Thinking about electronic drums? Read this first!!!

[timandjes]

Just wanted to post what I've learned after a month of use on my electronic drums. I wasn't sure electronics were the right decision when I got mine... Maybe this can help any of you who may be trying to decide...

Here are the Pro's & Con's I've seen, the con's first:

1. You can't stand on top of your bass drum like some of the rock stars in live concerts.... If that's important to you, get a really good acoustic kit!

2. Electronic's are not usually as eye catching as the colorful, shiny acoustics so, I'll agree.... they're not as good looking. (You may even be the scum of the earth to some die-hard acoustic fans... Kind of like riding your new Yamaha motorcycle through a pack of die-hard Harley fans....)

3. They are definitely not as rugged... My kids could climb over my acoustic kit with no real treat of damage... On the electronics, (those of the affordable price range anyway), it probably wouldn't take much for my two-year old to hang on one of the arms and break the plastic clamps that come with them.

4. The pads are small, on mine only 8" in diameter. My acoustic kit has much larger heads, which means a much larger 'target' and easier to play, (easier to hit the target).

5. The pads can be a little less responsive in fast sticking and may not always pick up each one of your licks if you're doing some pretty fancy stuff... However, there's a broad range of adjustment settings that you can perform to adjust the sensitivity. (For me, I just keep an acoustic snare by the kit and on marchy, orchestral songs with a lot of snare rolls, I use it) (I totally agree with what one of the people said in my other post about electronic drums regarding them not being as sensitive as acoustics...)

6. If you learn to live with the lack of sensitivity and stop some of your fancy stick work because of it... well, you know what happens when you stop practicing something..... (Again, however, there's a lot more sensitivity settings you can play around with which should address a lot of the sensitivity issues..)

Ok, now some of the good things I've noticed....

1. Those little 8" pads I complained about above... Guess what, they made me a better drummer.... I'm forced to strike a much smaller target and after about a week or so, I'm totally used to them.. Even after playing an acoustic kit for 21 years...

2. Volume control... I can't stress this enough... e-drums are a life saver here... I was so sick of trying to play softly on my acoustic kit... Now, on the e-drums, I can play at a comfortable velocity and just turn the drums up or down to suit the sound guy...

3. Over a thousand different voices! You simply press a button to instantly change your kit to a jazz kit, a rock kit, your cymbal from a medium crash, a paper-thin crash, your snare from a wooden snare, a metal snare, or just about any other sound you can think of including some really cool sound effects, just as fast as you can press a button! Try that with an acoustic! Sure you can trigger an acoustic but in the end, you'll most likely have spent A LOT more money than the e-drummer did.

4. Easy to record!!!! Here's the biggest difference for me.. My band recorded a CD last year & I used acoustic.. That's when I learned about problems with proper mic placement, phase cancellation, all those wires running everywhere, mic stands everywhere, and the requirement of Total Silence around you while you record with mics.... (Try that if your studio is @ home & you have 3 small kids running around!) With the electronics, you could record with train going by your studio! There's no mics.... Just one 1/4" line from your kit.

5. And about those cymbals that everyone talks about.... Hey, to me, they're fine. I bought several expensive cymbals and I always seemed to want a different sound. With the electronics, (which is a just a recording of some really nice cymbals that is programed to sound when a trigger is activated), a different sound is just a button away & hundreds if not thousands of dollars cheaper! (If you have a really nice brass cymbal and record it, does it then sound like crap on the recording?????)

6. For the beginning drummer, because of the ambience and sound effects built in with the electronic kits, you can sound Really Good, playing some really simple fill patterns... (patterns that would 'sound' like you're a beginner & perhaps even 'boring' on an acoustic kit, unless you 'transformed' the kit into electronics anyway through mics, amps, FX modules, etc..)

7. Easy to move! Wow, here's another big one... the e-kits fold up small enough to fit in just about any car. Even small acoustic kits would require a much larger vehicle with little room left for occupants...

All in all.... I love 'em so far! They're not perfect, but I totally disagree with some of the posts that say they "totally suck!" At this point, I plan to play them for the rest of my life, and when & if the time comes.... I'll buy another e-kit! (but if I find a good deal on an acoustic, I might buy it too!)

That's my story!

 

[mikeh]

Good post!

While the debate of e-drums vs. accoustics will never be resolved you have provided a good hands on assessments of the pros and cons.

While I'm not a fan of e-drums for live use (for many reasons) I think they can a very practical use in a home studio. There have bee many times that I've been able to lay drum tracks at 2:00am with e-drums (something I could never do with my accoustics).

While nothing can beat the sound. power and pure enjoyment of pounding on a great sounding kit - the ability to track drums without the hassels of mic'ing a whole kit is truely a wondrous thing.

I'm geting ready to move into a fairly "uppity" condo complex and I'll still have my home studio thanks to e-drums, amp simulators and all the oter technological advances that we get to enjoy.

 

[Vectron]

Put it into perspective. It is like asking, which is better-electric
guitar or acoustic guitar?
Answer: Each is better for a specific situation.
A serious guitarist, who plays as many styles as possible,
will have a selection of acoustics and electrics.
We, as drummers and percussionists, are no different.

 

[kjam22]

I was a guitar player for 30 years.... but the last 2 I have been playing on a roland v-session set at church most every sunday. (still schedule myself on guitar now and then) It is a 5000 person church with lots of quality audio. The e drums make sense because there is no glass cage, we all use inear monitors with our own mix of choice so there are no wedges sitting around. I can have the sound mix like I want in my ears and I don't have to get "over" the accoustic volume. It is about 1000 times easier for the tech guys (who are always training someone new who is clueless). I can send them 4 different outputs.... Cymbals on one, toms on another, snare by itself, and kick by itself. Unit can just send L & R stereo if need be.

The cymbals take some getting used to. They are the session set that respond a little better than the stationary pads of a TD7. (I've got a td-7 and accoustic set at home). Mesh heads and all and all the kit plays pretty good.

It does trigger bad now and then. Doesn't generally miss hits... but it does on occassion sound the rim shot instead of the snare. That can be very annoying.

But it is a lot easier to maintain than my accoustic set. It stays there (no hauling stuff except my stick bag). And I think it sounds good after you tweak it and put it through a big PA.

 

[Bob A. Vader]

hmmm

maybe i am all backwards on this subject

 

[Fox]

(I'm coming at this from a drummer's perspective...)

Electronic drums are really great, and have a lot of flexibility. Double triggering/lack of sensitivity is a much smaller problem on more recent electronic drums. They're also clearly much easier to record. But I'm surprised that no has mentioned what is IMHO the biggest con of electronic drums - lack of nuance. Listening to any recording that's backed/driven by a great drummer, I have to wonder how much of that would be homogenized if they had played on electronic drumsets? As the technology stands today, kits are more or less limited to a measure of velocity and rimshots / dual zone triggering on some snare pads/cymbal pads.

On a happier note, I expect the technology to mature and become much more versatile. Just check out Roland's Handsonic pad, with 15 trigger zones!

 

[erichenryus]

i have both electronic and acoustic kits. here's some more perspectives:

in favor of acoustics:

1. electronic cymbals sound like shit, unless you get a good sample library, but the ones on the 'brain' just plain sound like shit. you just can't squash the character of a good cymbal into the amount of memory available.

2. you have 128 fixed levels of velocity in midi, real drums are endless. if dynamics aren't important to you, this doesn't matter.

3. mistriggers are frustrating as hell!

4. ghost notes. again if you don't care about that kind of thing forget about it.

5. there is a primal nature in every drummer that just isn't satisfied until he/she is hitting a drum that's moving large amounts of air right in front of their face!

in favor of electrics:

1. unless you've got about 20 - 30 thousand to spend on preamps, mics, and compressors, and converters, and a very nice room (not to mention a good kit that's tuned well) you will never match the sound that you can create with something like dfh or sonic implants.

2. you can practice at 1 in the morning in an apartment with tin walls!

3. you don't have to change heads and sticks.......ever.

4. you can do neat tricks with them like record you're own body sounds and play them back. kids love this.

5. it's much easier to avoid ear damage.


i hadn't played drums in about ten years, then i bought an electric kit just cause i was missing it so much. it was really fun and i was perfectly happy with it until one day when i sat in with a band and they had an old crappy tama kit with cheap cymbals and that was much more fun than the electrics.