Handsonic, Wavedrum, & Bay Area shops

rhumbob

Junior Member
Hi Drummers. Hoping for some advice.

I am primarily a bass player and looking to do some solo looping with bass, guitar, and electronic percussion. I am looking at the Korg Wavedrum Global and the Roland Handsonic hpd-20. Both seem to fit the bill for what I am looking to do.

I went to a local shop (bananas at large) to try these out. Nice guys but they did not have the current version of the Handsonic and really did not know much about either product.

Any ideas on shops in the SF Bay Area that may stock both of these and be knowledgeable about the products?

Do any of you have practical gigging experience with either of these?

The internet demos seem to focus on the exotic sounds rather than the meat and potatoes.

Thanks much.
 
Hi Rhumbob and welcome to the forum.

I have a Wavedrum Global that I bought a couple of months ago to play percussion with an acoustic trio. I ended up passing on that gig but I've been using as part of my drum kit it in rehearsals with a classic rock/pop group. It's an incredible instrument that's very different from other electronic percussion in that it employs microphone-like pickups in addition to transducers, unique/tweakable algorithms and sampled sounds. The sounds are great and the potential for musical expression with this thing is huge. It also has a pressure sensor that, with particular algorithms, allows you to manipulate the sound by dampening and applying pressure to the drumhead. What it doesn't have, though, are midi compatibility and a sequencer. So if you're needing those things, it may not work for you.

Having said that, I'm actually going to sell mine, not because it isn't awesome but because it's much too awesome for my needs. That is, with my current gig, I'm finding that I'm only using it in a very simple way to occasionally play unaltered percussion sounds with my kit. This is something I can easily do with an old school piezoelectric transducer drum pad and a sound module. Weird, but I feel like the Wavedrum is a beautiful, unique instrument that deserves to be played by someone who can use its capabilities to express their thing.

I'm not able to offer up any thoughts regarding the Handsonic and Bay Area shops--I've never played a Handsonic and I live in Michigan (which, BTW, is freaking freezing right now ;-). Good luck and let us know what you end up doing.
 
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