I have developed a couple pieces of hardware which I have applied for patents on.
One utilizing piezo technology in a pseudo trigger/instrument..... kind of like electrifying the guitar....
I'll keep it under wraps for now, as it looks like I will very soon have major distribution!
Piezos are cheap.
I bought something like 30 of them for $10 on ebay... without leads.
You need to have very good solder in order for your leads to stay put.
And you also have to be careful not to get too hot when soldering.
And the surface needs to be prepped very well.
I also saw that there is a special surface prep/flux available for this application that works much better than standard flux.
(I'll be using that in the production models)
So, go over to ebay and buy some piezo's,
bust out the iron and some wire,
get some 1/4' TS jacks for single zone, and TRS for dual zone,
And get to it!
You'll need a brain module.... so I'd recommend a roland or alesis.
You can get DM5's pretty cheap now and they are decent.
The velocity can be adjusted via the brain.
You can also change the characteristics of the piezo/trigger itself depending on how you mount/encase it.
i.e., double sided foam tape - how many layers- where it's positioned under the trigger surface (Mallets), distance between zones in dual config, etc....
I've also experimented with different coatings, like epoxy, plasticote, rubber dipping, vinyl, etc
All of these things will dramatically effect the characteristic of the trigger