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What’s in the box

For every sensor you ordered you’ll get one of the following:

  1. Sensory Percussion sensor - this is what enables the software. With specially designed sensors and circuits, it picks up all the nuance of your instrument while isolating it from outside sounds. It’s made of tough glass-filled nylon and will fit most standard metal and hoop-rimmed drums.
  2. Pickup Elements x 5 - these little steel pieces are adhesive-backed and attach to your drum in seconds without a separate positioner.

A diagram showing what's in the box

What else you’ll need to get started​

Besides the SP Sensors and software, there are a few things you need to get started.

  • 1-4 drums. This may seem obvious, but you’ll need drums to use Sensory Percussion. We designed the sensor to fit the standard western drum kit (sorry, it most likely will not fit on any hand drums). The sensor fits both snares, toms and kick drums. Well-tuned drums with healthy heads (mesh or standard) that don’t have any rattling hardware or loose lugs will work best (in extreme cases, loose parts can cause false hits and confuse the software). An important aspect of this system to understand is that Sensory Percussion listens to your drums and inherits its range of control from their acoustic qualities. So, if you have a dead sounding drum covered in old gaffer's tape with dents in the head, you might not get as much timbral range from the software as you'd hope. We find that tighter drum heads provide more detailed control because they have more detailed control acoustically!
  • An audio interface with phantom-powered pre-amps. You’ll need one pre-amp channel for each sensor you’ll be using. We’ve used all kinds of interfaces -- everything from inexpensive USB 2.0 ones to the high-end Thunderbolt units. We really don’t notice much difference latency-wise between them. If you don’t have an interface, we recommend getting one from a reputable company and focusing on portability (you might not want a full rack unit if you have to lug it to gigs all the time) and the number of ins and outs you’ll need (if you want to output stereo for 4 Sensory Percussion channels, you’ll need an interface with 8 outs).
  • XLR Cables. Troubleshooting a busted cable is a real pain. Make sure you have good quality cables for Sensory Percussion.

Optional but recommended:

  • We recommend getting some good in-ear headphones for monitoring on stage. This will cut down on unnecessary stage noise and allow for greater sensitivity.