Janet Tambour
Junior Member
Let's talk about Alex Van Halen, he always had a ton of e-pads hidden behind his acoustics, that he played more than the acoustics.
Indeed. It's always the hats...I'm actually planning on heading to Wembly Drum Centre (for the first time ever) either tomorrow or day after, and in todays practice I was really feeling how much harder to play (not talking pedal, just stick to pad) the hat is over the ride, say, which just feels better, more rebound I guess? More of a realistic recreation of an a-cymbal, so I might look at a few options when I'm there.Especially the HH.
as I've noted in another thread, e-drums aren't drums. They're control surfaces, they're interfaces, but not drums.
During the early stages of the COVID lockdowns...
...Fast forward 20 months and I've probably accumulated more practice hours on my Nitro Mesh than all my previous time spent on the off-site Yamaha acoustic.
Great story but sorry man electronic drums are not my thing.This is actually a helpful way for me to think about it. There is a unique, fierce learning curve with a good a set of E-drums.
Sure the first time you play a good e-kit it's fun as hell and seems like it's almost playing itself, with those unusually crisp and clear sounds, at a comfortable listening volume. Sounding pretty much like a monitor mix of a very well mic'd kit.
Then the honeymoon phase wears off and you realize that V-Drums are crazy sensitive, and challenging. They pick up every little hesitation and timing error and all dynamic issues. I even have the little CY-5 hihat pad. I don't hate it as much as some people do. It's definitely more of a trigger, than a hat. You have to adjust your sticking to get definition in busy stuff, but it's still pretty crisp, and the foot response is wicked clean.
So indeed e-drums are still very challenging, in a real instrumental way, yet while not being true "membranophones" themselves.
This is how I got accustomed to my new (used) TD-11 KVX. I picked it up just before 2020 began, and it took about two quarantined years for me to get really comfortable recording and playing the V-Drums in real world settings.
Now the sky is the limit. I'm tracking indie songs and making drumming videos, and much of the work can be done quietly in the middle of the night!
I'll share a couple screenshots from a video I made with my humble TD-11 KVX. Pretty stock kit. No laptop, just my smartphone mounted on the kit for the music track input. And output from the Roland to a Zoom handy recorder. Straight indie, lol. My headphones were actually monitoring the audio from the video camera. I was recording both wav and mp4, with two separate devices. It's crazy how affordable it is to put up clean sounding drum recordings these days.
These shots are of me tracking an indie song for a fairly popular political podcaster who is also a songwriter. He wrote a short, amusing country-style ditty, which my little V-kit did a neat and clean job of tracking up.
He wanted a "classy, loungey groove. Not too busy, not too jazzy" Straight money groove, lol. So I sifted through the modest number of voices on the TD-11 and found a handful of kit sounds that really did accompany the track nicely.
View attachment 116290 Starting the drumless track on smartphone.
View attachment 116291 Recording in progress.
That's legit though. I do understand why some cats literally hate electronic drums. If you have played acoustic drums for any length of time it makes sense. I actually don't believe in trying to convince everybody to love V-drums. Like I said it took me two years of grinding to get real "musical" with my V-drums.Great story but sorry man electronic drums are not my thing.
My dream job (acoustic kit only though) lolWhen I'm 50 and playing Jimmy Buffett covers to vacationers from New York at a crappy Daytona Beach dive bar I may revisit that idea lol.
Most of those dudes are using acoustic drums with triggers so if anything they are the a-holes for making fun of you while they are faking it for looks.When my band gets our live set together and starts gigging, I expect we'll aim to play industrial gigs and metal gigs.
I will be playing electronic drums, and at the metal shows I fully expect to be laughed at in some form by the e-drum haters.
Hopefully my playing will speak for itself, and they'll get over it, hopefully they'll enjoy the show, but in either case **** 'em. I play what I choose to play and both stylistically and instrumentationally.
Absolutely correct. That is the one thing that was always a little lacking, the cymbals. I have a dual zone ride but the triggering isn't the best. An e kit with normal cymbals is pretty good though.Well I’ve been outspoken my disdain for e kits-it’s like a glorified organ you just hit larger heads that produce different sounds rather than keys. Started playing an Alesi Forge st church ( not fond of it initially) and now acquired an Alesi Surge with mesh heads for home. Cheap, cheap , cheap but sound great through headphones. I always see the weak link in e kits I’ve played is cymbals- makes you appreciate just how flexible a single cymbal or hats in how we cajole different sounds from our cymbals and not so one dimensional. But given it’s limits (lack multidimensional noise and frequencies of acoustic) I’m changing my mind on being so resistant. I can play along to all songs I enjoy and it doesn’t annoy my neighbor or me lol.
Well I’ve been outspoken my disdain for e kits-it’s like a glorified organ you just hit larger heads that produce different sounds rather than keys. Started playing an Alesi Forge st church ( not fond of it initially) and now acquired an Alesi Surge with mesh heads for home. Cheap, cheap , cheap but sound great through headphones. I always see the weak link in e kits I’ve played is cymbals- makes you appreciate just how flexible a single cymbal or hats in how we cajole different sounds from our cymbals and not so one dimensional. But given it’s limits (lack multidimensional noise and frequencies of acoustic) I’m changing my mind on being so resistant. I can play along to all songs I enjoy and it doesn’t annoy my neighbor or me lol.