Shakira is not someone I thought I'd be making a video on, especially when it comes to hybrid drums. But her drummer, Brendan Buckley, and his drum tech, Antonio Geary, created something absolutely genius for that show and I need to run you through it.

Firstly, I'll start by thanking them both, Brendan and Antonio, because they created some amazing videos over on their Instagram running through this whole rig. So let's go through what they use, break it down, and if you're looking to buy it, how much it roughly costs — because I've got a cheaper alternative for some of it.

The Equipment

All the footage you see here is from Antonio's Instagram — links are in the description for everywhere I got everything.

From right to left: first up we have what looks like a Roland KD-140 — maybe the 140-BC. If you know the exact model, let me know in the comments below. Then, above his floor toms, we have what looks like three PDX-6 pads — the kind you'd pull straight off a Roland electric kit like the TD-17.

Moving on, we can see one of two KT-10 kick triggers next to two DW 5000 pedals — one of which I presume is controlling the electric kick on the right-hand side, the other being the left side of a double kick setup. On the snare we have a trigger, either the RT-30H or the RT-30HR. He also mentions having a kick trigger (the RT-30K) on the kick, which isn't obvious from the pictures. And then, just between his floor toms and snare drum, there's a BT-1 trigger hidden in the middle of the kit.

Moving to the left-hand side — this is where a lot of the brains live. We have what I presume is the Roland PD-140 digital snare (more on why in a moment), above that a Roland Octapad, and below everything the second KT-10 trigger.

Now, the brains themselves. There's a TM-2 hidden in here, and Brendan does an amazing job of explaining it: in a nutshell, the latency from going Triggers → module → computer → front of house is just enough that it'll flam when you're layering acoustic drums with electronic triggers. To get around it, he runs the kick and snare triggers straight into the TM-2 — because he found that was the quickest path — and those go directly to front of house. Everything else goes through the laptops.

Then we have the TD-50 brain, which all of the hittable triggers feed into, and finally the two laptops.

How It Works

This is a simple setup with a lot going on to make it work.

In a nutshell, all of the triggers are going into the TD-50 exactly like you would with an electric drum kit. The only difference is that rather than programming sounds on the TD-50, it's just acting as a MIDI brain. It receives all that data and sends MIDI out to the laptops. That's it.

The Redundant Laptops

Brendan uses the iConnectivity 1U — the newer version of the Play Audio 12, now in a rack form. Think of it like an audio interface that specialises in outputting: 12 XLR outputs, designed for backing tracks and live performance routing.

The clever part is that it lets him connect two laptops simultaneously. If one goes down, he can immediately switch to the other — the show continues without anyone frantically hammering at a keyboard. The switching is controlled by a Boss FS-5U footswitch connected to the 'Control' input on the front of the iConnectivity. One tap of the foot and he's on the backup rig.

What I also find interesting is the software he's running on those laptops: Native Instruments Battery. You don't often see Battery used for live performance like this — normally it's Ableton with drum racks. But here it's simply taking the samples out of the TD-50 brain and into a laptop. The laptops from what I can tell aren't doing anything else: no backing tracks from the kit, just sample triggering.

Cheaper Alternatives That Do the Same Job

The big thing I don't understand — and I see it a lot on touring rigs like this — is the use of the TD-50 as a pure MIDI controller. None of the brain's built-in sounds are being used. The only real benefit I can see is having the trigger feel editable inside the TD-50: crosstalk settings, sensitivity, threshold, all of that good stuff. But you're missing out on a lot of its functions by using it purely this way.

If you want to replicate this yourself, I'd look at something like the eDrum IN. It's a USB trigger module that converts triggers to MIDI, it's a quarter of the price of a TD-50, and in this specific scenario it does roughly the same thing. The trade-off is that I'm not sure how much control you gain or lose on the triggers by going that route — worth investigating.