out put goes into this box and comes out as unbalanced instrument level, specifically high z.

Part 3: ABY box so that you can switch Mic source and Guitar source for amp B.

Done. This is how I would do it. Substitute mixer for mic preamp, add volume pedal after re-amp box.

[Cortexturizer]

Thank you for your response! I do have high hopes for contact mics for their "gate"-esque nature and low cost, with one SM57/48 I could always pick up the sound of more than one element of the drum kit which is not what I would ideally want to do.
I also recalled that my Vox VDL1 looper has a mic input, and one can actually use the pedal on the looper as a volume control for the mic input and I can also use the built-in effects for the mic only and not for the guitar signal. I bought a sm57 today and will be trying that idea out tomorrow. The Vox looper is something that I acquired just recently and I am blown away by it. It is not for everyone, and some very basic things have been poorly implemented within the pedal, but it offers so much more than any other looper/pedal that I truly have no words for it.

[matmosphere]

Have you considered just using drum triggers? I would think it could save you some trouble.

[Cortexturizer]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B--6F_4JB7SYbS15d00tY0xwM00/view?usp=sharing

Sharing with you guys the end result of my troubles. I am VERY satisfied with how this works and sounds. I am using two contact mics, one for the snare and the other one for the hi-hat, then I am mixing the two with the TH Custom Pro-cessor and sending them from there to Boss DD7 and Boss RV6 and from there to the PA and one other guitar amp. It sounds HUGE. I am beyond satisfied. My bandmates are mind-blown. Above is the jam we made tonight, pretty stoked about this. Cheers!