Kick Drum with Wave Shield

[drumminhands]

I could use some help recommending hardware for a project. I've played around with the raspberry pi, but not arduino yet.

I'm trying to replace a part for my hybrid acoustic/digital drum set. Right now, I use a KD8 (http://www.roland.com/products/en/KD-8/) for my kick and plug that into a SPD-S (http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/537) which holds the audio files and acts as the brain. Then I output from the SPD-S to a PA system. Works well. I get lots of sounds and lots of triggers. But, I sometimes want to bring a lot less gear to a small show. Perhaps just a kick, snare drum, and cymbal. I'm trying to figure out a way to get the KD8 to trigger one sampled wav file and output to a PA system. It might hook up to the PA like a guitar's direct box. Maybe it has an LED to know that it has power, take battery or 12V or USB, have an on/off switch. How many volts and amps should I use? If I want to get fancy, maybe have a few buttons that will allow me to choose from up to four drum sounds. I would imagine I would use an SD card to hold the files, arduino for the brains, and wave shield (http://www.adafruit.com/products/94) to do the DA conversion output to the PA via the mini-audio jack.

But I don't know enough about the flavors of arduino boards. Which should I use for this? Will the arduino register the trigger input from the KD8 via a quarter-inch mono cable input? Will it know a soft hit from a strong hit? Will I have issues with fast kicks in a row, thus need a different arduino? Do I need to use TRS or XLR output for a ground? How much buzz will I get? What happens if I use phantom power on the PA system? Will that fry the arduino? Or could I use the phantom power to power the whole device?

So, lots of questions. Any recommendations on hardware to start with? I'd be grateful.

Thanks.

[drumminhands]

I know no one can answer all of my questions. I know that I need to do some testing. But is the arduino even the right way to go for this? Should I just get an Uno and see what happens? I don't want to waste money if I don't have to. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[adafruit_support_bill]

I suspect that the Arduino/Wave Shield combination is probably not going to be the best solution here. The Arduino processor has very little RAM (2K) for buffering, so you will have the latency of reading from the SD card on every trigger. If you are a drummer, I suspect every millisecond will sound like an eternity.

[drumminhands]

Thank you. That is great advice. What would you recommend I use that has a bit more kick (pun intended). I don't know what's out there.

[adafruit_support_bill]

There are definitely more powerful processors out there such as the Raspberry Pi and the Beagle Bones. But I'm not familiar with the audio software on those platforms.
I'm going to move this topic over to General Project Help where it will get seen by a wider audience.

[Syn7]

There are many midi modules that are programmable that do just this. They come in all sizes. Some for as cheap as 50 bucks. This is one of those things where there is so much on the market, you can't really make it yourself for that price. Normally I am all for the build, and if you have the time and money and just want the experience, that's awesome... I'm just sayin, you can pick one up right now on the cheap.

Do you buy presets or do you make your own percs?