I know a guy here in Cape Town (well somerset west) who makes them. I cant say I have ever tried one of his out, but I bought a cajon that he made and I can vouch for that.
If you would like his details,send me a pm.

What did you make yours out of? I made one for a friend with some scrap ply and super cheap piezo transducers. Works alright. It's quite small, because it had to fit into his bike's topbox. I reckon it would be bassier if it was larger in area. There's a thin "skin" on the one side that's bassier and a thicker one on the other side which has less bass.


Watch this for ideas
=

In stock at TOMS Sandton.

I'll take a photo of them later on and post it.

Any wooden box (or board) with a transducer does the job - the main difference with the commercial ones is they generally look better.

If you're not getting enough low end, it's probably an impedance issue - same as acoustic guitar piezos, they need a very high Z and work best with a preamp. Also make sure you don't have highpass filters engaged on the desk.

Made mine out of pine ply....

Actually an old wine box, gift from a customer, and used a single coil electric pickup. Havent tried it plugged in yet. Just the sound now....cant imagine it giving a nice bass...Plus it looks like the dogs breakfast...woodwork not my strong suit... :-[

Nitebob wrote: used a single coil electric pickup.

That's not going to work - it's a magnetic pickup and wooden boxes don't produce much in the way of magnetic fields. You need a contact transducer like a piezo or a mic transducer like a mic capsule (latter prone to feedback though). You can get a piezo speaker/buzzer as a transducer - you can can even salvage one from an old cellphone in a pinch.

....cant imagine it giving a nice bass...

These things can y'know. Imagine what it sounds like with your ear pressed to the box - that's what the transducer hears. Also, cranking the bass on the mixer channel/amp EQ can go a long way to fatten up the tone ...if even needed.

two things are essential if you are going to make on of these yourself: a high impedance preamp and very careful placement of the transducer. the more pressure the transducer feels, the louder the signal, and slight changes in direction can affect the tone massively. Good fun to play with a R5 buzzer piezo, a lead and a plank seeing what is possible

Okay...feel like a sheepshoe now....thanx Alan. Had these available and thought it could work.... :-[

Guess thats why there are people making these professionally and I guess thats what you guys are for... ?

Thx again

Mine sounded pretty decent through a guitar amp (actually sounded best through a crappy 10 watt solid state Ibanez) but I haven't tried it through a PA . Would a buffer before a desk help?

Guitar amps (and pedals) have a generally high input impedance compared to a mixer input, so even if they are not quite high enough, there is much less of a mismatch. Also, while guitar amps may not have extended low end, any drive can help thicken up the sound a lot.

For direct to PA, a simple DI can make a world of difference.

Another option is to use an electronic trigger and kick pedal - similar to my setup, but without the drum brain, just straight into PA via a DI. I tried this recently and it worked quite well.

I tried out a 9 ZAR ront transducer on both a marimba bar and my nylon as a pickup into my guitar amp.
Was vastly improved by a simple buffer.
I imagine it would work really well for a stompbox.
No shortage of bass at all!

Sounds good Alan. More details please. Where/what to get? How much should I expect to pay....and as always....pics if you dont mind sharing.

Wizard wrote: I tried out a 9 ZAR ront transducer on both a marimba bar and my nylon as a pickup into my guitar amp.
Was vastly improved by a simple buffer.
I imagine it would work really well for a stompbox.
No shortage of bass at all!

Yeah, them's the sort of trancducers I used. One of those and a smaller one from a R5 buzzer for the other side of the box. Thought a buffer would help. The placement on the box and the thickness and flexibility of the wood used on the side acting like a drum skin had a big effect on bass and tone in general in my experience.

Nitebob wrote: Sounds good Alan. More details please. Where/what to get? How much should I expect to pay....and as always....pics if you dont mind sharing.

Literally any trigger will work - they are mostly basically just a piezo sensor with a piece of rubber over the top and in a casing that lets you mount any kick drum pedal to them. Pedals you can pick up for a couple hundred to a couple (or five) thousand and you can often find the triggers secondhand from drummers who are upgrading to newer better models. New, I know the Rolands range from about R1500 street, but you also get the others like Alesis, Medeli, etc., which should be a lot cheaper. One major advantage is you can also upgrade later by adding in some kind of a brain. And not just the kit brains either - most of the Octopad type devices also have external trigger inputs and let you or another member of the band play all sorts of percussion at the same time).

My setup does include a drum brain as I've gone for a double kick arrangement for kick and snare:

As I said, kick triggers pop up fairly frequently - I just nabbed this:
http://www.gumtree.co.za/cp-musical-instruments-in-fish-hoek/roland-kd120-kick-pad-white-514005346

A Roland KD-120 for R750! They are the bigger kick triggers that look like a shallow 12" drum, have a mesh head and retail over R5K.



To be honest, I don't really need it, but at that price it'll be nice to keep on the kit and keep the more compact KD-9s with my guitar setup.

peterleroux wrote: two things are essential if you are going to make on of these yourself: a high impedance preamp and very careful placement of the transducer. the more pressure the transducer feels, the louder the signal, and slight changes in direction can affect the tone massively. Good fun to play with a R5 buzzer piezo, a lead and a plank seeing what is possible

Where can I get all this? Available at bothners and the like?

@Alan: Saw that on Gumtree and Googled the retail. I assumed it had to have parts missing. Nice buy!

Nitebob wrote:

peterleroux wrote: two things are essential if you are going to make on of these yourself: a high impedance preamp and very careful placement of the transducer. the more pressure the transducer feels, the louder the signal, and slight changes in direction can affect the tone massively. Good fun to play with a R5 buzzer piezo, a lead and a plank seeing what is possible

Where can I get all this? Available at bothners and the like?

You can get an acoustic preamp from a music shop. The piezo buzzer will come from an electronics shop, you want a simple buzzer, the cheapest they have normally works. You'll need to break the plastic case open to get at the brass and ceramic disk inside. Here are some instruction with good photographs. This is the setup I ended up with on my DIY bass.\, but for a foot drum I sandwiched the piezo between a plank and a plastic coverplate screwed onto the plank