Lemon kick pads have one zone, and they work with a single or a double pedal. This guide gets the kick working on your module and checks it, so if something isn't right you'll know whether it's the pad, the cable or a setting.
Where everything plugs in
The kick has one jack. A mono (TS) or a stereo (TRS) cable both work, unless your module's page names one: then use that.
If your kit's pads plug into a bundle of labelled leads from the module (a snake), plug its kick lead straight into the pad instead of using a cable. Your module's page says which lead to use.
Already set up and something's wrong?
Start at the step that matches what you're seeing:
- The kick doesn't play at all: step 1, then try another cable or lead, then the swaps in step 5, then the settings in step 3.
- Soft strokes don't play, or the kick plays now and then: try another cable or lead, then the swaps in step 5, then the settings in step 3.
- One stroke plays twice: step 3.
- Kicking makes another pad sound, or another pad (or the floor) makes the kick sound: check you're on the cable your module's page names (step 2), then step 3.
Step 1 — Check your module
Open your module's page in Support and look at its kick section for the input, cable and settings to use; note them down for steps 2 and 3. If a Things to know before you buy box near the top says No kick input, the module has no input for a kick, so there's nothing to set up for it.
Step 2 — Connect it
Plug the cable your module's page names into the kick and connect it to the kick input, or on a snake kit, plug in the kit's kick lead.
Step 3 — Module settings
- Pick the pad type your module's page names. If the kick doesn't play at all, also check the input is switched on and its threshold isn't at the maximum.
- If soft strokes don't play, or the kick misses now and then, raise its sensitivity, lower its threshold and check the velocity curve.
- If one stroke plays twice, first check the threshold isn't set too low. Then raise the retrigger cancel or mask time, where your module has it, a little at a time. Stop while fast strokes (from each beater, with a double pedal) still play: set too high, it swallows the second stroke.
- If one pad makes another sound, raise the crosstalk setting on whichever pad sounds by mistake, the kick included.
- If the floor sets the kick off, raise its threshold a little, and check the kick isn't touching a stand or sitting on a hollow floor.
Step 4 — Check it
Play the kick softly, then hard, then a few fast strokes. With a double pedal, try each beater.
You should hear one kick sound per stroke, softly and hard, from either beater.
Step 5 — Still wrong? Find out which part
Two quick swaps, using pads you know work:
- Plug the kick into another drum input, such as a tom input (on a snake kit, plug the kick into the tom lead). Set that input's pad type to kick, or match the kick input's settings, before you judge. If the problem follows the kick, it's the pad.
- Plug another pad into the kick input on the cable your module's page names for the kick (on a snake kit, plug a tom pad into the kick lead). If that pad misbehaves the same way, it's the input or its settings.
If both point at the kick, contact us.
Still not right?
Email contact@lemonedrums.com with your module's brand and exact model, what the kick does, and which input and cable it's using. A short phone video of you playing it usually lets us answer in one reply.