Building a custom input device for drumline percussion

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Joe Keefe's unique percussion input setup (photo by Joe Keefe)

If you’re looking for the highest-quality marching percussion sounds available, then look no further than Tapspace Virtual Drumline, the most comprehensive set of sampled sounds for marching band and drum corps percussion. Percussion notation is famously complex, and even more so when you’re writing for a whole ensemble of instruments with dozens, if not hundreds, of available techniques.

One enterprising VDL user, Joe Keefe, director of the marching band at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, NJ, has come up with a solution for this problem. Using a programmable multi-function panel on which buttons can be arranged freely, he’s devised a means of inputting his drumline percussion more efficiently than using a MIDI keyboard.

Check out the tutorial over at the Tapspace forums.

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