For the Sesame Street sections featuring Mike Storie's MIDI Waterfountain I built this custom drum pad.

It uses piezo elements glued to 15 striking surfaces which I made by laminating metal and a particularly bouncy rubber I found at a local gasket shop. I trimmed each pad to fit into a large metal housing.

Originally the pads were all white, but the night before the shoot the director requested a more colorful controller, so I bought some colored vinyl tape, and now it looks like the illustration above.

The piezo triggers behind the pads send voltage to a Roland PM16 16 input trigger to MIDI interface. The pads are velocity sensitive, so when kids play it, the harder they hit, the LOUDER the sound.

The PM16 allows 127 presets, and you can create patches that work well with drums, marimba, or any other types of sounds. (Of course you MIDI folks out there already know all this!)

So far this has been an enjoyable and reliable instrument.