Electronic drums...

[Vigilante]

Hi, our church is contemplating moving to electric drums. Nuff said.

Any help would be great, just brainstorm, pros, cons, models to look for, stay away from. Links to videos or audio so I can hear what they sound like would be good. I've heard all sorts of samples from Roland, but there sets are a tad expensive. We're probably going to try to stay under 3k for a 5-piece set with 3 symbols if possible. But don't let that limit your suggestions.

The primary reason for the switch is that it's just to hard to control sound on a live kit. We are a mobile church, so we have to setup and tear down each week. Making the creation of a drum cage to difficult. Sound levels are to high, drummers (including myself), have a hard time trying to "play softer". We have a drum shield, but nevertheless, sound bounces all over the place.
So, the idea is to switch to v-drums so we can have a clean sound and precise control of levels. Our technicians have mixed feelings, some are all for it, some hesitant. As a drummer, I've never played on one, I'm just afraid it won't feel natural, and I'll loose some of the cool effects you can do on live drums with volume control, hitting edges differently, hitting the sticks in different places for tonal quality, etc... In other words, I can make one symbol sound 8 different ways, I'm afraid a v-drum will limit me to two or three. I don't know.
Plus the idea of having to switch to using headphones and stuff doesn't appeal to me. If the power goes out, at least we can sing and clap to drums! But not with v-drums, if my monitor goes out, I can't hear what I'm playing, just bouncing sticks off rubber or whatever. They kinda scare me, so I need some advice.


What say you drummers?

[StackableMusic]

Brushes are a lot cheaper than an electronic drum kit.

[jamacian]

Originally Posted by StackableMusic

Brushes are a lot cheaper than an electronic drum kit.

So true........

[DarkAndy]

I just picked up a TD-6 kit although I didnt get all mesh head it is an option I love the kit. It is great. A good place to find More infor about them is

http://www.vdrums.com/

This place was very informative in helping me to pick out a kit that would suit my needs.

[Vigilante]

Brushes are interesting, we have them, but actually they are TO quiet! Our mic setup is not sensitive enough to pick up the quality of them, not enough punch on the snare especially.
Speaking of sticks, we also used wood thunder rods sticks or whatever, the ones with little dowels in them, and that was a freakin mess! Those things broke all over the place, little pieces of wood breaking off, was terrible, so we're back to basic 5As, plastic tips.

Quieter sticks would be the simplest and cheapest solution, what is the quietest sticks you can think of that are not rods or brushes?

More ideas?