Want to buy an electronic kit - but I don't know where to start!

Ethalopian

Junior Member
Hey all, recently I've become interested in buying an electronic drum kit. I've been playing drums for about 8 years now, and living away from home going to school, away from a drum kit has gotten pretty annoying. So, I've decided to look into getting an electric kit to curb that frustration. Thing is though, I don't know where to start! I DO know that I really hate the feel of rubber pads - a friend of mine used to have an electric kit and those pads (at least for the toms) were just not my thing. I really like the feel of the mesh heads (which is probably a pretty popular opinion). My acoustic setup at home consists of a crash, hi-hats, ride, kick, snare, 1 rack and 1 floor tom, and I just want to emulate that with an acoustic kit. Being a student also means my budget's limited - another reason why I don't want to go beyond the setup mentioned above. So, my question is, where should I look to find an electric kit that includes mesh heads for the snare, floor tom, and rack tom, the cymbals mentioned above, all on a budget ($5-600 [as a bit of a stretch], anything less than that is also good too. I'm aware i'll probably have to look into used)? I figure I'd use my spare kick beater and hi-hat stand, along with throne, that I already own. Thanks!
 
I don't know of any set that comes with all mesh pads that you could get for so cheap. If all you wanted was a mesh snare, then it'd be possible. So what I would recommend is either buying all the pieces separately, or buying a complete set and then upgrading or downgrading. Like if you bought a Roland TD-3, sell the rubber pads and buy mesh. Or a TD-4KX and sell the extra pad, or a Roland TD-9, sell the extra pad, sell the module and buy a cheaper module. I still think all of these will put you a little over $600 though.
Roland is the best for mesh pads, well they're the best in general, but because of that they're a little more expensive. I know Alesis has cheaper sets and their sets don't come with mesh pads, but you can buy just the mesh head to replace the one it comes with, but I don't know if that's possible on all their sets or just the more expensive ones.
 
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