Electric Vs. Acoustic drums.

Electric Vs Acoustic Drums.


  • Total voters
    91
My choice is still "Acoustic"

Even if using programs like ezdrummer (old) addictive drums,Superior drums ect when using electric drums you can kind of here and tell what software the drummer used when listening to the track.

I have nothing against drumming software if you cant play your real drums because of noise level however overall a real kit is better if its tuned properly and miced well.

Same goes for guitar as well...nothing beats a good amp and guitar thats been recorded using a mic.
 
i think the software sounds even better than the best drummers...I dont imagine there will be any drummers on the planet by 2012 or there abouts..


soon Real Guitar VST will get rid of those premadonnas...midi files will extingush the keyboardists, Vocaloid and Random Lyric Writer v1.0.3 cover the vocals, with EZ miz and Ozone 4 you have got the finished product done just using presets



its easy :)
 
To me it's performance. I'm not talking samplers, but pads. They have no feel. I'm not a drummer but did get a Yamaha multipad to fart around with. There's no feel, like hammering into a pillow. Lots of performance is based on the spring of the head, This pad will be fun to goof around with, but I doubt I'll be recording with it.

I've been messing with the hammered dulcimer, without the recoil of the strings it would be impossible to play.
 
thou art a foxy lady!!! hahahahahahaha :laughings: :laughings: :laughings:

kc i was so right to vote you as the funniest member of HR!!

personally as a drummer i have both acoustic and electric kits...

a full blown Tama Starclassic Fusion w/ k custom everything i bought used on CL for about a grand. i also have a TD-4 w/ the mesh snare and superior drummer 2.0 w/ baresi samples (fukken sick samples BTW) total cost also about a grand on CL.

greg is partially right... you will never get electronic drums and samples to sound exactly like properly micing up a kit and getting solid takes from a real drummer.

the cymbal samples are really the biggest problem, also you have to take velocity layers into account, most pieces of drum software only sample at so many velocties, in some cases 128 layers!!!

but even with that many layers of sampling you can't quite match the thousands of velocity combinations possible with a real live kit. not mention the feel of a real kit compared to e-kit and the minute latency associated with playing midi drums through a VST, totally different feel between the two.

that being said not all music calls for a great acoustic drum sound. in fact most of my favorite bands use tons of electronic sounds and samples (NIN, tool, APC, portishead, etc...)

i use my TD-4 mainly for quiet practice at home to keep my chops up or if i'm recording scratch tracks and i don't feel like dicking with get a good drum sound and setting up mics the e-kit is perfect for being lazy. plus i have the added bonus of all the cool non- acoustic sounds.

i say use both a layer the shit out of it!! try something new, don't record acoustic or electronic just because everyone else in your genre uses it. do it because it fits with the music or your artistic direction.

wouldn't it be far out to hear some punk music with synths and electronic samples? gerg i'm looking at you :D

maybe some dance/electronica written on acoustic instruments? KC?

just be creative and have fun both have their uses
 
Hi, I was wondering Which you guys preferred. Electric drums, or acoustic drums for recording? And Why? I'm Unsure to go with drum mics for my set, or an electric set for no distortion. I've mostly seen people with acoustic sets, I assumed it was for more real drum sound. I figured with an electric drum set i wouldn't have to worry about distortion/bass trapping. Which do you prefer?

As much as I wanted an acoustic kit I opted for a Roland mid tier electronic kit.(my studio space is limited to 1 room in the house).I've augmented the kit with new patches from vexpression ltd and it sounds great.

I don't think the e-kits have the dynamic range like the a-kits do. But I get great results. You have to change your technique a bit to work with them.

I track both the analog and the midi out of the drums at the same time. this way you can fix things up later.

anyhow my 2 cents
RJ
 
To me it's performance. I'm not talking samplers, but pads. They have no feel. I'm not a drummer but did get a Yamaha multipad to fart around with. There's no feel, like hammering into a pillow. Lots of performance is based on the spring of the head
Get yourself some piezo buzzers from radio shack and fasten 'em to your drum shells. Bam! Real skins with accurate triggering for like $5 a pop. I've done that many times with great results.
 
I'm a house producer so I'm biased :) But you can get tons of realistic sounding drum vsts and samples these days that sound very close to acousitc drums with flawless timing.
 
I'm a recent convert to electronic drums, for live performances... For years I suffered from crazy-loud stage levels because (over 45 years in music) I've run into maybe 2 or 3 drummers that could play well at low levels. Or even take advantage of the some of the dynamic range that acoustic drums provide. It was always 'balls to the wall' full blast volume!

The advantage electronic drums give you in this area is outstanding! If (when) they play too loud, the monitor mix can be adjusted to allow you to bring the level to a reasonable place. It works! And I don't have to go deaf now to do performances!

For recording, I have to say a very well maintained and tuned acoustic drum kit is preferred; the problem is that only 1 of 10 kits that were brought into my studio for recording jobs fall into that category. For the 9 out of 10 that are 'beater' sets, I often ended up using their tracks to trigger a sample anyway; it'd be easier to just record an electronic set (sound and MIDI) and be done with it.

One of the Roland e-kits I worked with had an amazing amount of adjustability. Want to make your snare drum diameter 30"? No problem. Want to change the cymbals from jazz (thin) to hard rock (thick)? No problem. Just move a slider.

I also find e-kits easier to play on, ergonomically, except for maybe needing to stake down the hi-hat pedal so it doesn't slide away during playing.
 
The most important factor is what sort of music you play, methinks. Before I had enough inputs here at the house, programming was all I could do, so i got pretty fair at it. But the problem is the amount of time you might put into that aspect versus the deficiencies that are pretty much unavoidable means that if you are trying to emulate actual drumkits you are just better off playing real drums. Most every track you hear these days is probably augmented somewhere, so doing diligence and finding great sounding samples and learning about velocity, etc. is not time wasted. But flawless timing is flawed, in terms of expression. All the great drummers have their own feel, whether they are pushing or pulling, trying to get that into a midi performance when part of the reason you may be using it is to be able to more easily edit unsteady performances may be worse than how you started. And if you are recording someone who knows how to swing, and has very skilled hands, all the grace notes and extra details are completely useless from a triggering standpoint. Probably the most accurate of the lot is the Rolands in this respect, but once you exhaust their library and try to use all the velocity gradients in romplers and samplers that have none or limited response, you are sort of stuck. And how much volume are you sparing your fellow humans within earshot when you completely get disgusted with anything but real cymbals???
 
All my drums are sampled or synthesised (or both) so it really depends on the track... I do tend to go for 'real' drum sounds more often though and I definitely get bored of hearing the same 808's in tracks.
 
I like the convenience of electric drums but I feel like nothing beats the sound and possibilities creatively of acoustic drums. If I had to pick one or the other, I'd go acoustic.
 
of course acoustic drums!
people tend to kill music with samples. It's weird because they try to program midi drums to sound 'real' while recording acoustic drums and quantize and sample them to sound unreal...
If you've got good drummer you can record good song. Even with decent gear.
Production nowdays get loud and very 'clean', annoying 'celan'. With acoustic drums it's hard the get it real clean without blending samples etc. but it gives real life to their sound.
Few years ago I was also fan of programing drums but now i like to hire somoene to bang the shit out of yamaha drums :D
 
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