Sensitivity Mod (aka "Penny Mod") for EL Type Drum

**Siberian** · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 207

Okay, first off. see Project Mercy's thread over on the official forums for identifying what model drum set you have.

A few weeks ago I finally got sick of the tremendously loud noise my drum kit was making and decided to try using mouse pads made of neoprene foam rubber.

I'm really happy with the mod. The drums have a bit more rebound but most important to me are a ton quieter. I ran into issues with sensitivity on the red and green drums however and had to use thinner pads on them.

Now I know I could replace these with gum rubber pads and likely get back some of that sensitivity but I've heard they're not quite as quiet as what I'm using and well I don't really feel like dropping $25-$30 to see if I like them better. So I decided instead to just boost the sensors sensitivity.

Well, then I saw the famous 'penny' mod here, which essentially is using a penny to increase the pressure on the piezoelectric sensor which increases it's sensitivity.

But, when I opened them up my sensor cage was quite a bit different:

A penny really doesn't fit in there anywhere. ;)

So, I gave up on it at that point and closed the drums back up. This weekend after getting frustrated at the occasional non-registering hits on my drums I decided to take a look at modding them again. What I ended up doing was using a hole punch to punch out a few thin pieces of cardboard and placing that between the spring and the sensor to tighten it up.

The cutouts are a bit smaller then the hole and about 1/16" of an inch thick. I put 2 in the red and green drums and 1 in the yellow and blue drums in the end.

All you need to do is take the heads off, remove the two screws around the sensor to lift the plastic the spring is mounted to out (Part 4 in picture). Do not remove anything else! Place the cutout into the circle of foam (Part 1) and then reattach the spring (Part 4).

I see far less of the 'occassional' missed notes now. That or I've suddenly become 10,000-20,000 pts better at nearly every song I play, which I doubt.

The 'sweet spot' for hitting the drum heads after I had added the pads had shrunk quiet a bit but this change lets them register pretty much out to the rim on a firm hit and even a very light hit registers in the center of the pad. Given that my neoprene foam rubber pads dampen the amount of vibration that reachs the sensor I don't think this is going to adversely affect the life-span of the sensors compared to a stock kit with unmodified pads.

Anyway just thought I'd share it with folks who have an EL model drum set and are looking to boost it's sensitivity a tad.
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**AWrb4LYF** · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 310

This mod works like a CHARM!!!

Saved my set from RMA.
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**throwawaystyle** · Joined: 20 Aug 2007 Posts: 1305 Location: Dalton GA

I did this earlier with these circular felt things I randomly found in my drawer. They work pretty good.
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**b08smith** · Joined: 18 Aug 2007 Posts: 1140 Location: Portsmouth, UK

Just tried out this mod and wanted to give this a bump as it works really well. I was getting lots of dropped hits on my yellow pad but a few spacers under the spring has made it much better.

I also padded out the inside of the pads with some socks as shown in another thread, cuts down the sound quite a bit. If you're going to open them up anyway I'd recommend doing both.

Overall with both these mods and a set of gum rubber pads the drums are feeling great. Just waiting for the new pedal now!
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**Tahmer** · Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:09 pm Post subject:

This didn't work for me. What I ended up having to do was rip the circular black padding off the adhesive, then stick a penny in it's place. I did it to all of them. No missed hits (I lie, maybe one every 20,000 hits), and no double hits. For some reason it seems to also be immune to activating other pads so it's all good there.
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**marcin** · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 58

Did this today and its a noticeable improvement. Seems each pad has its own "sweet spot" as far as how many of these to put in there. The red needs the most while yellow stopped responding with too many and had troubles with not enough. Right now I have: 4 2 2 3 and its going ok but still the occasional dropped note (nothing near how bad it was before though, MAJOR improvement).

The hole is definately smaller than the QM but there is still plenty of room depth-wise. If the idea behind this is more pressure as suggested then shouldn't something heavier than cardboard give even better results? I've been looking around the house for something metal, might have to make a trip to Home Depot this week and see what other fun inserts I can come up with.

Would thin and heavy be the best idea? or would more thickness help also?

**AngryJonny** · Joined: 11 Feb 2008 Posts: 15

I had no luck with this mod. I'm going to try more/thicker shims, but I think the real culprit is the very weak spring on the EL. It's really flimsy, much weaker than the QM's analogous spring. Not sure how to improve that, but I think I'll try stretching it out a bit, which should increase tension.

Or wait for my last RMA to get back to EA and request yet another. The two good things so far about the EL are the quieter pads and the ease of removing the pads. But my QM was definitely better, while it lasted.

**marcin** · Joined: 22 Feb 2008 Posts: 58

If the spring is the culprit and the cutouts are designed to help deal with a weak spring - that should mean that somewhere out there is a more durable spring that could be used as a replacement. My Google-Fu is weak on this topic, where would be a good place to try to purchase custom springs ?

**Tastyburger** · Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Posts: 34

wow, this really helped my red drum become much more responsive. I can finally do a drum roll by hitting the pad lightly.
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**Juggernaut7581** · Joined: 30 Apr 2007 Posts: 229 Location: Berkeley, CA

I just used this mod on my new EL set, and I'm still getting missed hits on pretty much all pads.

Anyone have any other ideas before I RMA this one too? Like everyone else, I did notice it to be a bit easier to hit rolls. The missed hits usually come during slow and steady choruses and such, so breaking combo in those just isn't worth the improved rolls.

**BizCasFri** · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 1833 Location: Winnipeg, MB

I don't really understand this mod, mainly because when I opened up my EL set there was plenty of room for a penny. Perhaps if your pic in the first post wasn't broken I'd get it?
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**luminousnerd** · Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 639 Location: Utah :(

I can't believe how well this works!

I was doing it wrong, at first, I was putting pennies OUTSIDE of where the sensor is, just taping them down in the main area of the drum. I had to put 6 pennies in there before I noticed any change.

The change was minimal, at best, so I just didn't understand why so many people were so happy with this mod...

Then I saw this post which I understood better than the original penny mod post, and although I still used pennies, this was very helpful to me.

I can't believe the effect it has. This is awesome! I can't believe something so simple could have such a huge effect and not be already implemented!!!

Look, I know EA has a WHOLE LOT of people to make happy with this hardware, and not so many people to test it on. All that's fine, and I can forgive the hardware issues to a point...

But when there is well-known stuff like this out there it makes you wonder...did they test it at all?! Surely the amount of pressure on the sensor is something they would have adjusted in testing, and if they had given the set to anyone who can play on expert they would have told them that more pressure is better!

And beyond that, it's been half a year now and they still haven't fixed it, even though this and other mods are well known!

What gives? (Harmonix I luff j00 but you need to fire EA... If it even works that way...)

Anyway I got on a soap box there, sorry about that! The point is, this mod is excellent, and your explanation of how to implement it is excellent!

Thank you!
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**Floovenx05** · Joined: 08 Dec 2007 Posts: 427

This helps alot, but the only downfall is that it is very VERY loud due to the coins clackling inside there.
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**luminousnerd** · Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Posts: 639 Location: Utah :(

If you do it right then there should be no room for the pennies to move, thus no extra noise...
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**Tracemander** · Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 140 Location: Decatur, IL

This thread is old, but I had great success with this mod. My pads are more responsive and even a very light hit will set them off. My scores have jumped up significantly and rolls are much easier.
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