The E-Monster II: The Most Expensive Component

By the end of 2024 I had finally built the electronic drum kit I had wanted since around 2005. I called it the E-Monster. Apparently that was a starting specification.

In March 2026 I decided it needed to grow.

Roland triggers are eye-wateringly expensive. While looking online, I noticed that complete old electronic kits could sell for less than the individual parts I wanted. Fine. I bought cheap used kits and treated them as donors.

Pads, cymbals, triggers, modules and rack pieces began accumulating. The economics were solved. The geometry was waiting.

For the stands I used threaded rods, nuts, washers and ordinary hardware. Some rods needed a curve, so I needed a bending jig and discovered that I would have to build one. Perforated steel and bolts went into a bench vise, and with enough leverage the rod agreed to cooperate. It looked suspicious and worked like a charm.

Where millimetres mattered, I measured, adjusted, cut, cursed and tried again. This was hardware development in its honest form: cheap parts, basic tools, and a result that either fits or does not.

The finished E-Monster II looked completely unreasonable. Good. It also sounded extraordinary through Superior Drummer 3.

I probably played it ten times. That estimate may be generous.

Now I avoid sitting behind it. Playing makes the arithmetic of time painfully visible. I spent almost twenty years wanting this thing, learned how to build it without paying Roland prices for every component, finished it, and still cannot reliably find an evening for it.

I solved triggers, stands, geometry, cables and cost. The component I could not buy was time.