Electric drums question

HeadBasha

Junior Member
Hello, this is my first time posting on the forums so let me introduce myself. My name is blaze, I live in toronto and I've been drumming for somewhere around 12 years. I'm originally from small time ontario and as such I was miles away from neighbours and I could practice and rehearse untill I died from exhaustion and I would never get a complaint.

Now I go to university and just rented out a new apartment and I'm starting to run into neighbour problems. I consider myself a nice guy and I don't want to upset people around me because they pay their rent to and have a right to peace and quiet.
So i want to get an electric kit to practice. Basically my problem is choosing what heads I would want on a kit. I'm an extremely hard hitter and whatever genre I play in I ussually have sticks a size or two bigger then the average. My technique is mostly self taught and I use my entire body to play the drums. I find it to be a binding experience between instrument and player when every beat causes a similiar movement from your feet up to your head.

I've been reading alot of stuff about electric drums and it seems that mesh heads are rather fragile and break easy and that plastic heads loose there "realistic" drum feel when you play to hard. So I just wanted to get opinions on which would be better for a hard hitting drummer.
Are mesh heads really that fragile or will they last around the same time as skins (1 year to 3 years). They are more expensive to replace but also I was wondering when, or if, they ever become dead. I replace my skins at least twice a year otherwise they don't vibrate as well as they should and the sound and feel of them lessens. Do mesh skins do the same thing?

I assume rubber pads will never break (unless you play so fast u melt the rubber :p haha ) but I've also heard alot of people say they don't feel real if you hit really hard.
I also use alot of fast double roll fills. How do they feel on electric heads?

I would like to use my electric kit to play shows but also still use my acoustic for shows (or combine them). Which heads would be most comparable to real drums (I tune some drums really high and some drums really low, so I would like an electric head that easily encompass both feels.)

I know there are a lot of questions in this post, sorry, i always write to much, basically my problem is WHATS THE BEST ELECTRIC SKIN FOR BEATING THE SH*T OUT OF?
 
Welcome to the forum.

You seem a considerate bloke Blaze and that's to be commended.

Hmmm, beating the sh1t out of the e-drum or any drum. Why? Is now perhaps the time to have lessons and improve your technique. Dynamics is a very important technique for a drummer, you have to be able to play light ghost notes as well as firm notes.

Anyway as for rubber versus mesh, the rubber will wear eventually but it should be harder wearing than mesh heads. I have a TD12 and it is very unlikely that I would ever have to change the heads and no they don't need replacing as they don't go dead. They only facilitate for the triggers beneath the heads. The mesh heads do feel slightly better than rubber IMHO. You can also reduce the tuning if you want to make the skin feel more like a low tuned drum. Again this will not affect the sound.

Also mesh heads are quieter than rubber pads and so this might be a consideration.

I would not describe the Rolands or Yamahas as fragile. Yamaha sound is created by samples; Roland use software to generate the tones they produce.

There are also companies that supply kits to download to your Rolands and probably Yamaha (I'm not sure).

The downloaded kits that I have tried have fantastic tones and these sound superior to the original Roland normal drum kits IMHO.

Anyways I'm sure others may express other views.

Peace
Davo
 
thanks devo for the sound advice.

I should edit what I say about hard hitting. I don't mean metillica "hit louder because that way it'll be more awsome!". I use ghost notes all the time, i'm a jazz student at university and gig with jazz bands steadily and also played with the ottawa orchestra a few times. I find it hard to describe what I'm trying to say. Mabye I should say I have alot of force in my playing style. Mabye I should tone it down but everyone I play with the jazz scene always comment on how they love playing with me because I bring alot of forceful energy to a gig. theres a fairly well known drummer who goes by BK groove, he played with john scofield for a bit (but then again who hasn't). Anyway, I'd check out some videos of him because I feel thats more what I mean by hard hitting. Forceful is the best word I can think of.
 
I play drums for a church, and due to sound concerns they recently switched to a set of top-of-the-line Roland V-Drums. I've played the kit for over 6 months, and I here's what I've noticed:
The mesh heads are very responsive and the volume of the "drum" will change in relation to how hard you hit it. Ghost notes on the snare drum come through well.
However (as with acoustic drums), there is a point at which the pads will not produce any more sound no matter how hard you hit them. I've noticed that if I hit too hard, I'll start to develop sore spots on my hands. I had to figure out how to "get into" my performance while sparing myself the potential for injury, becuase I use quite a bit of body movement when I play. Electronic drums definitely take some getting used to, but if you want the luxury of practicing freely in an apartment, they're indispensable.
 
I've been a hard hitter, and I've never had problems with mesh heads.

I use my e-kit all the time for recording, practice, etc, and they take a pounding as well as anything. And this is from a guy who used to break cymbals/heads/sticks on a regular basis.

I have broken a few Roland rubber pads, but it took years and years to do so.

Mesh heads feel much more like a drum head than rubber. It will still be "different" but it's heck of a lot closer than rubber.
 
Back
Top