Practicing on E-Drums?

jonhendrix86

Junior Member
Hello all! I wanted to ask you fine folks how you feel about practicing and developing technique on electronic drum kits. I am in a bit of a dilema: I've wanted to pick up the drums for years now, but going from apartment to apartment has made it difficult to fulfill this desire.

So, would electronic drums be a good way to start actually playing and developing skills and technique? And if so, will that translate to an acoustic set when the time comes? Would taking lessons be viable if I played an electronic kit at home and an acoustic set at lessons? Thanks, and I'm really enjoying all the priceless info and people on the forums!
 
I have an upper level e-kit at home for practice. I also play acoustic kits at gigs at least once a week. If you learn using an e-kit only, when it comes to playing on acoustic, you will all of a sudden find you are not as good as you thought you were and will struggle to replicate on the A -kit what you can play on the e-kit. My drumming has improved quite a bit in the last year while using the e-kit for practice, but it is more the fact that I have been able to practice a lot without disturbing others. My advice is play both and use the acoustic kit as the benchmark of you playing level at the time.
 
I've had to practice on an E-kit for almost my entire 9 years of drumming.
I find that because an E-kit is much smaller and closer together (or at least mine is) than a full acoustic kit, that can affect your playing when you get on an acoustic.

It'll take a bit of "translation time" when you first sit at an acoustic no doubt, but the technique is still the same and drumming is drumming. Next year I should have regular access to an acoustic kit and while I'm sure it'll take some getting used to, I'm confident that my chops will eventually translate over. If anything it's because my body is used to the location and feel of rubber pads, but I'll get a feel for an acoustic kit in time.

My advice is that when you practice on an E-kit, just be concious of the difference, but don't worry about the difference being the end of the world!
 
I just got back to playing my A-kit after a span of a bit more than 10 years playing my E-kit exclusively. Count me as one who does believe that you can indeed develop a lot of useful techniques on the E-kit, and I have found that those techniques do translate to the A-kit remarkably well. However, there's a catch: this works far better if you have set up your E-kit just like your A-kit, in terms of ergonomics. You are working on muscle memory here, so set up your pads and cymbals where the drums and cymbals would be on the A-kit that you intend to end up with- or go with a set of real drum shells with triggers and mesh heads, as opposed to the more miniaturized pad setups.

They are different instruments, to be sure: the feels are different, and the difficulties in doing dynamics properly on a E-kit are very real. But seat time is seat time, and technique development is all about seat time. An E-kit is certainly no worse than a practice pad in that regard, and any practice is better than no practice, for sure. I find that now that I have my A-kit going again, I'm spending 50% of my practice time on each, just to iron out the differences and be equally ready to trot out whichever makes the best sense for a given gig...
 
I've practiced on a Roland TD4 for half a year or so and i found the feel to be quite realistic. It was namely the lack of sound and the fact you can't play with brushes that made me decide to sell my e-kit and get acoustic drums. If i had more money i probably would have kept them, cause you can really freak out with an 808. And yes, i absolutely learned from it, but i have to say an acoustic kit has the sound which e-kits can never top.
 
The main thing I find that is different is the head response on the toms compared to the acoustic kit. My e-kit is a Yamaha dtxtreme 3 which is an upper level kit but is also fairly big, so I mine up as close as I can to my acoustic kits layout. Anything that allows you to practice a lot is a good thing. Just don't spend weeks practicing licks on an e-kit and roll up to a gig to play an acoustic kit and expect to be able to nail the same stuff straight away.
 
If you go A2E at least the dimensions will be the same (so it won't be as big a transition between A and E kits), only the feel of the mesh heads will be different from the mylar ones.
 
Make sure the e kit snare is same size as normal snare is all I can say. I have TD4 and the smaller snare sucks for rim shots. I mean I can do them but I'm used to slamming down on my 14". The other thing is dynamics. My opinion, learn basic technique on normal kit, then move to e kit/ a kit when possible scenario. One thing that I personally hate/love is that on e kits every sound is so clean and EXACTLY what you want that you can hear yourself clearly and therefore you articulate yourself well. On my A kit I can hardly ever hear my bass drum for double kick and just basically hope it's in time from practice. That being said I've never used triggers so may have to start, even only if for self gratification.

Reality is though, if you love drums you'll always find a way around anything to get better... I spent three years with A kit only and could NEVER play it so I got better via metronome, feet on floor and hands on practice pad.
 
I stopped playing about 10 years ago and 5 years ago I bought a Roland kit. This was the best choice ever.
I'm now playing in a band (again) for some years now and practising on an e-kit is great. But, . . . you need some additional practising on an A-kit. Playing on an E-kit easier and less hard work. When you can't have an A-kit at home an E-kit is really a great solution.
 
I don't like the E-Kits of old but I just ordered a new V-Drums Lite kit.
I tried the kit in a shop and I felt that I could use it.
The new kits have enough real feel features now to use as a practice tool.
I will have the kit by the end of this week.
I will know more when I spend more time with it.

I will still play my acoustic kits daily.
The E-Kit will just be a tool to supplement my daily practice routine.
 
Would taking lessons be viable if I played an electronic kit at home and an acoustic set at lessons?

Yes, many students start off on drum pads. So for a while, the only acoustic drums they play are at lessons (or at school for the band students).

Just like practicing on an electronic keyboard will never be the same as playing on an acoustic piano - At least an electric piano will still allow you to learn the fingerings, chords, etc.

You will still be able to learn the stickings, coordination patterns, styles, etc. on an electronic drum set. Some are very touch sensitive. But playing on an acoustic kit at lessons or church would help to get the feel of the real instrument.

Jeff
 
Ditto to what Jeff said. My lessons have all been acoustic, whereas the only kit I have at home is a very old Yamaha DTXpress III.
 
here is a very very useful tip.from the snare drum,measure from the middle of the head to the middle of the head on your first mounted tom. write the results down.do the same thing from the toms to the floor toms and back to the snare drum.take notes.measure the distance from the floor to the height of the toms.what your going for here is placing the pads from the electronic kit very very close to the same distance that your real kit has.the pads will look very far apart but that is the real distance on your real kit.these e kits can be placed very close to each other but when you get back on real drums things will feel and be very big .taking measurements and placing the pads close to the same distance that your real kit has will keep things feeling normal.i hope this helps.let me know how it goes.if you have any questions,let me know.
 
great responses so far.

i will add that many of the drummers i've met who only practice on ekits tend to play too softly when faced with accoustic. afterall, if you want more volume you only have to push up a fader or twist a nob. it takes energy to get a good volume out of an a-kit.

i found on average that my ability to do things on my ekit is about 6 months ahead of what i can do on my a-kit.

j
 
An e-kit's better than nothing.

I use mine when I can't use the a-kit, like when the boy's gone to bed.

I use it to start working on things; that first phase when I'm working on getting em into muscle memory, rather than waste valuable a-kit time on em. Then after a couple of weeks and I can do em without thinking on the e-kit I transfer em to a-kit practice time.
 
I recently bought a Roland V-Drums Lite.
I regard it as a toy but it does give me a good workout.
The built in pedals have poor action so I can really work my legs on them. I get sore muscles from attempting fast double bass on them.
The rubber cymbals also have poor bounce and my Jazz ride has improved from pushing my wrist and fingers where they have never had to go on acoustic cymbals.
I use the inadequacies of the E-kit to help my acoustic playing.
I also use it to figure out drum parts for tunes that I am learning before I play them on the acoustic kit.
 
I have been playing for almost two years now only on my e kit and it was a bit of a shock when I started playing acoustic drums once a week. I'm used to it now but I still can't do what I can with the e kit. Thing is, my e kit is actually an acoustic kit with e kit components inside and mesh heads on them. It shouldn't be a problem as long as I practice on pillows etc. However my e kit has 4 toms, 4 cymbals a hat and ride. The A kit I'm using has 2 toms a hat, cymbal and a ride. Big problem.

Here is my kit:

Photo%202012-10-08%2001%2011%2040.jpg


I prefer my e kit to the acoustic. Sound wise as well because I'm triggering superior drummer on a computer next to the kit. Thing is I wouldn't want to lug all that to a gig so I've decided to start playing a drums as well.

Does anyone know how to reduce the size of photos on this forum?
 
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