Dimensions of the following trigger pad....?

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Hi guys,
I’m creating a “docking station” sort of thing for my Nektar Aruba. But I want to make sure it works for other trigger pad devices. This trigger pad docking station will feature an 1.5" thick beautiful birch console that has previsions to either sit on a flat surface like a table or desk with it’s rubber feet but also has 1 inch deep oval holes that allow it be used with a standard snare drum stand, with the snare stands adjustments to grap tightly the docking station. Since the stand is also adjustable in height and tilt it makes a great stand for this type of use. I think I would offer it as part of the kit. It features a commercial grade USB hub recessed into the rear of the unit that is USB Bus powered OR if you need more power a power supply from 9 to 30 volts can be used. I’ve fabricated a special XLR 5 volt LED (as most XLR lamps are 12 volt and it needs to be 5volt because USB is the primary source of power with a single USB cord) console light (made of machined aluminum) that can be adjusted for beam width (spot or flood or anything in between) dimmer buttons as well as LED temp. color (warm white, cool white and daylight). The birch console is trimmed out with red oak. The hard wood oak is necessary to make sure it can take drops, banging into it, etc. without the wood being damaged. There will be options when it comes to finishes but the default is the birch console is stained ebony and the oak trim is like a deep burgundy. Then the whole product is coated with 3/16" thick of food grade clear epoxy. As part of this kit it will come with a cursor control device to the right (or if your left handed, to the left) in either a wireless trackball or wireless mouse and a cast aluminum dual pedal for controlling whatever you want to control with a pedal. In my case I have the pedal open and close the hi hat and the other as a cymbal choke. It’s been fitted with a TRS quarter inch jack on the back of the pedel unit and will come with a 3ft/1M quality TRS cable that goes between the pad controller and the pedal unit. The bottom of the pedal unit has rubber feet but if you choose to place it on carpet then you can open the access hatch on the pedal unit and using a Philips screw driver, tighten the six screws. This will allow them to grap the carpet so the pedal unit won’t move as you use it on carpet. There will also be a 10ft quality USB cable for the main power and data cable to the PC and a 12 inch USB cable that goes from the USB hub to the pad controller.

I have a list of measurements for the more popular trigger pad devices but I wanted to confirm this with those of you that actually own one of these. It looks like the Maschine (standard one) it a bit larger than the rest of these so I would have to make a larger one for this model but the rest will fit on this docking station.

The Nektar Aruba is
Width: 11.9" Depth: 9.25" Height: 1.75"

Maschine Mikro is
Width: 12.6" Depth: 6.96" Height: 1.77"

Maschine is
Width: 11.8" Depth: 12.6" Height: 1.6"

Akai MPC Studio is
Width: 12" Depth: 9.6" Height: 1.5"

Akai MPC Live is
Width: 16.2" Depth: 9.6" Height: 1.8"

I got these dimensions from the manufacturer’s website…but some of them don’t seem correct.
If you guys own any of these device would you mind providing me with dimensions so I know if I have to make other sizes for larger ones? Either millimeters or inches is fine.

I was hoping that you guys could let me know the actual dimensions as I think one size may fit most but not all of the pad controllers.

Thank you guys,
Chris

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I can only do the metric system over here. Would that still be ok?

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I’m not at home until next week so I can do measurements then. If I forget can you send me an email to remind me?

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Hey, I think that docking station will look amazing and I’m very much looking forward to seeing some pictures of it (I hope you’re willing to share them).

I’m fairly minimalist when it comes to finger drumming. Ideally I would like to have 4x4 pads, some knobs or sliders to adjust some cc modifiers (hi hat more open or closed, snare position and ride hit with tip or shaft of stick) and perhaps a couple of buttons to choke cymbals.

In terms of connectivity, the less cables to plug and unplug the better.

But aside from that I don’t have much to share to be honest. If the pads are working I’m sort of happy :slight_smile:

Measurements:

  • Aura/Aruba: - width: 330mm x depth: 241mm x height: 51mm (without knobs)
  • Maschine - width: 320mm x depth: 293mm x height: 40mm (without knobs, thickest point)
  • Maschine Mikro: width 320mm depth: 183mm x height 32mm (without knobs, thickest point)

Hope this helps!

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Yes, I would also love a compact Drum Pad controller that just has a good Maschine Mk3 like 4x4 pads, some MIDI CC Knobs or sliders (maybe 4-8 of the sliders with LED strip as Maschine has currently 1 of).

And instead of some on/off trigger buttons, I really like how the Yamaha FGDP-50 just added a top row of smaller velocity and aftertouch senstivie pads. While they feel a bit different than the normal pads, it’s nice to have some extra small pads to either trigger special sounds or to do something special with them.

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Yeah 60mm for a fader would be totally fine. Rotary knobs would actually also be fine and would take up less space.

In this video if you go to 6:07 you’ll see a demo of what I do with those CC knobs. Finger Drumming Pad Layout - The Quest for Groove

For me it’s fine that they’re on my Maschine, I would not need something extra. On the Mikro there is one touch slider and one knob, which would honestly also get me pretty far.

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I think this is a valid point. The controllers themselves are in my opinion large enough and building a huge amount of stuff around them might not be ideal for most situations. Especially if for example you’d hide parts of the maschine you don’t use and then create extra faders and knobs… that would look pretty probably, but you’d have to ask yourself if that would be worth the trouble since just using the buttons and faders on device would also be ok.

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Ok thanks Rob I’ll check out the link.
I just checked out the Maschine Mikro. I see it too has a Ribbon Controller. Do you guys actually use this for finger drumming?

Also other than the Maschine products, is there many real time CC controllers on most of the pad controllers?

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Most controllers have at least some knobs that can be used as CC modiffiers for sure. Akai MPD218 has them, ESI Xjam has them etc.

The ribbon fader is nice because you can tap it and the fader goes to that position. Like a half open hi hat is pretty easy to activate without having to turn and listen. Just tap halfway and done.

I don’t use CC modifiers a lot though. The pads are like 99% of what really matters to me.

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I have tried a pedal in the early days (2017 or so) and never got it to do anything that did not make things way more complicated and annoying. So I’m 100% hands and no feet :slight_smile:

Does not mean nobody could come up with some way of also using a pedal, but I’m not the person to give advice on this front, since I know very little.

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Ok I understand. Well I tried out the pedals because it frees up two pads and it’s the way a hi hat control would work with a “real drummer” also. But of course this is personal preference. Does most pad controllers offer pedal inputs?

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Well some do, many don’t and what is tricky about these pedal inputs is that it is not clearly defined what a pedal is supposed to do. So for some controllers it works as a sustain pedal like you have on a piano keybaord. I think that is usually the case.

For drumming, you might want a hi hat foot pedal or something, but the pedal input often does not work for that. It just Ignores the foot pedal (hi hat type foot pedals are usually made for e-drum kits, which are not exactly midi but sometimes use some other protocol)

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Nice! Well all I can say about this is “if it works, it works” :slight_smile: This is some uncharted territory for me as well!

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Hey I don’t have the MPC live nor the MPC studio here unfortunately.

The Launchpad Pro mk3 is indeed quite big!

I would personally always just use my mouse next to the controller, so I would probably go for other types of controls in a control surface, but this is very personal.

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Hmm Hey Rob. So do you mean that you personally already have and use a mouse/trackball next to the pad controller? I’m starting to thinking maybe nobody has any interest in the docking station idea because there hasn’t really been anybody beside yourself commenting on this. Maybe this is just going to be something I make for me??
So do you feel that this idea isn’t something that you would feel that you would use or might want to have for your pad controller?

If CC controllers were to be added what do feel that YOU would want or what do you feel might be sort of a universal way of adding CC controllers to the docking station? Knobs, buttons, or faders…all three…none? What’s your input on this?

Let me know your thought Rob. I’m just trying to get a feel for things.
Thank you
Chris

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Ah ok, so I was just trying to help out, giving some feedback on what would maybe be useful in a docking station, but I myself will not change my setup in any way, nor will I need a docking station.

The desk setup I have plus the mobile Yamaha FGDP function perfectly. I have never used a trackball… well once, and then quickly went back to normal mouse… :slight_smile:

So to be clear, do not make this docking station for me! I honestly wasn’t fully aware of your intentions. I thought you mainly wanted to make a docking station for yourself that in the future could accommodate other controllers.

If it’s about selling something to the finger drumming community I would say there is a market ofcourse, but it is very hard to reach a large enough group of people. If you check out the fingerdrumming subreddit for example you’ll notice a small amount of activity. These messageboards same thing.

There is stuff going on, there are people passionate about finger drumming contributing, but it is also a very small niche. Nothing like normal drumming, guitar etc.

Something that I will always remember is that melodics.com started as finger drumming lessons only and right before I launched the Quest for Groove, they actually introduced piano and e-drums as well. I think they do acoustic drumkits now too. My guess is they also realized that finger drumming only is not enough to sustain an actual business.

For me it’s an even smaller niche because I focus on “acoustic drums style finger drumming”, so a niche within a niche.

I love it, but I’m also just one dude running the whole thing by himself. If I would have one employee I’d be bankrupt :slight_smile:

So yeah… If it’s about developing a product to sell, you do want to tread carefully, because you’re dealing with a small market!

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All that said, as a finger drumming enthusiast I am excited by the idea of you building an awesome docking station (for yourself) simply because I do appreciate cool an innovative setups.
Sort of liking interior design or home renovations without remodeling your own house if you know what I mean.

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hey Rob,
Yeah I know what you mean. Well it wasn’t about selling this idea to anyone. It was just for me but then I thought “maybe others might appreciate and want one of these also.” Maybe not. Well I guess it wouldn’t just be for the finger drumming community but the entire beat production community I think. No matter. Either way I’m making this for myself then I’ll talk to Sweetwater and other music supply houses to see if there is any interest. There are a lot of products that are out there than make no sense to me but they sell…this on the other hand has some very useful features…but that’s just my opinion.
Well I do appreciate you getting me the measurements of the pad controllers you do have. Thank you for that.

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Yeah if you want to get a feel for how much interest there would be, definitely check out a lot of beatmaker type (reddit) subs as well. Beatmakers / Maschine / Akai / Hiphop etc. all of those. Most people who use pad controllers don’t use them primarily for drumming and especially those people will probably want extra knobs!

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Thanks Rob. That’s a great idea. I, like you, have little use of a “beat composer” pad controller for anything other than using it to compose/play “real” acoustic drum samples. I don’t need to hit a pad to get a fart sound or anything other than a drum kit sound…so I’m right there with you. I don’t care about most of the features of my controller…although that video where you used the “scene” button on your Mk 3 I thought that would be useful. I haven’t even began to touch the surface on my Aruba/Aura but it’s not likely that I will dive into it that deeply since I’m only going to be using it for the pads to trigger a decent drum kit like Addictive Drums…or maybe the drum kits that Nektar offers. I haven’t tried that yet.

Man I gotta get done with this project because I haven’t been on your site learning your techniques in almost 3 weeks now. Actually, funny thing - THIS sort of thing is why I don’t want to dive in too deep with all the bells and whistles when it comes to music gear. This always happens. I stick to what works. I have no interest in the latest and greatest. Or a plugin that will fix everything!! Yeah right!

Ok Rob…thank you my friend I appreciate your input. WHen I finish it I’ll share it with the group if that’s okay with you…more or less because I thought some of the crew would appreciate it and it might spark ideas in them.

That’s all for now I think. Thank you
Chris

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