The Red Rig electronic drumkit of boldness

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By Collin Cunningham
Posted 2008/09/02 @ 1:19 pm
Category Music

As an homage to Eddie Van Halen’s Frankenstein axe, Connecticut electro-percussionist Steve Lovelace created this kit of impressive visual loudness -

OK folks… Here it is, in all its ’80s glory: the 6-sided Red Rig. Made to mimic the look of the vintage drum pads, it’s made of 100% PVC pipe and copper pad fittings. All custom designed – made it up as I went along. The wiring harness took about a day to make, and is almost completely hidden inside the tubes themselves. The ends just hang in place for quick connection to the pads when setting up, and to connect to the snake that feeds the equipment rack.

– The Red Rig

- Red Rig on Flickr

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Electronic Drum Kit on Make: Projects

BY Collin Cunningham

Born, drew a lot, made video, made music on 4-track, then computer, more songwriting, met future wife, went to art school for video major, made websites, toured in a band, worked as web media tech, discovered electronics, taught myself electronics, blogged about DIY electronics, made web videos about electronics and made music for them … and I still do!

In the Maker Shed

4 Responses to The Red Rig electronic drumkit of boldness

jane on September 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm said:

omg i love it.

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mlange.myopenid.com on September 2nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm said:

The title sounds like it should have +1 on the end…
“Electronic Drumkit of Boldness +1″

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Endif on September 8th, 2008 at 1:44 pm said:

Well, the cymbals and stand may be custom made, but the pads themselves are quite obviously Simmons, probably from several SDSV’s. You can even see the Simmons logo on the kick shells.

Which would make it *sound* Eighties-tastic: each SDSV is an enclosure for 5-7 analogue percussion modules and is the epitome of fat cheesy awesomeness. Love the hell out of mine, use it all the time.

The ‘wiring harness’ would just be standard XLR cables, unless they custom built a snake inside the tubes to interface with the stage snake. Cool stuff though.

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- Michael DeVille on April 11th, 2013 at 11:45 pm said:
  
  No, these are SDS9 or SDS1000. You can’t actually tell just from looking at them, the difference between the two sits on the inside. The SDS9 has an extra trigger for rim shots. The SDS1000 pads however does not. Also the SDSV (or 5 if you will) has a metal frame and riot shield for strike surfaces. For the SDS9 and SDS1000 pads they used rubber (developed to save the drummers wrists).
  
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