how good are electronic drums?

  • Thread starter Thread starter timandjes
  • Start date Start date
T

timandjes

New member
I'm new to electric drums. I just got a new Yamaha dtxpress II @ home & the church where I play just bought a used Yamaha dtxpress. Any tips or experiences out there?

Like, asuming well taken care of, how long do electronic drums usually last?
(I had an accousitic, a cheap remo PTS (pre-tuned), if any of you even remember those.... ), kit that I bought used when I was 11, played it until I was 32, then sold it in still very good shape).

@ church, I play a lot of orchestral type music which uses a lot of snare rolls & such. Maybe it will just take some getting used to but so far, the pads don't seem to respond to every stroke in fast sticking. I'm sure I've got a lot of sensitivity tweeking to discover in the pads though. Also, I notice the set can have the eq adjusted in the module. Anybody found a good ballpark range of settings that work well with a large church? I'm sure it varries a bit from one pa system to another but if I can just get sortof close from someone else's experience, I'd appreciate it.

any other tips, likes, dislikes?

Thanks.............
 
Stick with Real Drums. Your money will have to go pretty far to get a good electic drum set that can respond to your ever move. Someone else here mite know of some good sets but i don't use e.drums unless i want an Edrum sound.


Good luck

Zeke
 
Another drummer gone to the"dark side" :)

Hey, I'm sort of kidding, although I really don't like the sound of electric drums, BUT, if you are going to use them, do yourself a favor and use real cymbals. The actual sound of the drums is liveable, but nobody, I mean NOBODY has been able to get the electric cymbals to sound right.
 
Electrics are not that bad, but as the last fella said, if your playing out use real cymbals. I use an electric kit for midi tracking then convert to live samples for recording purposes. works great.
 
One thing I can say about electronic drums so far is they sure made our sound technician @ church happy! I used to get told all the time to "hold back," "soften up," "not so loud," etc.... (I'm sure I'm the only drummer that ever heard comments like that)

But now, with the electronics, I can turn up my mixer as loud as I want & play as hard as I want, & the sound guy can turn me down on his mixer & finally balance the 100 member choir, the 30 piece orchestra, the 3 keyboard players, & me!

Playing drums softly is just no fun at all! That'd be like playing baseball & bunting instead of knocking one out of the park!

Looks like the electronics are going to make me a more precise drummer too with these little 8" pads... (don't tell anybody but my 3 acoustic kits had drumstick marks all over the heads....)
 
Look into getting another pad just for snare. One of the Roland or Pintech (less $) pads with mesh heads will better approximate the feel of a real drum. They are also "tunable", allowing you to change the feel of the head according to your taste. They tend to track rolls and things better than a rubber pad.
 
My experience agress with everyone here.

If you're gonna "get" a set of electric drums you might as well just buy DFH for 90 bucks and not even need a drummer! DFH sounds better than electric drums - even the cymbals

Electric drums server one purpose and one purpose only...

...if you REALLY wanna learn/practice drums and can't because of noise concerns. Otherwise they are 100% useless!


Anyone agree?
 
well they arent 100% useless.

what if you want that sort of sound?

for church you want a nice quiet set of drums, and you should get a nice small jazz kit, with some nice dark cymbals. dampen them just a little bit, and play with very light sticks.

if you are playing in an electrocrush club in williamsburg brooklyn and you want to be cool, get some simmons drums.
 
timandjes said:
One thing I can say about electronic drums so far is they sure made our sound technician @ church happy! I used to get told all the time to "hold back," "soften up," "not so loud," etc.... (I'm sure I'm the only drummer that ever heard comments like that)

But now, with the electronics, I can turn up my mixer as loud as I want & play as hard as I want, & the sound guy can turn me down on his mixer & finally balance the 100 member choir, the 30 piece orchestra, the 3 keyboard players, & me!

Playing drums softly is just no fun at all! That'd be like playing baseball & bunting instead of knocking one out of the park!
Click to expand...
I'm in the exact same situation... One of the churches I play for is mostly older folks, so I have to hold back considerably and I'm getting tired of "love-tapping" the drums.

I've been trying to talk them into a set of Pintech drums with a DDrum Module (which I hear has the most realistic cymbal sounds) for just under $2,000 total, but they haven't done it yet. I may need to get all the soundmen, worship team, choir, etc... to sign a petition to get an electronic set! ;)

And as much as I don't like electronic drumsets, I want to actually be able to play the drums the way drums were meant to be played!!! :eek: :D

-tkr
 
I have a Yamaha DTX version 2.0. I have had it for many years now. First I got it to practice on, now I have been using it as a midi controller/module.

I can sit down on that drum set and TESTIFY. I use heavy sticks and play more from the fingers and I tuned up the action on the triggers. You will adapt over time. It's not like playing real drums.

Just get out a bunch of good music and play along and yer brain will sort it out eventually. It's generally easier to get a sound and a feel of one of the acoustic sets going first and then work out from there.
 
Hmmm...all this diss on e-drums. I also play at church; they bought me v-drums (so I would stay & play) to replace my own awesome acoustic pre-CBS Rogers & I couldn't be happier. Maybe I'm old but they are way easier to move around, I can play as hard as I want and nobody yells at me afterward; with some time & attention to learning the set (which I took the previous 30 years at with my acoustic set!) I am very satisfied with the sound/s, from live performance to recording.

I did insist on the mesh heads - like I said I'm old so I can't afford tendinitis type injury from banging away on hard rubber pads - and if I can't hit 'em when I want to, why play at all?

So - given that a good musician can make any instrument sound good, and that a good instrument can help any player sound better . . . I say use all the tools we have access to - acoustic, electronic, and skill.
 
Sounds like most you drummers don't dig the e-drum thing. I think they are pretty cool.

1 - I can play any time, practice anytime. Hart Dynamics makes heads that feel amazingly natural, BTW.

2 - To record with an acoustice set you need a good set, a good room, and a bunch of mics and pre's. For every different player comes a different engineering task...

3 - For around 2.5 grand (and some way less) you can get a very, very good feeling and incredibly flexible e-drum kit, forget about room treatment and a couple grand in mics and pre's.

Now don't get me wrong, I love acoustics, but in my situation (studio next to the house, wife, kid, budget) the e-kit is perfect.

peace.
 
Yup! i'm a v drummer too. I have the v-club rubber pad :(

They are not responsive like a real drum of course...but try some mesh head and you''ll get a better feeling! You can use your actual snare for another tom or cymball!

I like my kit...I would prefer mesh head but i can't afford them right now. You can do so much with a v drum! I like to switch my hight hat for a cow bell or for a bass drum (for soloing it's so fun) I have acces to so many drumkit...it's fun to change sounds sometime. I agree they don't sound like real drum but when you mix the sound with 100 person singing and 30 other player the mix should sound good.

I'm a tweaking freak! It take some time but experiment with the volume...the sensitivity the sounds and you will probably get better result. Reading the manual is a pain but you can learn things but reading it. (like if you buy a mesh head snare you have to configure your module to get the better results...i have to do that for my roland td6 anyway)

Anyway try to do your best with what you have and enjoy playing music

Azathoth
 
I've played accoustic drums since the 50's and I've played e-drums since the 80's (if you were in a cover band in the 80's you almost had to have e-drums). While I'm not a fan of e-drums in a live setting (too many things can go wrong) I think that for a home studio e-drums can be an ideal solution.

As discussed, you don't need a great sounding room and all you really need is one or two channels in a mixer. Cymbal sounds will always be the main negative with e-drumss but in a recording you can tweak the EQ and the mix level to a point where the e-cymbals are functional.

More and more worship services are going to e-drums for the obvious reasons (controlled volumn).

As far as drummers not liking e-drums - it is somewhat an acquired taste, however I think drummers more than other musicians (assuming you consider drummers as musicians) tend to be "purists" (or some may use the word dinosours) who simply refuse to accept or embrace tecnology. I'm not bashing drummers since I've been one for about 40 years - but having worked in a drum shop for almost 4 years I did develop a certain understanding of the drummer's thought process (or lack thereof).

I always get a laugh from a drummer who will deal with a submixer and a huge rack of effects for a live kit - or who has managed to learn how to hook up a studio with tons of gear, but then looks down on e-drums.

Will e-drums ever sound as good as a great accoustic kit in a great rooms, etc. etc - probably not (but maybe) - will e-drums replace accoustic drums - well they sure have in a lot of studios and churches.
 
All this talk about being able to beat the heck out of electronic drums, and just turn down the volume, that is crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My church has a dtxpress also, and it is out of comission because of people beating them too hard, the pads cant withstand the pressure, Plus any drummer worth his salt, can play at any dynamic, the thing about e-drums is that they dont respond well to changes in dynamics, especially when you play softly. Playing softer on the electronic kit (2inches or lower) the pads dont even respond. The other thing is that I can play faster than the pad and electronic module can respond, this sucks when you are able to play double parrididdles at 210 beats per min. and it sounds like a single roll at 120 bpm! Dont get them, they suck, every type of e drum has been dissapointing, and I have tried everyone of them! Take a real drum set, put a plexiglass shield around it. That is my 2 penneys.
 
i think the vdrums concert or session kits are pretty good

very pricy though
 
yeah, good e-drums like the rolands are pricey, but again, think of all the mics, pre's, room issues and headaches wou won't need.
 
IF you buy a good E-kit then they r good, but if they aint good they aint good :) Roland TD-8's are good but if you want a real drum feel then TD-10s are the way to go, they might cos you £4000 but if you want edrums then thats what u should buy.
 
The End Is Near!!

E-drums are the beginning of the end. Once "drummers" embrace e-drums they are admitting there is some problem with drums, which there isn't. Let's take this one step further. I am not adversed to technology if it doesn't interfere with the joy of creating and playing. Playing on e-drums has as much in common with real drumming as drawing with a mouse or a tablet on a computer has in common with real drawing. If you are skilled, you can get something better than most others out of it, but why would you want to? The end result is inferior. Why not just go the next step and do away with the drummer entirely and use programs? A lot of studios and composers are doing that too with all sorts of instruments.
E-drums will give you the kind of bad habits that will eventually make you incapable of playing acoustic drums well if you start out with them. If you already ave a certain amont of mastery on acoustic drums, why on God's earth would you want e-drums. Microphones are used by drummers to capture the true sound of what is occuring for the benefit of sending that signal into some recording device (damn near impossible to do it without mics) or so that the drums can be heard against the massive amplification of other electric instruments.E-drums are like a cyber-sex toy meant to imitate the real thing.

RANT OVER.

.....as you could probably sumise, I won't be getting a set of e-drums.
 
hey Rimshot - believe me, I would MUCH RATHER have acoustic drums, not to mention a great drummer to record with and a lockerful of sweet mics.

Tools are just tools, a means to an end. The rush of playing live with a great drummer who had great finesse and dynamics... well it's irreplacable.

In the studio, well that is a different story, to me anyway. It's all about creativity, possibilities and experimentation, not purism or discrimination or anything like that. Why bother with such things?

I don't believe using e-drums is admitting that there's something wrong with acoustics. Does embraceing the stratocaster mean admitting there is something wrong with a Martin D-18? They are just different with different capabilities, and yeah too much electric guitar can wreak havoc on a classical player's chops, but that is the player's fault, not the electic guitar's.

You say that you are not adversed to technology if it doesn't interfere with the joys of creating and playing. How could you possibly play and create with something you are so obviously negatively prejudiced towards?

Can one befriend a person one has already judged as unlovable?

peace.
matt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top