Is there a way I can alter the sound of something to make it sound metallic? I totally just found a way to trigger cymbals with 100% accuracy, but I've got to find a way to dampen the sound, or use something like plastic, or coat the cymbal with something, without loosing all the vibrations a metal cymbal makes, and keeping a generally good tone quality. Any ideas for this will be appreciated.

I'd much rather find a way to mute a real cymbal and keep the vibrations, but I have no idea how that's even possible. But then again, I didn't think I'd find a way to trigger it without a mic and keep all the real cymbal sounds, so... meh.

For the moment, I don't necessarily need a real-time solution. If I can just alter a recording, it'll do. I'm only looking for a principle at this time.

Also, I need to find a piezo transducer with the full 20Hz-20kHz response range. If they exist.

*bump*

Couldn't you just duct tape them like everyone else? :p

And a piezo for what instrument?

Duct tape?

And the piezo isn't for an instrument. It's just a transducer element. That's what I'm using to replicate the sound. The one I'm using to experiment is old, and crappy.

See, we're wanting to switch to electric drums, and the only thing I have against them is the cymbals. If I can figure out something using real acoustics instead, that would rock.

Yeah if you want to muffle the cymbals just put some strips of duct tape underneath them. I don't know how effective that will be though.

Have you checked out the newer Roland cymbals? They're rubber-coated metal, dual-trigger zones and chokeable.

http://www.rolandus.com/products/details.asp?catid=5&subcatid=23&prodid=CY%2D12R%2FC

There are waaay better E-Cymbals out there than that. Hart Dynamics has convincing electric drum kits, but it require a crazy number of E-Cymbals to get all the sounds we'd want at a given time.

But none of them truly behave like an acoustic cymbal. Even the best are only designed to feel like real cymbals, not play like them. I'm not trying to make a cymbal trigger to use with a drum module (or at least not one that exists yet). I'm trying to (eventually) use some kind of material that vibrates like an acoustic cymbal without making sound, have a piezo transducer attached to it to pick up the vibrations, then somehow use tone-shaping to get a metallic sound out of it. That's what piezo crystal transducers do - they pick up vibration, but not sound. If I lay it against the body of an acoustic guitar, for example, it will pick up the vibrations, giving me sound. Yet if I scream into it, it picks up nothing. That's one of the unique properties of crystals. Vibrations cause them to generate electricity accordingly.

But anyway, it's probably going to take a while to figure this all out. I don't even know if the tone-shaping part is possible yet. Probably is. But I fear I'll be forced to go digital, and I know pretty much nothing about digital electronics.