Electronic Drum Advice....help

speedamp

New member
hello everyone.

I have just sold my acoustic kit for space/volume issues in my apartment, and am buying an electronic kit asap.

My needs are only a great sounding electronic kit that will be used for digital recording only. It will never be used live or for any advanced sequencing, etc.

I was looking at the Yamaha DXPress, but the cymbal sounds are terrible. That is when i turned to Ddrum. Any other recommendations for great sounding drum modules?

Could anyone give me recommendations on what i could do for around $1500? What about buying a ddrum brain, and building the rest
myself? What problems might i run into with compatible pads/triggers, etc?

thanks,
-michael
 
I don't know... maybe I'm just ignorant, but if I am, I hope you can correct me...

If you want to get an electronic sound, and you won't be using it live or anything, why don't you get a computer program and just program your drums?? or one of those Rythms Boxes most DJ use...

Besides, if you are recording (and I'm doubting about you skills at any moment!!) wouldn't it be better to just, let the PC play the music for you?? you just have to give him his musical sheet, and he will play it as the most perfect drummer on earth!! you won't have to make a take 2...
 
Hi,

I've been using an Alesis DM5

http://www.alesis.com/products/dm5/index.html

and a Trap Kat

http://www.alternatemode.com/trapkat.htm

for a long time and they work great. My dad got both of these used so I'm not sure what the pricing is on either of them if you want to buy them new. On that link to the trap kat above they want almost 1900 just for the pads which is kind of steep but you can get pads cheaper than that. The main thing is the brain and the DM5 has some really good sounds. It has a bunch of stock kits that it comes with and of course you can pan the drums and make your own custom kits. When I've listened to recordings we've done with this thing the sound really blows me away. It also has a midi in, out and i believe through and 12 trigger inputs so you could really use whatever pads you could find. I also have some old Simmons pads that I plug into it for "extra" sounds. I use the midi out on the Kat for the main sounds. It also has 16 voice polyphony which is nice. I've seen a lot of all-in-one rigs by Roland, Yamaha, etc that are much more expensive and don't sound nearly as good as this one.
 
Hey, if you are into the Roland equipment, I found one for sale on a local NJ Music Scene classifieds:

--Roland TD-7 electronic drumset for sale...about a year old, minimal use, support for one leg is cracked, but does not affect anything...payed $1,850 a year ago....asking only $1,000/or B/O

email any questions to... Catch2212341234@yahoo.com--


Just thought I'd let you know.

jim
 
Re: HEY!!!

Village Idiot said:
I have the Yamaha DTX-7 Kit! It's a great kit, and I think ALL cymbal sampling on ALL Electronic kits blow.
They just do not have the technology down for those samples yet.

The beauty of electronic drums (with midi out) is usually, you can program them to sound off other devices, like your PC VST sampler software, your Akai S3000, Korg Triton, or whatever it is you purchase with drum sounds you like. I've done this for years with reasonable success. And you're right, most cymbal sampling does blow.

However, a good sampler, even a used one, allows you to borrow or rent cymbals of your choosing and record them in prestine stereo if you want to put the effort into it.

Our drumkit is made of <cough> two simmons drumkits merged together, triggering a <cough again> Roland PM-16 which in turn triggers drums off an Alesis D4, a Roland SC880, A Yamaha MU90R, EMU Procussion, and a variety of samplers (two Akai S700, one Akai S3000) and a Korg Triton which has nice sampling features.

We use the triton mostly, since it reads akai samples, and the drum sounds internally are pretty decent for our needs (and to be fair, none of us are drummers, just monkeys <G>)

Hope that helps.
Frederic
 
Anobody know anything about Pintech electronic kits? The actual pads look somewhat similar to a thinner VDrum with the silent woven heads and all, and the kits are TONS cheaper than VDrum kits. They don't come with a brain or even triggers, but I have a D4 and I can buy seperate triggers and save like $1200 or more over buying even the cheapest VDrum kit.
 
I've played on Pintech pads and I thought they triggered very well. Pintechs can communicate with most drum modules - The pads I used were triggering an Alesis D4 and D5.

We actually priced out a Pintech kit which would match the V-Drum (Pro) set (with the calculation allowing for a TD10 brain). We came up with a savings of about $500. Obviously the TD10 is a costly module using a D4 would probably be $1200 less than a V-set.
 
I bought a used TD-5 kit with extra pads (7 triggers total) for $600 last year. Whoever said it was right: don't worry about the sounds on the module...you can trigger anything with the midi events...either in realtime...or go back later and replace the sounds. I use the DMpro patch on my Alesis QS8.1 and some sounds from Gigasampler. I usually do this after the fact while I'm editing my mishits (I guess I should hyphenate that word...mis-hits)

Also, I happened to try the Roland V-drums (whichever that has woven heads) and man what a difference.....no mis-hits and much easier to play. So I think I'll end up getting the PINTECH snare at least.
 
Consider the Hart kits also (they are the OEM for the Alesis kits, so you've probably seen them in the catalogs). I have a (heavily modified!) Hart Studio BX that I use to trigger both a Roland TD10/TDW1 and an Alesis DM5. It is also a mesh-head design, with very nice cymbal triggers, and was also a lot less expensive than the Roland kit when I bought it a couple years back. I really like the snare, with is a converted 13" piccolo snare: it's a real drum with a mesh head.

http://www.hartdynamics.com . And for what it's worth, I have no connection with them other than as a satisfied customer...

I used to play a rubber-pad TD7 kit, and my experiences were not particularly pleasant... _Any_mesh-head kit will be a much more natual feel for you, whether it is Pintech, Hart, Roland, or a player to be named later.
 
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