Roland V-drums vs Acoustic kit ...on tape

Joel76

Member
It is challanging to get a really good sound out of an acoustic kit especially when the room is not optimized for recording. I am wondering if an electronic kit would be a better way to go for recording?

I figure I could still use real cymbals and just record the rest of the electronic kit along with it.

Does anyone else here have good experience in doing it that way? Does it soung natural on tape?

Is Roland a decent sounding set? How does Yamaha compare?

Thanks
 
Sure you can.. In fact depending on the sound your looking for, you can get a BETTER sound by mixing samples with real hats and cymbals, especialy in the home recording world..

I think it's a great idea and I do it all the time...

Heres some of the results I get...

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/rockpop/voxvendor/singles

"In my head" and "Nothing to hide" are good examples of this method..



Without the perfect room and knowledge of Miking techniques, it's really hard to get a good live drum sound in the home-recording world... So yes, I do believe you will get a better sound with this technique...

Good Luck..

Joe
 
Joel76 said:
Does it soung natural on tape?

Thanks


Im sure not everyone will share the opinion, but I have had people tell me, that my drums are really "convincing" and most the regular listening public, wouldn't know the difference anyways.....
 
I have a Roland TD-8 hooked up to the cheaper pads, PD- 5's, 7's, and 9's. Tunes are in the "mixing clinic" if you want to hear it.:cool:

Real drums are better no doubt, but I have heard results that were quite good with electronic drums. Vox's stuff, not really mine, but I just slapped the L and R outs, to the in of the recorder, and just lowered the fake cymbals a bit. It's not the best, but I have heard worse drum sounds. :cool:
 
For the last several years I've been using a TD-10exp and DM5 with a Hart kit, and my acoustic kit hasn't even been out of the cases. I've pretty much made the transition to E-drums, finally- although my cymbals do make an appearance from time to time....

For some styles E-drumming can actually be better, for some far worse. It can be more flexible, and it certainly is nice not having the cops show up wihile you're tracking (;-).

E-drums probably won't replace the need for acoustics, no matter how well they eventually get developed. However, they are a tool- just like a compressor, a reverb, or a fuzzbox. You can actually learn to use them very well and get excellent results with them, but you have to invest the time to tune them to your playing style and your sonic needs...

One thing I have to do is investigate the ddrum setup. I've heard repeatedly that that is the way to go for convincing cymbal sounds, which is the real weakness with the Roland and Alesis modules.

Your mileage may vary, but for my music the E-drums are working out very nicely...
 
there is no way that electronic kits are as good as acoustic kits.
i can pretty much always tell when an electric kit is used. it's usually the snare or hi-hat which gives it away for me.

the whole challenge of micing/mixing a real acoustic kit is also very rewarding when you get a great sound. get an acoustic! it's all very well just plugging in a drum kit into your mixer, but, y'know, it's the same as these Guitar PODS. sure they're handy, but they dont sound as good as the real thing.
 
Long wave.. I see your logic, but remember the context of this thread... This person doesn't have the room to properly record drums and then the problem would be miking technique and perhaps even drum tuning..

Alot goes into getting perfect acoustic drums sounding great....Alot more than the regular home wrecker is capable of...

In this case, the person is probably better off sticking with the samples..

Joe
 
voxvendor, you're right, but he does ask the question, does it sound natural on tape. my personal answer is no.

lots of people get a great drum sound using maybe 3 or 4 mics. if you learn to position them well, then you wont have too much problems. optimizing your room is something you might need to do somwhere down the line (maybe not...). if you want your drums to sound real, id settle for a real kit. if you dont mind them sounding a bit artificial (some people can pull it off but, still, there is a little electronic vibe IMO), then go for an e-kit.
 
Ok.. Hows about this...

Put Long Waves Reply, and my reply in a mixing bowl..Add yeast... Let it rise, and there is your answer...

I see your logic long wave, and I follow ya..

I think my post and your post offer Joel 2 really good pieces of info...

No use competing... Plus Im Canadian, and I would just lose anyways :D
 
I don't always do this, but sometimes it helps record the drums direct and then distance mic the monitors and record the playback.

This warms up the kit and gives it a nice "real" sound. This works well with drum machines also.

Carl
 
I've used Vdrums for all my recordings over the last 3 years - I don't have a good sounding room for drums (yes I also use a POD for guitars). I am convinced you can get a relatively accurate (realistic) sound with E-kits (some sounds require more work than others). However cymbal sounds (and to a lessor degree hi-hats) are and will always be a weakness with E-drums. When I do need to use electronic cymbal sounds I just keep them lower in the mix (candidly, I think cymbals have to be kept low in the mix anyway).

I recently did some recording in a different studio useing my Premier (Birch) kit - which is a very nice kit for recording. And while we did get a good sound - I kept looking at the clock thinking I could have gotten a good sound much sooner with my Vdrums (but I wasn't paying for the session - and the people who were paying wanted accoustic drums).

So Joel76, with all due respect to those who champion live drums, I have become an E-drum convert. For what it's worth, I've played drums for 35 years and have owned 10 accoustic sets (loved them all) and still own 4 of them, so it ain't that I don't appreciate live drums, I just appreciate getting a good recorded sound in the fastest most cost effective way - and more often than not that means E-drums (if you can afford the initial sticker shock).

Regarding Roland vs. Yamaha, although I own Roland, I've played Yamaha E-drums alot (I work part time in a drum shop) - I prefer the Rolands. I've got a TD10 but I really think they did a better job with the TD8.

By the way, Krakits post about playing the E-drums back through monitors and then recording the "room sound" can make the E-drums sound more "organic".
 
voxvendor,

i love you man. :D

to the orginal poster,

maybe use an e-kit,but use real hi-hats, cymbals AND A SNARE. the snare is one of the biggest giveaways to me. a drummer will always hit a snare and a different velocity and thus, it sounds SLIGHTLY different each time, allthough you dont really notice.
 
Thanks for all the great advice!

I think I will give the E drums a try and perhaps record real cymbals with a couple of overheads. If the snare ends up sounding fake, I may use a real snare also.

It seems that the toms and kick are the hardest parts to get sounding good on an acoustic kit anyway.....too much bleed through on all the other mics.
 
One additional positive for e-drums - and in my opinion the best advantage of e-drums:

With e-drums you can record a MIDI performance (without actually committing sound to tape (or disk, or drive, etc). Then when you have all the other parts recorded you can change the kick sound or the tom sound for a better mix.

With real drums once you commit to a recorded sound you have what you have (other than subtle EQ adjustments.
 
the only thing i sometimes do if the drummer asks, is when i record an acoustic kit, i put triggers on the bass drum. in the mix, if the drummer wants to alter the tone, he can. mind you, there is NOTHING quite like a REAL drum kit.

thats my opinion.
 
I was going direct in initialy and trying to eq a little more life into the mix. Right now I'm trying Krakit's suggestion going low level at the monitor. Heard it done this way on another site and didn't realize they were V-Drums till I was told they were.

I've also decided to to hang real brass in place of the electronic cymbals. The only challenge here is to keep the pad strikes outta the mix. Love the drum sounds from the TD-8 and PD7s/9s, but the cymbal sounds suck! :cool:
 
I tried out some Rolands with the TD10 module

The TD10 cymbal sounds are much better and realistic IMO than the earlier versions....I can't really say I spent much time playing the TD-8...that wasn't bad, but the TD 10 may be worth checking out for recording purposes.
 
Im' sure I'll catch a lot of shit for this, but here goes.

Back in 1998, when I bought my first digital studio (had always had analog until then and a building for recording), I found myself in a bad situtation. My studio is in my house and I have neighbors now :) and one is a cop. So how do I solve this one. Okay, I'll run everything direct. No amps, but what about the drums.

Our drummer has been playing for 30 years on acoustics. We couldn't set up his drums and have him pounding away at 2 in the morning. I happened to be looking at a mf catalog and saw the yamaha dd50 digital drum pads. For 240 bucks, I thought, what the hell, I'll buy them for our drummer and see what he thinks.

Well, when he saw this thing setting in front of him he just laughed and said YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING. Of course, i said, NO I'M NOT KIDDING. Just try them. Well, he could not believe the sound that came out. Neither could the rest of the band. I bought another to set up with just percussion sounds. They really did work. Even fooled other drummers when they heard our CD. Next we went to yamaha dtexpress kit. Even though this was a real full digital drum kit, our drummer liked the sound of the pads better. We now use the new yamaha dd55 pads. They are really great sounding and solved the noise problem with the neighbors and there is no noise on the recordings. The only bad thing about them is that you can only store one user setup kit.

Anyway, there it is. Now everyone can tell me how full of shit I am and that there is no way in hell this could be. All I can say to that is, Okay.
 
I just got my music box up and runnin'.

I recorded some test tracks tonight with ziljians (16" and a 20"), but using the TD-8 hats. I don't have any decent cover mics for the cymbals yet. I used a pair of Behringer E8000s (or whatever they are that we all bought back in Nov. :D ).

Anyway the hats, as I said before, sound pretty believable. The real brass made a HUGE difference over the e-brass.

I still need to get a less sensitive mic and learn how to place them.
 
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