That's a step I never took and probably should have. I had illusions of "just" plugging into the house system from my own little mixer. It didn't work out well for a ton of reasons and I was already salty because it was other members of that band who were pushing for the digitalness.
I get that. When others want something without having thought it all the way through, it’s hard. I talked to a lot of guys doing the eKit thing and figured what I needed to do it right. Then I replaced the whole drum idea with the Zendrum since “if it’s not real, it might as well be unreal”.
Did it sound good at home and not so much at the gig, or, did the module just not have good sounds?
Speaking of, Live at the Quick is great. Jazz riffen' bassonist, Mongolian throat singers, north Indian tabla, steel drums, electric banjo, bass legend and then you have Roy 'Futureman' Wooten just killin' it on the synthaxe. I had the DVD but I don't see it on YT. Bela would say Roy would have his synthaxe in pieces right before showtime often, sort of stressin' him out whether he would put it together in time (and always did
)
I guess it was more of a volume issue. You know how real cymbals can cut through the mix. The ekit cymbals were not loud enough unless the whole kit volume was turned way up. Probably just a volume balance issue. In order for the cymbals to sound like real cymbals, the cymbals needed to be three or four times louder than the rest of the kit. And it could have been how the amp amplifies the cymbal sound. Bass drum had big boom, cymbals had not enough highs.
But my ride was cutting through enough, and I turned it up significantly at the module.
Big Bill on the front cover of Office Printer Monthly there.
I've been playing an Ekit exclusively for about 8 months now, and I reckon I've just about got it sussed. The trick is, 1. an expensive kit, 2. extensive editing of of the sounds. Sample layering is a great trick (for instance my kick is a mix of an 18 & 22), indepth editing of the sample parameters, plus eq'ing the kit overall for different scenarios... decent pa, not decent pa, own pa etc. In other words lots of presets. 3. If you're using your own speaker, you need something that suits an Ekit, not all pa speakers cope with it well.
yup
I love the idea of it, I also appreciate your input and experience, but it scares the crap out of me haha. How do you handle this situation? Is this coming back to having your own sound system so it's always consistent or do you run through house and tweak as needed?
*Always* the house system. Never used own system. Still never had a problem. As I said - it's a keyboard - not an acoustic drum kit. (Indeed, if I'm doing a venue I've never done before, I'll simply tell the soundperson - "it's a keyboard" whilst presenting them with a single jack lead to plug into their provded DI )
Well, if there is anyone on this entire forum I trust about ekit gigging info it's certainly you so I appreciate your honest response. Your thoughts definitely are valid and the key oard analogy is apt. Maybe I'll give it a try, if I can only get my snare to stop double triggering lol. I recently took the time to change the set up of my ekit to match how I set up acoustic drums and I started "building" my own kit instead of relying on factory presets. The last thing I want to do is get some cymbal stands so I can stop using the stupid rack, if I can get the whole kit set up on a few cymbal stands I'm ready to go.*Always* the house system. Never used own system. Still never had a problem. As I said - it's a keyboard - not an acoustic drum kit. (Indeed, if I'm doing a venue I've never done before, I'll simply tell the soundperson - "it's a keyboard" whilst presenting them with a single jack lead to plug into their provded DI )
Not only that - I'm often driving a MIDI-sequenced keyboard backing (tone module/s) and sampler/s down the same mono cable....
For sound-checks I fire off a pattern on the module and join the soundperson at the desk/in the auditorium to get an EQ we like to suit (try doing that with an acoustic!). I'll stay there whilst the whole band plays as well to get a basic mix to suit.
#EasyLife
As I said - it's NOT an acoustic kit and doens't need to be treated like it is
I'm typically only using my ekit in a four piece set up along with hi hats, crash, and ride so I could put the crash and smaller tom on one stand with the hi hats on a boom arm with clamp (my hi hats have a single pad with floor pedal), the snare on a snare stand, and the ride and lower tom on one stand. So really I would have two cymbal stands, one with an extra boom arm, then a snare stand and small bass drum pad, and nothing else.
