"Yes dear, your kit is extremely "punk" but it sounds like crap on the recording."
 
Does anyone have any guidance regarding triggers that can be placed on normal drums to create a midi "backup" of a drum performance? Some of the kits I'm trying to record are pretty awful. I'm already using Drum Replacer for the kick and it's awesome. I can't seem to get the toms isolated enough to use DR effectively on them. It occurs to me that getting the whole kit as a midi channel would give me a lot of options. I've seen several types of triggers and controllers online at various price points, but the descriptions and reviews aren't really helping. Can someone point me in a direction that's worked for them?
 
Cindy

Lots of drum trigger choices, the roland and the ddrum have both worked great for me. But you also need a "drum brain." Again the roland is your best choice although there are others.
 
If you don't need it for live shows, all this can get quite expensive. I find it much easier to create midi from the drum mics. You can do it in drum replacer but I find it better to use audiosnap. "Lord Tim" has put together and excellent thread on the best way to do this see his thread here. http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3388461
 
gabo

Like he said what you need is any Drum Brain. Triggers are really just any transducer and even microphones will work. One guy I read about rigged up his mixers inserts to send the signal to a drum brain. He simple patched into the mike channels from a fully miked up acoustic kit. The drummer will be totally unaware.  
You will have to go into the editing of the brain and adjust the sensitivity.
I had 100% success using this old tape deck mike from the 60's. It came with a 1/4" jack so was plug and play.
But I changed that out for this $16  acoustic guitar PU I just stuck on the snare head.
http://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Surface-Mount-acoustic-transducer-25mm-Preamp-plug_p_6423.html

 
 
I removed the electronic snare from my Yamaha DX 500 kit and I use a real snare. I mike the snare as well as track it with midi via the transducer PU and the brain. I'm trying to figure out how I could do this with a hi hat.. Skins are easy but cymbals are tricky.

This is really helpful stuff. Thanks so much! This crappy drum tone is wearing away at my acoustic-purist inclinations.