V drum question.

[Richard Becker]

I got into electric drums back in the early 90's with a Roland TD7 kit - I used it both for studio and a few gigs a week. After not having the opportunity to play for a number of years I am now getting back into it and I'm wondering if it's worth outlaying for a full V kit, or just adding a few mesh head pads - namely for snare and kick to my existing vintage TD7 setup.

My test plays of V kits has left me feeling that one of the original weaknesses with the TD7 module, namely the rather weak cymbal / hit hat samples has not yet been fully eliminated. I could be wrong on this because as you know trying to evaluate an instruments worth while playing it in the shop is difficult. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have simply because I would hate to outlay the cash for a full V set up if it's not going to be leaps and bounds ahead of what I could achieve by simply adding a new V snare and kick to a TD7 set up.

[urobolusmusic]

The stock sounds on most electronic drums are pretty terrible no matter the price you pay. Even with the expensive TD-20 kits, you still have a pretty bad "machine gun" effect because (to my knowledge) the modules don't have an option to simulate alternate hand drumming, and the cymbals and hh mostly sound like the same sample (a hit with high velocity) just turned down depending on how hard you stike the pad.

You have a few options...

If you don't want a DAW involved, I find the DDrum stock samples to sound better than pretty much anything. I can't vouche for the Yamaha DTxtreme IIS kits because no store around me has them, and audio demos seem impossible to find on the internet, but it has pretty similar features to the TD-20 kits (position sensoring, etc.), but like I said, I haven't heard the stock samples. It might be something to look into.

Or...

If you don't mind having a DAW involved, you can keep your kit and hook it up to a DAW via MIDI to trigger programs like Drumkit from Hell, or BFD. I think the sound of DFH is phenominal. Here is a link to check it:

http://www.hartdynamics.com/video/index.html

(As the descriptions say, the first few are of the TD-20, and the next few are of DFH... night and day if you ask me)

Or...

If you want all the bells and whistles like position sensoring, three zone-cymbals, etc., to have a more realistic acoustic feel, you can either go for a TD-20 kit and use the stock sounds, or trigger a program like DFH or BFD in your host DAW. The cheaper route might be to go with a Hart Giga set ($2799) and buy TD-20 module off eBay ($1200-$1600). You can get the TD-12 and TD-10 w/ expansion on eBay from like $500-$1000. These still give you position sensoring on the snare, but have less inputs.

Lots of options, just depends what direction you want to take it and how much you're willing to spend, but if you're looing into a more realistic sounds DFH would be your best bet (or BFD depending on who you talk to). But then again, you'd have to factor in if your computer can handle that software, etc.... More money.

[MadAudio]

I'm guessing using real cymbals is not at option.

[Richard Becker]

Yeah real cymbals are an option and far superior - See I like the feel of V pads with the mesh heads I really just trying to work out whether the new roland modules have more to offer in terms of "realism" when it comes to drum sounds than my vintage TD7. I'm only interested in using Roland sounds for small live gigs - in the studio obviously I have more to choose from.

Thanks for your responses.

[Richard Becker]

urobolusmusic thanks for your response - very helpful - I am evaluating your good advice. Thanks again.