... or do software ones mostly replaced them?
Thanks!

New Year Bump

have you heard of slate trigger?

Yes, ST is a software trigger used during mixing and I know how it works. But I also watched a few videos, from years ago, where drummers put hardware devices phisycally on the drums called triggers. So I'd like to know if those hw triggers are still a thing, or people just go with software ones for the most part

Many, many years ago I mounted triggers inside my drums. I used the Barcus-Berry pickups and instead of gluing them, I used bulletin board putty to mount them 'face up' on the inside of the bearing edge. They are a couple of mm from touching the head. I found this worked best in terms of sensitivity vs false triggering.

I put TS mounting jacks - yes I drilled an extra hole in my drums! . ...Hint: the jackplate from a Les Paul is curved and will lie fairly flush on the average drum compared to a flat jackplate. And it's chrome so it matches most drum hardware... I would trigger samples at gigs with this setup. Often instead of miking the drums. It was a lot to carry (sampler, stand, wires, drum monitor) and of course it was really loud. It was on top of the acoustic sound of the drum set.

All this still works, they are still inside my drums, but I haven't used them in years. What live gigs I do have these days are generally not loud enough to accommodate acoustic drums plus the electronics.

And in studio work, I have every drum miked anyway, so the audio channels themselves can be the triggers. Whatever advantages piezo triggers might have in crosstalk vs a mic, they lose in adjustability. Plus a mic has a (potentially) useable sound, so you can blend the mic and the samples. Blending in the raw trigger sounds would probably sound dreadful.

So if you are going to set up mics anyhow, why bother with hardware triggers?

I can't answer for everyone here but I'd imagine there's a good reason why slate became pretty much the industry standard, I suppose it's the same reason not many people use real guitar amps anymore and that kind of saddens me a bit.

Thank you for this precious first person testimony.
Make totally sense.

In addiction to that I think today the drummers who want electronic sounds in live shows flank pads to their acoustic kit simply.

yes there are several options. In addition to round drum pads that resemble a small tom, there are other shapes which might be easier to 'squeeze in'. Such as these "bars" that you can mount somewhere like you would clamp a cowbell. They must be connected to a brain of some sort. There are things like the Alesis Samplepad that have a few rubber squares you can hit and a selection of onboard sounds. Some of these allow you to also import your own samples.

For triggering off of the actual drums themselves, nowadays, I see a lot of the kind that clamp on the rim and hover just above the head. Such as the ddrum and the Pintech. A company called Ultimate makes one that screws on inside, just below the head - very similar to where mine are.

There are also people who convert their acoustic kit to an electronic kit. And conversely, there are companies that make electronic kits that simply look like acoustic kits.