Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Hi,

I am a fresh owner of a DTXPress IV module, that I'm trying to use
with my ddrum trigger. I realized to my disappointment that I can't
quite seem to get a rim shot sound out of the drum. Plugged into the
snare input, I get the head sound just fine, but I can only get the
rim shot and rim click sounds if I hit the actual shell of the trigger
unit pretty hard with the stick(gain set at the maximum level).

Now, I don't have much experience with electronic drums but I guess
this is because the Yamaha snare pads work with 1 piezo and 2 rim
switches. Nevertheless I was under the impression that it should work
with acoustic triggers as well.

Using one of the tom inputs I can get 2 distinct sounds from the head
and the rim, but there is no rim shot detection as far as I can tell
so I can't get the 3 sounds that I need. Is there a setting I'm
missing or is there a circuit I can build that can make the snare
input accommodate a dual piezo drum?

My other question concerns the FD8 hi-hat controller that I bought. I
investigated matters a little and it looked like it should work with a
cable that has a stereo plug at one end and a mono plug at the other,
with the ring of the stereo plug connected to the tip of the mono
plug(Yamaha modules supposedly use the signal on the ring/sleeve
pathway and Roland uses tip/sleeve).

I built such a cable, but I can't get the pedal to make a sound at
all. I tried the cable plugged both ways, and I tried a regular stereo
cable - nothing. Next thing I'm going to try is an inverse polarity
stereo cable, I guess.

Any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.