are you REALLY sticking to edrums?

dave777

Junior Member
first of all i'm a dumb ass! i say that because even though i've been drumming over 37 years... in the past i've fallen victim to e-drum-idus i've gone Back and Forth 5 times now between e drums and acoustic drums! WHY? e-drums offered me simplicity in tone and mixing/matching different drums. i do a lot of sessions drums, thus faster in the studio to get a good sound. but alas - nobody will EVER come up with a high hat that actually feels and sounds accurate! excuse me stewart copeland - but i also depend on my high-hat tonal variations for a signature sound!

e drums have a place in music for certain - just not for me! it's acoustic all the way - baby!
 
So, does this mean you'll never play an edrum again? Do you hate people who do? Do you hate the people who hire you and expect you to play edrums?

Just trying to figure out what you're sayin'.

I've owned a nice kit of the V's at one time, but oddly enough I've never used them on a gig. It was my $6000 practice set. That didn't last long, either.

I'm with you, gimme some good acoustic drums and I'll play whatever you want!
 
I don't get the premise.

Why would anyone just play one over the other?

E-drums are certainly easier to deal with in the studio, even with their drawbacks.
And don't forget, you can mix and match your e-kit with your acoustic.
 
I've been purposely trying to avoid them. As limited as that sounds, I just can't stomach the sound and feel of them.

Even for practice, nothing is as sensitive and fickle as a real acoustic drum.
They are good for people who have to practice w/ noise limitations, but I wouldn't be caught dead playing E drums at a gig.
 
I've been purposely trying to avoid them. As limited as that sounds, I just can't stomach the sound and feel of them.

Even for practice, nothing is as sensitive and fickle as a real acoustic drum.
They are good for people who have to practice w/ noise limitations, but I wouldn't be caught dead playing E drums at a gig.

I was at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and upon entering the big round casino, they had a band with the drummer using V-drums, elevated up against the round wall. The acoustics were horrible in the entire room. The V-drums didn't help, either. I didn't know what they were thinking!
 
For me, it's not one or the other. It's both.​
Like owning an acoustic guitar and an electric.​
On the acoustic side, I have my big Ludwig kit. And I have my Yamaha Recording Customs.​
On the electric side, I have my Tama Techstar 305's. Also, a Roland TD7. And a Yamaha DTXpress. A Roland SPD-S. And a Korg Wave drum.​
Different tools, for different jobs.​
 
I recently bought an e-kit for practice. I was dumb and scrimped so I have now have this pile of crap with dead spots on the cymbal pads unless you club the tripe out of them, and the kick drum pad totally ignores anything but a rock thump. I guess that's why you get a pair of sticks with the kit that make 2Bs look like matchsticks. Awful.

On the plus side, I now have a practice pad kit - at least that way I get a true response, even if it's just different grades of thud.

@ Dave, I agree about the hats. Very frustrating.

@ Larry, I sympathise. E-kits are a poor substitute for an a-kits. Still, as Harry said, that's not the point in a way ... an electric guitar is a poor replacement for an acoustic if you're playing folk or classical, but it works brilliantly in its own right. However, the true equivalent to electric guitar is a fully mic'd drumkit, with or without triggers - amplifying the acoustic response. The real guitar equivalent to an e-kit would be more like this.

The problem is between functionality and use. I suspect most people buy e-kits so they can practice without this happening. For practice you need to mimic acoustic kits, and unless you spend a bomb on a high end Roland or Yammy they are a total fail.

So we have a weird situation where all units seem to have a few acoustic sample kits for practice plus a heap of synthetic ones - targetted to a completely different type of customer who is playing with synths. That's the e-kit's true domain as far as I can tell.
 
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For practice you need to mimic acoustic kits, and unless you spend a bomb on a high end Roland or Yammy they are a total fail.

I don't know if I agree with you there, Pol. I had that Roland TD-10 (high-end piece of...) and although yes, it's more dynamic and all, it does not mimic an acoustic kit at all. Ghost notes, buzzes, not the same. But what's funny about it, if you can afford that, you could've bought a nice acoustic kit and some mics with a mixing board! Hell, you could probably afford to either buy or rent a house so you could play 'em too!

You're right about the people it attracts though. Synth people like it because they don't play real instruments anyway!

I'm awaiting the flame throwers....
 
bo, how many expensive drum kits do u have?

Sorry, I realize as I've been posting when someone has a question on a particular drum or cymbal, I recall owning it too.

Technically, I only own one high end kit at a time. Right now it's a Tama Starclassic Bubinga Elite with a Stewart Copeland snare drum.

But through the years, about every two or three years, I sell the old one and get a new one. I've owned alot: Slingerlands, Ludwigs, Tamas, Yamahas, Gretsch, (two) DW kits, Rogers. A friend loaned me a Taye kit for an event, and I even had Pro Drum Shop in Hollywood build me a custom Ringo-style kit out of Slingerland parts I had. I just finished my stint with the Sonor Force 3007 - my first mid-level kit, weird, huh?

It's not a given that the drums automatically go away for the new ones in a certain amount of time. It depends on the color. I want to draw attention to myself, but not so much the drums, so anything dark is good, and will probably stick around longer than most. The new Tamas are gun metal grey. But I've noticed if it's bright or too much of something, it doesn't look good in all situations, so that skews my thinking too. I learned my lesson when I showed up at a wedding in black and white tux with a natural maple kit, that in the pictures, looked yellow under the stage lights. The bride must've hated that drummer!

But I do treat them like clothes sometimes. I almost feel ashamed of it because most people here buy what they like, and they like it forever. If I was buying a grand piano for my house, that's one thing. Drums on the other hand, well, they're tools to me. Lovable tools.

My stint with MIDI from the early '80s 'til about the mid '90s saw me playing Roland Octapads, the Zendrum (folks loved it, you play it like a guitar), then that TD-10. I don't hate electronics, and I realize they're tools just like anything else, it's the maintenance and upkeep (and possible spares) you have to keep up with if you use them on pro gigs. You do not want your Octapad to break during a hi-level recording session (not that I've done any of those), an there's no way to fix it while the clock is ticking, so what do you do? You have another one ready to go - at the cost of $700! It was frustrating when that stuff started to break down. Mics and drums are built better for what they do!

So, does this make me a gear whore? I suppose, but at least I can play 'em! (No offense to anyone, just a statement. You know how you meet people so into what they own, and you find out they're not playing any gigs? That's what I mean.)

Sorry for the long answer to the short question - I hope I didn't derail this thread.

No electronics for me!
 
i love and gig with acoustic. i practice on a dtxpress and i have been considering using it out on a gig. its not like an acoustic kit but i don't expect it to be...because its an electronic kit. i have a feeling that the electric kit is soon going to be like the electric guitar. right now we are at that the electric guitar is not like the acoustic guitar faze. i like it because i can make sounds that aren't found with acoustic kits.

if i had to pick one or the other tho...Acoustic ALL the way!
 
The E-Kit has its place, I have tried them all. Some of them are very good. I like them!

I never could see spending all that cash for something that simply cannot give the feeling of acoustic drums and cymbals. It is much more fun and rewarding to select cymbals and tune drums to get that acoustic sound that you want.

I play in numerous venues and I only know one drummer that gigs with an E-Kit.
He, and his band are very good, But gigging with an E-Kit just isn't for me.
 
I have a practice ekit at home...Roland HD-1. Wife wont let me have an akit. lol

At church I use older model Roland TD-6...and we are getting an even newer ekit this week.


I love and adore ekits. The mesh heads are sweet and when hooked into a good sound system, it's easy to foget you are playing an ekit.

Plus there is so much in variety of sounds.

If I had the money, I would totally do what Neil Peart did and have an combined a and e kit. And it would be based around the Roland TD-20.
 
first of all i'm a dumb ass! i say that because even though i've been drumming over 37 years... in the past i've fallen victim to e-drum-idus i've gone Back and Forth 5 times now between e drums and acoustic drums! WHY? e-drums offered me simplicity in tone and mixing/matching different drums. i do a lot of sessions drums, thus faster in the studio to get a good sound. but alas - nobody will EVER come up with a high hat that actually feels and sounds accurate! excuse me stewart copeland - but i also depend on my high-hat tonal variations for a signature sound!

e drums have a place in music for certain - just not for me! it's acoustic all the way - baby!
I use both. I gig and record with both. I also often integrate electronics into primarily acoustic set-ups. The biggest complaint I have about electronic drums is having to haul around amplifiers, but I don't really like having to haul anything around anyway, lol.
 
I don't know if I agree with you there, Pol. I had that Roland TD-10 (high-end piece of...) and although yes, it's more dynamic and all, it does not mimic an acoustic kit at all. Ghost notes, buzzes, not the same.

Agree Bo, it's not the same. What I meant by "mimic" is they have sampled a-kits. I use the "Jazz" setting on mine, which seems the closest to an organic sound. While it's not the same, I have found that even my crappy cheapo e-kit is at least close enough to be better than nothing. At least it's a set to practice on.

For anyone considering an e-kit - it's worth spending a bit more on a better kit. I made a mistake by buying a cheap one. The recordings of last night's rehearsal showed that I was playing the kick too hard because the kick trigger on the e-kit is hopeless. At first I was playing it too softly to trigger a sound at all (and not feathering either). Every now and then it would reach the trigger threshhold and BOOM. So I unconsciously started tapping harder to reduce the inconsistency.

So it looks like I'll be better off treating it as a glorified practice pad kit, which is still useful ... but for $700! Another $450 and I would have had a TD5 vdrum kit, which at least triggers properly ... baaad blunder.
 
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Agree Bo, it's not the same. What I meant by "mimic" is they have sampled a-kits. I use the "Jazz" setting on mine, which seems the closest to an organic sound. While it's not the same, I have found that even my crappy cheapo e-kit is at least close enough to be better than nothing. At least it's a set to practice on.

For anyone considering an e-kit - it's worth spending a bit more on a better kit. I made a mistake by buying a cheap one. The recordings of last night's rehearsal showed that I was playing the kick too hard because the kick trigger on the e-kit is hopeless. At first I was playing it too softly to trigger a sound at all (and not feathering either). Every now and then it would reach the trigger threshhold and BOOM. So I unconsciously started tapping harder to reduce the inconsistency.

So it looks like I'll be better off treating it as a glorified practice pad kit, which is still useful ... but for $700! Another $450 and I would have had a TD5 vdrum kit, which at least triggers properly ... baaad blunder.

Think of me with that TD-10 kit. That's the best $5500 anyone can spend on a practice drumset! And that doesn't even figure into that wonderful mid-sized PA system I already own!

But people do play both very well and integrate both very well. Just not me.
 
its the cost ( the cheaper ekits cost the same as my quality acoustic ) and then its the cymbals, they can talk all day about the various drumheads and how realistic they are, but meanwhile the "cymbals" are like hitting plastic garbage can lids - terrible, and why does it seem kit prices double just to crash a ride and use the bell? i dunno...

im just having trouble justifying the cost, for me it would be a practice kit, keep the wife and neighbors happy, but they are expensive...
 
its the cost ( the cheaper ekits cost the same as my quality acoustic ) and then its the cymbals, they can talk all day about the various drumheads and how realistic they are, but meanwhile the "cymbals" are like hitting plastic garbage can lids - terrible, and why does it seem kit prices double just to crash a ride and use the bell? i dunno...

im just having trouble justifying the cost, for me it would be a practice kit, keep the wife and neighbors happy, but they are expensive...

Yep. I had trouble justifying the cost which is why I bought a cheap one. They seem inconsistent in quality. The ones set up in the shops didn't have nearly as many dead spots on the cymbal pads. You didn't have to stomp on the kick pedal as though trying to kill a giant cockroach to trigger the sound either. I bought one kit, took it back but the replacement was almost as bad so I gave it up as a loss.

If you spend $5k like Bo did you'll get a good e-kit for practising on but I couldn't justify that kind of expenditure since it's just a hobby for me these days.
 
If you spend $5k like Bo did you'll get a good e-kit for practising on but I couldn't justify that kind of expenditure since it's just a hobby for me these days.

Neither could I. I'm glad I found another sucker out there to take 'em off my hands. There are so many people here in SoCal that are absolutely convinced they need those things...
 
Yep. I had trouble justifying the cost which is why I bought a cheap one. They seem inconsistent in quality. The ones set up in the shops didn't have nearly as many dead spots on the cymbal pads. You didn't have to stomp on the kick pedal as though trying to kill a giant cockroach to trigger the sound either. I bought one kit, took it back but the replacement was almost as bad so I gave it up as a loss.

If you spend $5k like Bo did you'll get a good e-kit for practising on but I couldn't justify that kind of expenditure since it's just a hobby for me these days.

can i ask which "cheap kit" that was? i have played some of rolands bottom end kits and was less than impressed, i havnt had a chance to play any yamahas yet, hopefully this week, im just desperate to practice my basics, so a basic set up will work, want to avoid a lemon though...
 
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