Tips to control crosstalk from e-drum cymbal pads

Crosstalk occurs when vibration caused from hitting one drum pad, travels through the hardware and triggers another pad. It didnt seem that bad when I was playing, because I was focussed on playing. But when hearing a recording of my playing, it was easily noticeable.

While my Yamaha drum module has electronic parameters which can be set to limit crosstalk, there are a couple things I did that dramatically reduced crosstalk caused by my cymbal pads. These may also be helpful for other brands of e-drums as well.

Being a mechanical engineer, I noticed by observation there were some mechanical remedies for this problem. The first thing I did was loosen up the cymbals themselves. Im not big fan of the cymbals flopping around while I play. But keeping them "screwed down" tight to maintain position will transmit more vibration energy to other pads which causes more crosstalk. By loosening up the cymbals, more of the impact energy will be spent putting the cymbal in motion and less will be left over to transmit to other pads.

The second thing I did was insulate the mounting posts with surgical tubing. On the Yamaha cymbals, the mounting interface is made of hard plastic. Even with felt washers on both sides of the cymbal, these hard plastic components transmit vibration energy through the posts very well. Besides the main mounting post, Yamaha cymbals use a metal pin to keep the cymbal from rotating. I went to the local medical supply store and got an assortment of 1-foot lengths of surgical tubing. I found the sizes that would be snug, and cut 1-inch long pieces to place over the hard surfaces. Wanting a snug fit was a problem because surgical tubing is kind of sticky. So to help slipping on the surgical tubes over the posts, I removed the tip off a Q-tip, and used the stem to coat the inside of the surgical tubes with baby powder. This works as great as when you put a little baby powder on a cue stick to shoot pool. You could use rubber hose for insulators, but surgical tubing is many times more elastic and will absorb much more energy without noise.

While I had the baby powder out, I coated the surfaces of the audio cables where they rub against the hardware when the cymbal is in motion. This provides nice sliding "pool cue" lubrication there as well.

The reduction in crosstalk caused by my cymbals was dramatically reduced by this cheap fix. And I only needed to use the minimum electronic parameters to completely eliminate this source of crosstalk. Another benefit was how much quieter my cymbals were without the rattling noise of hard surfaces.

If I cant post pics here, you can go to my profile to see pics in "crosstalk" album related to this tip... Bobby