“My sister and I were talking a bit ago and she said she wanted a drum. The problem is she’s in college! Roommates are not going to appreciate that.
I looked for options online, but found nothing. All sorts of MIDI pads existed, but only a few had velocity sensitive drum pads and none of those were easy to follow. This is an attempt to recreate the path I followed to make it with my older brother. My brother wrote the code to add to an existing Arduino MIDI library so it would include velocity sensitive drum pads.
Supplies:
Cardboard - 4 sheets at least the size of your pad
Arduino- Preferably Leonardo, Micro, or Due, which don’t need extra software, but Uno and others work.
Piezo disc - 1 per drum pad
Diode - 5v Zener is best by far, but most any will work.
Resistor - 100 k to 1 M
Jumper wire
String - to suspend the pad
Glue - School glue and spray glue
Optional:
Buttons - For digital MIDI modifiers or playing notes
Breadboard
Tools:
Razor blade or Dremel with a drywall bit
Marker or pencil
Protractor”