Thanks for sharing. That’s wonderful to hear.
So basically:
1 Open the ND3p.
2 Desolder the pads.
3 Put markers on the bottom plate.
4 Bring bottom plate to a metal shop.
5. Put it back together and done!
Seems doable and when done right it would look almost original. 
Are the pads definitely unusable after that or can we imagine having pluggable pads on will?
I would think the pads are useless after the mod.
Ooh, picture please! I’d love to see how it looks now.
I think you’d be able to re-use the pads.
Its only two wires connected to the board so a TS jack and socket could be used to re connect them at will.
There is very little cable coming from the pads though so you’d need to solder some extra length on and theres not really anywhere to house the sockets on the PCB either.
Its totally do-able but just needs a little thought as to how you’d do it.
Here you go.
The last pic is just before the op. You can just about see the tiny leads coming from the pad section that were soldered onto the PCB.
Uploading: nord top.jpg…Nice. I was in the understanding the pads were cut off.
This is probably a better idea if you ever wanna go back to the original.
That last looks great!! Much better than I imagined when people were talking about cutting off the pads.
Wait, what does the back look like? Did you make a new back and bottom for the case?
How is the noise level of the pads if you play them with sticks? Does it take a lot of volume on speakers/headphones to cover it up? I had a Wavedrum once and found it way too loud for an apartment situation, can anyone compare the two? And has anyone tried to play the pads with brush sticks as well, does it any good for articulation?
You really need to get a little bit of red paint to cover over that P in the name…
The sensibility can be adjusted so it can even be played by hand (so super sensitive and light strokes)
Having REALLY limited space, this looks like something I’ll have to do instead of buying a ND2
I´ve seen videos of people playing by hand so that´s definitely a plus but just curious about the noise level when played with sticks which I would like to do (or at least try, I´m no drummer at all) as well once in a while without annyoing the heck out my wife and neighbors 
it can be loud as other drum pads.
brush sticks are not heavy enough, I tried.
by hand…il would prefer a maschine controller!
using sticks it definetly covers the sound coming from the speaker which can be annoying while producing in a quiet home studio like mine, so best option is :
in this configuration it shouldn’t cover your track or bother neighbors, while remaining playable.
in a live situation this is not a problem of course,
cheers
I use mallets. I went with these, hard felt heads and thick grip. It’s a lot more enjoyable than the usual drumsticks: muffled hits, actually better rebound, plus it feels like playing timpani, which is always a good thing in one’s existence.
The only “annoyance” I get is that they leave traces of white powder on the rubber pads. It’s easily swiped though. Just don’t hope to get all Tony Montana.
I have the version 2 (probably not much different from 3P). The click is ok, I would say, not very loud, but noticeable. I use closed heaphones, so barely notice it.
But it’s not very great when you need to be silent, could be annoying to your neighbours. High-pitched annoying ‘click-clicks’
Probably less loud than Wavedrum, but I haven’t used one (but wanted, yep).
Nord Drum’s pads and presets are actually very responsive and have a great dynamic range. So you need to strike more powerfully to hear the full sound (unless you de-program the velocity sensitivity in the patch, and actually this could be a trick for a silent session, but you’d lose expressiveness)
Did anyone else notice the $300 price hike? WTF…?
