electronic drums versus...

[rgraves]

Hi all,

have a question about recording drums...I currently have a roland td-20 which is their nicer kit, had to get that since I'm in an apartment, but i'll be moving to a house before too long. Here's what I'm wondering, for those of you who might have experience recording drums, what are your opinion of recording with an electronic kit such as this one. Of course, I imagine that usually a real kit would be better than an electronic kit, but this is the top of the line electronic kit and was wondering if anyone felt it was good enough to use for recording, or if I'm still gonna have to get a live kit eventually? Also, how about the variety of cymbal or crash sounds? Are they pretty realistic ? I haven't had any experience to hear a real one to decide if they are just as good...it seems to sound quite nice to me, but I'm not a drummer and just use it to lay down simple stuff that I can play and also plan to use it for studio recording for myself and probably at charge to others in the near future.

Thanks for any help!

[huis14]

I am not a drummer, but I used an Electronic Roland kit on a cd and it sounded pretty good. When I mixed the project I had a tough time getting the kick and snare to sound right (to stand out)...but as far as recording with electric goes...bleeding is eliminated, and there isn't really a need for a lot of extra equipment...(a lot of compression, eq, etc...)

There are pros and cons...it just matters who you ask!

Overall, if done right, I think an electronic kit would be fine. Just be careful or your project will sound like a Backstreet Boys or Justin Timberlake cd (unless that's what you want)

[Bdrum]

Hey I'm wondering what it sounds like.I have a friend with the td8.
Do you have a way of posting it up so we can hear it?

[rgraves]

Originally Posted by Bdrum

Hey I'm wondering what it sounds like.I have a friend with the td8.
Do you have a way of posting it up so we can hear it?

Yeah, I'll have time to do that this weekend...

[mikeh]

As a drummer I've recorded with many different accoustic kits and a few different electronics. An an "engineer" I've spent alot of time tracking & mixing both electronic & accoustic.

Electronics cans never sound better than a quality, well tuned kit properly recorded accoustic kit in a good sounding room. Therein lies the rub. Most home studios simply don't have all those things lined up.

Rarely does a home studio have a good sounding "drum room" or for that matter a decent collection of mics & pres to accurately record. While anyone can buy a quality kit, getting them to sound good is not all that easy. Not to mention needing a fairly large board (and lots of cables, mic stands, etc)

For those reasons, I think most home studios may be better off with electrnic drums. Add to that the endless editing and MIDI capibilities and it's hard not to appreciate electronics.

I've never had trouuble finding the right snare & kick sounds on an electronic kit although I do find tom sounds to be a little harder to dial in. Electronic cymbals have always been a weakness and likely always will be (too many harmonics, overtones and extended decay times). I prefer to record accoustic cymcbals with electornic drums (if the room allows for it).

There should be no reason you can't get your TD20 to sound as good or better than an accoustic kit (at least in the average "home studio")

[rgraves]

OK, another question on the same topic...I've noticed now that I've done some more recording with the td-20, that using the spdif cable to record into cubase the signal that goes in seems to be quite low. When I record guitar direct in and adjust the signal it comes in very nicely, but in comparison the drums even with the signal boosted on the preamp come in WAY low. I have to add about 12db of gain just to hear them and it's still lower than the guitar. About 15-16db gain to make them equal...now the drums sound fine once boosted, presumably since the signal is digital...

So the question being, is it OK to boost a signal that much since it is digital...the spdif cable I got had to be longer than most people use, it is 17 feet, not sure if that has something to do with it, but I would think not again since the signal is digital...

Thanks again!

[mikeh]

I assume you are not using the same spdif cable to record the guitar (like a digital out from an effects unit). Have you tried to take an analog signal from the TD10 into cubase (to see how strong a signal that sends?). Have

The only digital signal I run is from a DAT to a CD burner (and thats only a 3' cable). While in theory a digial signal should not lose dbs thru a longer cable run, it may be logical to assume that any signal losses something the longer it travels.

This may be a question better posted in the recording or mixing forum - where there may be more people using digital recording.

Here on the drum forum we are experts about wingnuts but perhaps not so much on digital recording

[rgraves]

Well, maybe I should have posted this question elsewhere, but to answer your question, I have recorded with the analog outputs and they come in much stronger, similar to the guitar. Which is why it concerned me a bit, and I don't use the same cable as for the guitar at all