Hybrid Drumming

Photo: Sarah Watts Point and Shoot

What is Hybrid Drumming? And why do you need it?

Hybrid drumming involves the integration of drum pads, triggers and other electronic components into a traditional drum kit setup, enabling you to blend the sounds of acoustic drums with a wide range of electronic sounds and effects. Incorporating electronics into your acoustic kit not only allows the production values of today’s modern music to be reproduced live, it can also introduce a unique level of creativity into your playing that can’t be achieved with acoustic drums alone.

While rock drummers like King Crimson’s Bill Bruford and Rush’s Neil Peart were among the earliest hybrid drumming innovators, the trend exploded in the late ’80s with the New Romantic bands like Duran Duran, and occasionally more edgy acts like New Order, adding electronic components to their percussive arsenals. But things have moved on a long way since adding a couple of Simmons pads was considered cutting edge, and the technology has become more advanced, more affordable and — equally important — more reliable. Modern music demands a wider palette of sounds than ever before, and hybrid drumming is fast becoming something that many drummers are exploring.

Triggering Your Acoustic Kit

The Roland RT‑MicS is a trigger with built‑in sounds that clips to a drum hoop.

Augmenting an acoustic kit with triggered sounds is a great way to beef up your drum sounds or add additional elements, such as a tambourine or clap, to a snare.

Triggers themselves come in two formats: single and dual. They attach directly to your acoustic drum shells, typically mounting to the top hoop of each drum. Once a trigger is tightly secured to the drum, a small piezoelectric sensor rests on the drum head, detecting the vibrations generated when your drum stick strikes it, and sends that data to a drum module (your source of sounds) via a jack or XLR cable. The single‑trigger option only sends a signal when the batter head is struck, but a dual trigger, as its name suggests, includes two transducers that take signals independently from the head and rim of the drum, allowing two different sounds to be played.

Roland, Yamaha, 2Box, Ddrum and many other manufacturers all produce triggers spanning a wide range of prices, build quality and style. They all work in pretty much the same way, so my advice for anyone looking to buy would be to choose what suits your budget and the physical requirements of your drums — not every trigger will fit perfectly on every drum hoop. You can buy very simple piezo pickups that stick to the drum head and have a trailing jack socket attached but, in my experience, these are impractical and don’t give great results. I’d avoid those and go for something more substantial.

The Simple Options

Keeping it simple, something like the Roland RT‑MicS is a great way to start. This self‑contained unit clips onto your snare drum (or any other drum in your kit) and has eight built‑in sounds that are triggered as you hit the drum, so no external sound module or cabling is required. In addition to the snares, claps and percussion sounds the unit ships with, you can also add two of your own sampled sounds, to customise your sound palette somewhat. Roland also produce a two‑channel version (the TM‑2), should you want to add a kick and snare trigger, or you could go for the six‑input TM‑6 Pro, which (as its name suggests) offers six trigger inputs. I reviewed the latter device for Sound On Sound in the December 2018 issue. With a fully featured unit like the TM‑6 Pro, you can add triggers to your kick, snare and toms or incorporate...