An actual *stomp* box....for stomping

[Mark Hammer]

A buddy has a little 3-piece ensemble with two guitarists.  He brings a high-hat and snare.  I'm attempting to make him a wooden floorboard for amplified stomping, so he can just plug it into the PA and not have to lug the rest of his kit.  I know I've seen such devices advertised, and was wondering if any of you had any experience making such a device.

What we're talking about here is simply a hunk of wood on the floor, with one or more strategically-installed piezo discs, that a seated person can just hit with their heel and produce a thump that can be made audible without having to endure repetiive strain injury on one's foot or ankle from the whacking.  My plan was to have the wooden object create most of the resonances, and just amplify what comes from the piezo disc/s with a suitably buffered preamp that may have a simple bass shelving EQ.

Are there any recommendations you might have for wood to use/avoid, how/where to install the piezo sensor, whether the assembled wooden thing needs some sort of covering or spacers underneath, etc.?

[SmoothAction]

I cant say much about the wood type, but my piezo is very high mid-y, not much low end comes through at all. Id say bass shelving is a rad idea for this.

[deadastronaut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osFf_5L1juk&feature=related

[Mark Hammer]

That fellow gets a surprisingly good sound out of it.  I'm encouraged.

It would seem that the sort of "frame" that one has allows the centre to have modest "membrane" qualities, adding to the resonance.  The fact that he appears to get a decent sound in the seeming total absence of supporting electronics is also encouraging.

[Earthscum]

I actually joked about this on another thread not too long ago. I'll search later, might be relevant.
You could use a piezo disc to generate a trigger signal and an envelope start and use those to run an ADSR to an oscillator.
As far a wood goes, dunno. I'd probably just use pine with an oak top. Solid pine base, then make tongues with the oak for the top, and sammich the piezo in between. But, I have never done such a thing. It's just how I would attack it.

[DocAmplify]

This is a low tech solution, but I've seen guys use red plastic gas cans as an acoustic venue bass drum.  Use the wood to make a brace and clip the actual bass drum pedal to the brace. 

I've also looked into using piezos as drum triggers (electronic drum style).  These piezos aren't used for their sound quality, but rather as switches.  I have an electronic drum "brain", so that would be an easy build.  Essentially, what you'd have to do is use the piezo and build a bass synthezizer that is triggered.  Maybe there's a MIDI solution for it?

[Mark Hammer]

Yeah, I was also thinking that pine or spruce might provide something with a thud that lingers a little.  My friend was thinking of using something to trigger a drum synth/sample of some kind.  I'm trying to see if we can keep it simpler and leave all those wires and critical signal levels out of it.  We can all get pretty much a decent sound out of the floor if we hit is right.  The challenge is making that sound heard over the course of an evening without having to grind your ankles and heel bone into dust to do it.  And a hunk of wood that you can throw in the trunk and plug a cable into at the gig is about as simple as you can get.

Worse comes to worse, I built an Anderton Hip Bass Drum some time back, and can probably trigger that.

[snarblinge]

this is what my locals are up to, check it out

http://www.nzguitars.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=22064

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks.  One of the posts in that forum thread links to this: http://www.wazinator.com/  which provides enough description of the design to give me some ideas.  This particular unit is chambered to provide more resonance.  Kiwi ingenuity!  Suggests that one might even consider using otherwise objectionable materials, like MDF, and reinstate resonance by a quick bit of routing to produce chambers.  It also suggests that one could fabricate one larger composite plank with two different sorts of chambers routed out and a piezo sensor in each one, permitting the player to just pivot their foot and thump which ever portion of the unit they wish, with both feeding the same mono output.

I gots me some routing to do!!   

[markeebee]

I'd build it into a shoe. That'd be funny.  A strappy little slingback.

Ooh ooh, or build two into a shoe, one low passed the other not.  Then heel-and-toe-heel-and-toe boom chikka boom chikka chik.

I'm not helping, am I?

[deadastronaut]

^ thats been done!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01FxXMMCPg&feature=related


or go mad with it....good design though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01FxXMMCPg&feature=related

[DocAmplify]

I REALLY like that porchboard idea; Very elegant; very Jack White.

I don't know if complicating things above that of a porchboard would be necessary, but you can modify the beater of a kick pedal to strike a horizontal instead of a vertical if he wanted to have the feel of a kick pedal.  

[Mark Hammer]

^ thats been done!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01FxXMMCPg&feature=related


or go mad with it....good design though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01FxXMMCPg&feature=related

Interesting.....

Though my 13 year-old self still believes a naugahyde-covered ottoman to be the best percussion instrument ever devised....well, at least for playing the drums to "Wipeout".

[DocAmplify]

If you're interested in the porch board, do a search for DIY sub kick mic. 

Bass drums are notoriously hard to mic.  The frequency is so low that normal mics miss the low end.  You may be familiar with the subkick (http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/drums/accessories/lowfreq/skrm-100sfv/?mode=model) which uses a very large diameter mic.  The diy-ers have figured out how to use a speaker as a diaphragm (very similar to the porch board project).  You might get some tips from the subkick diy pages. 

[Earthscum]

Reading through this made the Pipe Bomb effect come to mind.

[snarblinge]

glad to be of assistance, can't wait to see pics of this thing.

[Tubebass]

I've mixed a couple of bands that used a plastic Samsonite suitcase in lieu of a kick drum. The suitcase mics up, no problem, and when the show's over it can be used to carry pedals, cables and the like!

[Mark Hammer]

When I went to see Jeff Beck last fall, he had a kid opening for him by the name of Tyler Bryant.  From where we were sitting it seemed he had a miked up guitar case as his bass drum.

[frank_p]

You can use the cheap piezos from buzzers.  They are pretty inexpensive.  Be careful not to pull the wires to hard, they can be impossible to re-solder.

It would seem that the sort of "frame" that one has allows the centre to have modest "membrane" qualities, adding to the resonance.

Membrane acoustic behavior is usually achieved without a frame.  The equations of the physics behind membrane behavior is totally different from a plate, framed plate or cone, etc.  Think of it as a class of it's own.  It does not add or remove from the acoustic quality, it's just a totally different behavior.  Resonance comes also if not more from the body (or box) than from the membrane or top plate for an acoustic instrument.  The issue with piezo is that it takes vibration from only one part of the vibrating body and they measure mostly shear stress.  So you have to move the captor around to find some sweet spots.  And since you have to glue them, placing many cheap ones around will save you some pennies.  Heck..., you could even put a pickup selector switch or solder a small mixer.

[runmikeyrun]

you mention "stomping" and "wood" and this is the first thing I think of... note the activity at 1:00.

And yes, some Americans know who he is.  My favorite song is Tillsonburg