AAARRRGH!

aydee

Platinum Member
I'm two timing between a Roland TD-9 and acoustic kits a lot these days and amongst other things the foot work seems to be suffering, because the easy hard bounce off the E-Bas drum is so much easier to play than a low tuned 22".

My routine:
Tons of practice on the Ekit,
some practice/rehearsals on the acoustic kit,
all gigging on the acoustic kit.

Is that just the way the cookie crumbles? Anything I can do to not allow this to happen.
 
Don't have a clue, Abe, but not much else is happening at the mo' :)

What about changing the tension on your pedal when you're on the e-kit so it's less bouncy? Or maybe a different pedal? If it's too easy on the e-kit, then maybe you need a handicap?

You had a thread some time ago, talking about the probs going back to an a-kit after practising on the e-kit. I've avoided getting an e-kit for fear that it might mess with my feel - and my feel is pretty well all I have!
 
What about changing the tension on your pedal when you're on the e-kit so it's less bouncy? Or maybe a different pedal? If it's too easy on the e-kit, then maybe you need a handicap?

You had a thread some time ago, talking about the probs going back to an a-kit after practising on the e-kit. I've avoided getting an e-kit for fear that it might mess with my feel - and my feel is pretty well all I have!

Problem is, want to have my cake and eat it too : )... very sensible suggestions Pol, but I think one messes the other and there's no getting away from that.
I've got Pearl Elims on the acoustic and DW 5000s on the E so it shouldn't be a pedal thing. I'm not too fussy about pedals, their tension, sticks etc.. but when I play the E a lot ( which is more frequently now ), going back to the acoustic is a challenge, as you remember correctly.

I love to work out ideas on the E. Put my headphone on, switch on the metronome, and try all kind of things out for hours. I cant imagine doing all that on an acoustic kit because @) you've got to hit the acoustic kit a little harder to get the right dynamic response, so its more work.. and b) you are 'ear fatigued' a lot sooner because its louder- so those are the pros and cons

You are right, I know....but its frustrating to be pulling off the funky ( wavelength inspired )BD triplets on a groove on the E and hit 1 of those 3 notes at rehearsal : )

...
 
Got the exact same problem. After practicing on a my e-kit (also a TD-9), playing my acoustic kit (big drums, tuned low with little bounce) is very different and trying to pull off my "e-kit chops" gets very difficult and tiring.

I haven't really found a solution to it, it's mostly just a matter of getting as much time as I can behind my "real" kit, and also trying to pay attention to what I play on the e-kit. I'm trying to take into consideration that I'm going to have to play these parts on my acoustic kit at some point, so don't go and practice licks that rely on the bounce of the rubber and mesh pads, or the fact that everything is so easily accessible and close together because of the small pads and cymbals.

I too see you point about not getting an e-kit, Pollyanna, but the fact is that if I didn't have my e-kit I wouldn't really get to practice at home at all. I could do pad work and such (but most pads are also way bouncier than real drums), but not a lot of work done on the actual drum parts that I play with my band.
 
Problem is, want to have my cake and eat it too : )... very sensible suggestions Pol, but I think one messes the other and there's no getting away from that.
I've got Pearl Elims on the acoustic and DW 5000s on the E so it shouldn't be a pedal thing. I'm not too fussy about pedals, their tension, sticks etc.. but when I play the E a lot ( which is more frequently now ), going back to the acoustic is a challenge, as you remember correctly.

I love to work out ideas on the E. Put my headphone on, switch on the metronome, and try all kind of things out for hours. I cant imagine doing all that on an acoustic kit because @) you've got to hit the acoustic kit a little harder to get the right dynamic response, so its more work.. and b) you are 'ear fatigued' a lot sooner because its louder- so those are the pros and cons

You are right, I know....but its frustrating to be pulling off the funky ( wavelength inspired )BD triplets on a groove on the E and hit 1 of those 3 notes at rehearsal : )

...

Abe, if you your cake and eat it too then play all e-kit, join and electro kinda band and then blaze away with those triplets.

Another option is to leave the fancy stuff at home and play Meg-style with the band because everyone knows that we drummers should play with plenty of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEPq0FvFm3g


I too see you point about not getting an e-kit, Pollyanna, but the fact is that if I didn't have my e-kit I wouldn't really get to practice at home at all. I could do pad work and such (but most pads are also way bouncier than real drums), but not a lot of work done on the actual drum parts that I play with my band.

Yes Naige, and that's my problem - there's no ideal solution. I do pad work but I find it pretty boring so I don't do much of that either. I'm just living off my "savings" (all the practice I did when I was younger). I use two 30 year old pads so they've lost some of their bounce. I think the side of my snare bounces a bit more than on the the centre of the pad, and the centre of the snare bounces about the same as the edge of the pad.

I'm green with envy when I think of all the drummers here who can play their a-kit at home!
 
I have thrown an old shirt over my e-kit kick pad and use very low spring tension when playing the e-kit and have played around with different settings in the module for a long time. The idea is to make it as close in rebound and response as possible to the acoustic bass drum. Actually I think my leg has to work a lot more on my e-kit (with the settings I have) so I find it easier to play on an acoustic one.
 
The best solution i've found is to use a mesh head on an acoustic bass drum, it reduces the sound enough and has the most realistic feel compared to the meshhead on an ekit or the hard rubber of a practice kit.
 
I've given up using the kick pad on my practice pad kit. No matter what I do to it, it will always have more rebound than a finger-tight kick drum that I usually play on and it really messes up my feet.
I've come to the conclusion that I'm better off simply playing heel down and "toe down" (bouncing my heels while keeping the toes planted) on the floor while playing the rest of the practice kit normally.
 
Ok, does anyone who plays an e-kit do anything to reduce the bounce on all the pads - not just the kick - to make things less weird when they go back to the a-kit? Like JPW's shirt over the kick drum?
 
with my td6 i just turned the trigger sensitivity way down so i have to kick harder and taped a hand towel folded over a few times around the bass trigger to deaden the rebound. i suppose you could do it with the other pads also.
 
Ok, does anyone who plays an e-kit do anything to reduce the bounce on all the pads - not just the kick - to make things less weird when they go back to the a-kit? Like JPW's shirt over the kick drum?

If you've got mesh heads then it's easy, just loosen them and your sorted. Otherwise you could try thin silencer pads maybe or something like that. I go between an electric and acoustic kit a lot too Aydee, it was tricky at first but after a year or so I don't have any problems playing on either.
 
for me i have to make an effort to prevent this from happening because i live in an apartment, so no acoustic playing,

i do a few things,
i always make sure i hit the e-drums in the center of the head, (on an acoustic kit obviously if you don't you wont get a full sound

in the settings i switched the pad touch to dynamic( allows softer quieter and hard louder notes, most kits come factory set to medium so you sound like your a dynamic monster)

i always turn the volume way up because drums are naturally loud so your electric drums should be loud when you hit them hard.
 
That all makes good sense to me, Zak. Best to do away with the advantages as best you can. Thing is, if you have the volume up to acoustic level with headphones that's got to be hard on your ears.
 
That all makes good sense to me, Zak. Best to do away with the advantages as best you can. Thing is, if you have the volume up to acoustic level with headphones that's got to be hard on your ears.

its not as as bad as an acoustic kit at full swing but yes if you hit the snare as loud as you
can you will feel it, but you should, when the volume is down i sound better then i am
 
What went wrong when you played the a-kit at first, Therma? Hit too hard? Too soft?

Dynamics were fine, as Zak mentioned you can tweak the dynamic response on Roland kits. With mine I have to hit it very softly to get an actual ghost note and I have to hit a pad quite hard to get a very loud note since most strokes come out at a medium sort of volume, so it made me exaggerate dynamics. The main problem was placement of the drums, on my ekit everything is quite close together since the frame and the pads themselves are smaller than a real kit, so I found moving around the kit difficult on an acoustic, and also the rebound
 
Thanks for the info, guys. I take it you all feel that you're better drummers for having e-kits, despite the limitations.

This is probably a dumb question (maybe belongs in the dumb question thread?) but what drove your decision to have an e-kit rather than a standard practice pad kit?

Simply because it's more fun? Do you think you'd practice as much at home if you had just a practice pad set?
 
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